Indulgence

Five

The next morning, Fatima spent countless hours working, had her lunch delivered before doing a Teams meeting with Lori, her event planner. Lori and Fatima had been friends since high school and she was in charge of putting together all of Fatima's nonprofit events, parties and events.

It was actually Lori's idea to have a ten year celebration to celebrate the success of Fatima's businesses. Not wanting to make too much of a big fuss, Fatima agreed to a small gathering but of course Lori turned it into a gala.

"Did you get a chance to look over the final list for the party?" She heard in mid chew. Trying to multi-task this conversation, lunch and a texting thread with Zac had her unable to make much of either task.

She nodded "I did. And I thought we agreed to keep it simple Lori. Just a company dinner with the employees."

"This is simple Tima. I kept it under 200 people. There are a lot of people who wanted to congratulate you on your success. You've apparently made a huge name for yourself"

Fatima rolled her eyes. She always heard people tell her that. She had grown up hearing that so many people were proud of her except the two people who she wanted to hear it from the most.

"Fine, whatever. So is everything set?"

"Yes ma'am. We just need the check for the caterer and we are good to go. The venue will allow us to arrive at 3 to start decorating and the guest will be able to enter promptly at 7. Dinner will be served at 7:45, your speech, mix and mingle over cake and champagne, close out remarks and we will close out. Sound good?"

Fatima nodded and pulled out her checkbook "How much is the caterer?"

"2500.00"

She exhaled and wrote the check out for the caterers in the amount of $2500 and an additional $100 tip for every server in the amount of $2000.

"Done. Anything else?"

"Nope that's it"

"Fine" she stated before ending the call before allowing Lori to say goodbye or anything else. She focused her attention back on her work and the incoming text message. Her fork picked through her Cesar Salad and grilled salmon before darting her eyes at the incoming call.

They had never talked on the phone and she wasn't sure she wanted to start right now. For some reason, his messages always left her curious, so she accepted the call.

"Hello"

Zac smiled on the other end of the phone "Sup beautiful, what you up to?"

"I'm at work, obviously. It's the middle of the day."

Zac sucked his teeth "I mean yeah, I got that. You in a meeting, you eating lunch?"

"I'm eating lunch Zachary. How can I help you?"

"You always this mean?"

"I'm not mean."

He chucked "Yeah alright. Well since you eating lunch I guess I can scrap that idea for the day."

"And what idea would that be?"

"I wanted to take you to lunch but since your eating now, can I see you a lil bit later? You know since you so called fell asleep on me"

"I apologized for that earlier, and you won't hear me say that twice soo..."

He laughed "I'm not trippin on that shit for real. I'll let you make it up to me when your free"