River City Connections—2026-06-06 (Patreon)

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TEN HOURS by Cindi Curtis Allen

Roman’s offer sounded simple when he first made it. Ten hours a week. Not full-time. Not a new job. Not a replacement for my regular work with the company in Colorado.

Just ten hours a week helping him clean up and strengthen some code so his apps can become more scalable and easier to adapt from client to client.

That was the simple version.

The less simple version was that Roman wanted me to do more than write code in a corner. He wanted me to think through the structure, plan the work, keep a small sprint list moving, and pass smaller tasks to a coder he would assign.

Someone working from my sprint list.

That phrase sat in my mind for a minute.

I’ve written code. I’ve fixed code. I’ve documented code. I’ve reviewed code. I’ve stared at code until perfectly normal words stopped looking real.

But creating a sprint list for someone else felt different.

It felt like Roman was saying, “I trust your judgment.” It also felt like he was saying, “Please accept this neat little bundle of responsibility and place it directly on top of your already active nervous system.”

I said yes, but not in a careless way. I said yes knowing Michael and I would need to talk it through. That has become one of the gifts of being married. I do not have to process big things alone and then report my final answer like I’m turning in homework.

So after I hung up with Roman, I found Michael and said, “I may have just accepted a small leadership role.”

He looked up from his laptop. “May have?”

“I did accept it,” I said. “But I’m still deciding whether my brain agrees with me.”

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Michael closed his laptop halfway. That is one of the things I love about him. If something matters, he makes room for it.

So I told him the whole thing.

Roman wants ten hours a week. Mostly evenings, maybe a Saturday block here and there. I would not be taking over his company. I would not be quitting my regular job. I would not be becoming anyone’s emergency technology hotline, which I said out loud because boundaries sound more convincing when they leave your mouth.

Michael listened carefully, then asked the practical question first.

“What’s he paying?”

I told him the rate.

He blinked once. “For ten hours a week?”

“Yes.”

“That’s…not nothing.”

“No,” I said. “It is definitely not nothing.”

We are fine without it. That matters. This is not rent money. This is not grocery money. This is not an emergency plan. We are okay.

But a typical contract-coder rate multiplied by ten hours a week becomes a real number very quickly. It becomes savings. It becomes a cushion. It becomes the kind of extra room that can make future choices easier.

Michael did the math in his head, because of course he did.

“That would be nice,” he said.

“Very nice.”

“Not needed.”

“No,” I replied.

He smiled. “But nice.”

“Still very nice.”

Then he leaned back a little. “What about the time?”

That was the next question, and it was the fair one. Ten hours sounds small until it has to live somewhere. My regular work already has its hours. Marriage is still new enough that I do not want to treat evenings like leftover space. I moved here to be with Michael, not to sit in the same house and become unavailable.

But Michael’s running ClearStream, and his work does not always stay inside neat lines either. Sometimes he answers emails after dinner. Sometimes he reviews something on Saturday. Sometimes he says, “Give me ten minutes,” and both of us know ten minutes is a beautiful little fiction.

So we talked through what it would actually look like.

A couple evenings. Maybe part of Saturday. Not every night. Not every weekend. Not something that turns our home into two people working separately until bedtime.

“That part doesn’t bother me much,” Michael said.

“What part does?”

He reached for my hand.

“The stress.”

I knew that answer before he said it, but hearing it still made my chest tighten a little.

“You’re doing really well,” he said. “I mean that. You’re working. You’re posting. You’re handling normal life better. You’re handling unexpected things better. You’re not getting stopped as much.”

“That sounds like a compliment with a warning label.”

“It is.”

I laughed, but he stayed gentle and serious.

“I don’t want you to overload yourself because Roman asked and because it feels good to be needed.”

That one landed.

Because yes, it does feel good to be needed. It feels good when someone trusts me. It feels good when someone says my work is strong. It feels good when Roman, who is not casual about his business, asks whether he can count on me every week.

But feeling good is not always the same as being wise.

So we talked about limits. We talked about what happens if ten hours tries to become fifteen. We talked about whether I can tell Roman no if he asks for more. We talked about whether leading a sprint list would energize me or drain me.

And eventually, Michael asked the real question.

“Do you want to try it?”

I did.

Not only because the money is nice, though the money is very nice.

Not only because Roman is our friend, though helping him build something stronger feels good.

I wanted to try because it feels like a next step. Not a dramatic step. Not a “please applaud because I became a new person” step. Just a real one.

A little more responsibility. A little more structure. A little more pressure.

A chance to push myself without throwing myself into the deep end and calling it courage.

“I think it’s worth trying,” I said.

Michael smiled. “I think so too.”

“With boundaries?”

“With boundaries.” He nodded and smiled.

“Very romantic.”

“Extremely romantic.”

So that is where we landed.

I’m going to try it. Ten hours a week. A few evenings, maybe a little Saturday. I’ll help Roman make the code cleaner, create the sprint list, pass along smaller tasks, and see whether this is something I can carry well.

I think I can do it. Honestly, ten hours of coding and running a sprint list sounds easy.

But standing in front of a church full of Nashville strangers as part of Hayes’s wedding party?

Not so much. I’ve got a seat saved on the second row with Michael at my side!

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