His Love Was My Poison novel · Chapter 20 of 48

Chapter 20: The Contract

Posy got to the envelope first.

She snatched it out of the mail carrier's hands, said "Thank you, sir, you're a hero," and ran it to me across the lab like a relay baton.

"Open it," she said. "Open it, open it, open it."

"It's addressed to both of us."

Micah put his hands up.

"I'm not opening it. If it's bad, I want it to be your fault."

"Very supportive."

"I'm emotionally supportive. I'm not envelope supportive."

I slid my thumb under the flap.

My numb fingers made a mess of it, and Posy made a sound.

There were three pages.

I didn't read the first two.

I went straight to the third, where the signature was, and the paragraph above it.

I read it twice.

Then I handed it to Micah, because my voice wasn't working.

He read it out loud to the whole warehouse.

"The board has selected your company's device for adoption as the Army's field water testing kit. An initial order of four thousand units."

For a second nobody made a sound.

Then the gray-haired engineer from the steel mill threw a box of gloves at the ceiling.

Everybody screamed at once.

Our youngest chemist burst into tears.

Somebody turned on Posy's playlist, MUSIC FOR NOT GOING BANKRUPT, at full volume.

Posy jumped on my back and wouldn't get off.

"Four thousand," she yelled in my ear. "Four THOUSAND."

"I heard."

"We're rich!"

"We're not rich. We have to build four thousand of them."

"We're rich and busy!"

Micah was standing in the middle of the lab with the letter in his hand, not moving.

His eyes were wet.

I went over and took his face in my hands.

"Don't cry, Callicott," I said. "It's just copper."

He laughed, and then he cried anyway, and then he picked me up off the floor, Posy and all.

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