Page 45 of Come in with the Rain
There are half a dozen inquiries in my inbox asking about pricing and availability, and I’m reading an email from a woman who needs new shutters installed on her balcony when there’s adingon my phone, and a new email comes in. I watch all the others slide down on the screen to make room for it.
Interview Request, the subject line reads. An interview is the exact opposite of what I want to do right now. That requires a lot of verbalization and eye contact, and I’m not sure I could manage it in my current state. Who in the world would want to interview me anyway? What do I even have to say about my business? That I worked my ass off to get it off the ground and now I’m letting it crash and burn because it feels like my insides are made of slime?
I click on it anyway to see what they’re asking, and when I read the contents, I bolt up on the couch.
Dear Mr. Lake,
My name is Addison Delacroix, and I’m an article writer at Baltimore Business Journal. We periodically interview new and upcoming businesses to bring them even more spotlight. I got your number from a trusted contact of mine, and I’ve looked into your small business. It seems that you have a lot of promise as a business owner.
Anyway, I’ll cut to the chase. I’d like to interview you and Stella Hart for a piece that I’m writing on home-building in the area. There’s been a surge in sales this summer in the South Baltimore area, and I know that many of our readers are looking for recommendations on home repair and design. Would this be of any interest to you? If so, I would love to meet with you next week. Feel free to reply to this email or give me a call at the number listed below. Thank you!
Addison Delacroix
Baltimore Business Journal
This woman, she doesn’t just want to interview me. She wants to interview Stella, too. I have no idea who this contact is of hers, but does it matter? If it means that Stella and I might be in the same room for even a minute, I’ve got to take a chance on it.
I’ve considered showing up at Stella’s door and getting on my knees for her. I’ve considered calling her and begging her to forgive me.
Because holy fuck, I was an idiot. So what if Stella is working for Mickey? So what if he’s still in her life? She wasn’t happy with him when they were together. It was there in her eyes every time she walked by me. The light that I saw in her in those last few weeks, when we were together and even before that, when we were working on her place together, that light wasn’t there when she was with Mickey.
Whatever life she had with Mickey, she’s not going back to it, and I was an idiot for being so goddamn judgmental over whatever the hell it is that she wants to do. I certainly can’t blame her for taking that job. But I can blame myself for being a huge jackass about it.
And so can she. She told me it was over. She told me to leave. And showing up in her life after everything she said felt like the wrong thing to do. When someone tells you to go, you go.
But here’s a chance, a way that we might be forced together, if only for a little while. But in order for it to happen, Stella has to agree to it, too. It can’t just be me. It’s got to be her, and it’s got to be at her place, the place we built together.
I reply with a single word:yes.
CHAPTER46
STELLA
I’ve been staring at my phone for the better part of an hour. An email came through from a reporter to see if Adam and I want to be interviewed for some sort business spotlight, and I’ve been reading over the email again and again. It feels like a mistake. Why would she want to interview me? I didn’t do anything. All I did was agree to let Adam rip my entire life apart, which he did, thoroughly and with expert precision.
It’s been two weeks, and there still hasn’t been any contact. I’ve met with Dani at Berserkr once more, and according to her, there still hasn’t been contact between Adam and Ford either, which somehow makes me even more sick to my stomach than the thought of there not being any contact between him and me.
“Ms. Hart?”
I tear myself away from the looming email and look up at Tin, an intimidatingly smart woman who can’t be more than twenty, who dances circles around me every day when we discuss software. Luckily, my job isn’t to understand the software that Mickey’s employees are here to create and sell. My job is to keep them on task and delegate work, which I’m much more suited for.
“Yes?”
I see her jaw tighten, like she’s steeling herself, and then she steps up to my desk and sets something in the center of it: her company tablet. “I don’t mean to bother you with this,” she says with her crisp English accent that always gives me a little thrill, “but seeing as how you personally know Mr. Kline, I thought you might be okay with my making a suggestion on the new prototype.”
I look down at the tablet and use my finger to maneuver the 3D model she’s created of the new drone that her team has been working on. She’s not the head of the team, but only because she’s so young. She’s easily the smartest person in our entire department. I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking at, but I can see the section that she’s highlighted in red. “What exactly is wrong with it?”
Tin sighs. “Not wrong with it, necessarily. It just could be much more streamlined. I’ve tried talking to Dane about it. He keeps saying he’s going to send correspondence on it up the chain, but then he never does.” She folds her hands behind her back. “You haven’t received any emails on the subject, have you?”
This is technically very inappropriate. I’m not Tin’s direct higher up, so she really shouldn’t be coming to me about something like this, but if her team lead isn’t listening to her then I’m glad she did.
“And you think it’s worth talking to Mickey about?” I haven’t spoken to Mickey since my first day, when he sent expensive coffee and pastries for the whole office to celebrate and called me briefly at the end of the day to make sure that everything had gone well. There are about twelve people between me and Mickey on the food chain, but he’s still on my speed dial.
Across my desk, Tin is wringing her hands. “This change will give us an edge over other competitive products just like ours. It’s a tiny access change that will make a big difference for the user. So, yes, I think it’s worth mentioning. But I understand that this is not exactly professional, and I don’t know anything about you or Mr. Kline, so if this is totally out of line—"
“It’s fine,” I cut in.
I know it’s breaking all the rules. I know that the exact thing I didn’t want at this job was preference or special treatment. But Tin is right. Mickey is my friend, and I know that if this is something that could give them a real leg up, he’ll want to know about it.
