sailed through the interview process with flying colors on your own merit and qualifications. We regret our hasty response in questioning your personal relationship rather than giving you the professional credit you deserved. So I apologize on behalf of the entire team here if we allowed you to doubt your worth to us. We are very much looking forward to working with you and ask that you call us at your earliest convenience to set up a time to officially sign the contracts so we can publicly announce our coup in signing you to our broadcast family. Thank you for your understanding. Have a wonderful rest of your day.”
Had to hand it to the man, that was a helluvan apology. I’d wait until after I talked to Nolan to call him back.
As soon as Nolan saw me exit the locker room, he swooped me up into his arms. “Just let me hold you for a sec.”
“For as long as you want.”
After we broke apart, he said, “Where to?”
“I’ve heard the Stacked Deck Brewery on the first level is great.”
Nolan studied me.
“What?”
“I’m hardly dressed for—”
“A brewpub?” I poked him in the ribs. “Lighten up, Lund. I doubt the fashion police are around today.”
“Hilarious.”
We snagged a table and ordered two glasses of the seasonal ale.
After a fortifying sip, I said, “I’ll go first. I hated how things played out yesterday. But I am sorry that I didn’t tell you the job requirement was moving to Duluth. I know it hurt you and that wasn’t my intent.”
“Apology accepted.”
My eyebrows went up. “That fast?”
“After I had time to think about it, I do understand why you didn’t tell me. But going forward, I’ll ask you not to keep me in the dark about things that affect both of us, okay?”
“Okay.” I exhaled. “So along those lines, the CEO of Wolf left a voice mail for me today. I just listened to it.”
“And?”
“And he apologized and indicated the job is still mine if I want it.”
He frowned. “Why wouldn’t you want it?”
I leaned closer to Nolan so we were face-to-face. “Because the man I love, the man I told I wanted to build a life with, might take issue with suddenly finding himself in a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend. So you should also know that the Whitecaps organization offered me an assistant coaching job yesterday. It is a good opportunity. I’d get to work with the best players, including my sister. There’s some travel, but I would be based in the Cities, which works better for us—”
“No.”
My heart sank. “No?”
“No, because you’re not turning down your dream job for me. I know you love coaching, but would you be happy?”
“I’d be unhappy in any job that takes me away from you.”
Nolan curled his hand around the side of my face. “Well, the man who loves you, the man who is thrilled you still want to build a life with him, is unemployed as of yesterday and is searching for employment opportunities in . . . Duluth. So it would be better for me—for us—if you took the sportscasting job.”
Lucky thing he held my jaw, or it might’ve hit the table. “What happened?”
He explained about files that protected a Lund family secret and confronting the executive officers and the entire board about it, but he didn’t get into specifics beyond it was serious enough to have him reconsider his career.
“The bottom line is I’m still on the board, but I’m no longer employed by LI. After talking with my cousin Zosia, who lives in Duluth, I started researching investment opportunities, which is fortunate since I’ll need to pick one and see how strong my business acumen really is.”
I couldn’t remember ever seeing that glint of excitement in his eyes when he talked about work. “The business opportunities are in Duluth, though?”
“Yep. And allow me to channel Dallas for a moment and mention the fact that we’re both ending up there seems like a huge cosmic sign for us.”
“A big flashing neon-green cosmic sign that says, Your life together starts here.”
He grinned. “I’m so crazy in love with everything about you, Happy.”
“I’m so crazy in love with everything about you too, Fancy Pants.”
“I want us to live together. I understand you’ll have to travel a lot and you’ll have to put up with me either working a lot or not working at all, depending on my business situation, but I want us to exist in the same space in all our downtime.”