My heart sank further. “Oh. Are you sure?” I whispered. “I mean, I can just wait. We can reschedule.” I’d rather not be promoted today than have to have my review and associate presentation with Mr. Tate.

“He’s already expecting you in his office.”

I swallowed, then blew out a breath to steady myself. “All right. Thanks, Barb. Oh, I forgot, girls night tonight after work?”

She made an exaggerated sad face. “Sorry, Jeff has a thing tonight. Have one for me?”

“Sure thing.” I turned on my heel.

“Josie?” she called, and I turned back. She lowered her voice. “Stick to your guns. You deserve this.”

A smile broke through the tense muscles of my face. “Thank you.”

I arrived at the open doorway of Mr. Tate’s office. His nephew Jason, my co-worker, was in there. Conversation stopped abruptly.

“Am I interrupting?” I asked

Mr. Tate stood. He always wore pastel colored button down shirts tucked into his suit pants, or into pressed and pleated khaki’s on Fridays, and seersucker suits on Sundays for church. Today, he wore a mint green shirt that clashed with his slightly ruddy cheeks and fleshy jowls. “Jason and I were just catching up.”

Jason smirked at me then turned back to his uncle as he stood. “Yeah. So glad you were able to come by and meet the new commissioner,” he said to his uncle. “You two hit it off. See you for our eight a.m. tee off tomorrow?”

“See you there.”

Jason, blond hair slicked back, passed me. “Josie.”

“Jason,” I returned, my expression as bland as I could make it in the face of his supercilious smirk.

I shut the door behind him. I didn’t like being in a closed room with Mr. Tate either, but I hated the thought Jason might listen in. I ran through the words I’d just heard. “The commissioner?” I asked.

“The PPS commissioner,” he answered and gestured for me to sit, not at one of the chairs at his desk but in the seating area where he had a low couch. Low couches were the enemy of skirts. I lowered myself gingerly and angled my legs to the side.

Mr. Tate couldn’t help himself, his gaze still slithered down my legs to my shoes and back to my thighs and then quickly to my face.

“The PPS?” I pressed.

“Planning, Preservation, and Sustainability.”

“Oh,” I said. “I haven’t met the new commissioner.” I had adored the woman, Carole, who’d been in the position before. She’d worked for the mayor’s office and the zoning department for thirty years. She and I definitely saw eye-to-eye on curtailing some of the more egregious development plans greedy investors had for our small coastal city.