Chapter 24
Dane
“Well,” Noah said, putting a pint of beer in front of me. “You seem to have made a giant fucking mess.”
I glared at him. We were in a midtown bar, surrounded by Manhattan’s after-work crowd of office workers, stockbrokers, advertising execs, and publishing types. Half of these people probably worked at Twitter or Facebook; they were young, eager, well-dressed, slightly lit, and buzzing with energy. To me, they seemed like a different species. “I told the truth,” I said to Noah. “It’s Aidan who made a mess of it.”
“Somewhat true,” Alex said, sipping his own drink on the stool next to me. “Though you straight up told the man you’d impregnated his little sister twice. It’s kind of a big surprise to throw at a man.”
“He can’t kick you out of the company, by the way,” Noah said, sliding his own beer in front of him. “He doesn’t have the power. In order to do that, he’d have to get Alex and me to agree.”
“Which Aidan knows, and which he’ll remember when he gets his head on straight,” Alex added. “He overreacted, and things got out of hand. We can patch it up.”
“It’s been four days, and he won’t answer my calls. Samantha can’t get him to talk to me, either.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. I kept seeing Aidan’s expression as he held me against the wall, his fist in my shirt. He’d looked angry, yes, and cold. But I knew Aidan. He’d looked fucking hurt. His best friend and his sister had kept a secret from him for eleven years, and it had cut him. I did that—I hurt my best friend.
“Maybe it shouldn’t be patched up,” I said.
Alex gave me a disbelieving look. “You can’t say you’re ending your friendship with Aidan over this,” he said. “Besides, you say you’re serious about Ava and you might be having a baby with her. Aidan’s going to be a part of your life whether you like it or not.”
I shook my head. “I don’t mean that. Aidan and I will be friends again, even if it takes him years to forgive me. I mean the part about him kicking me out of Tower VC. If Aidan can’t fire me, maybe it’s best if I quit.”
“You want to resign?” Noah’s eyebrows went up. “I didn’t know you were so unhappy.”
“Neither did I.” I took a deep drink of my beer. “I thought I was fine until Ava came back. Then I realized that I’ve been fucking miserable.”
“You do have an atrocious personality,” Alex agreed. “I guess now we know why.”
Noah leaned back on his stool, shaking his head. “I don’t get it. You have money, a penthouse, all the women you could want if you just got out a bit more. You’re saying you were unhappy until a specific woman came along?”
I glared at him. “Yes, asshole. That’s what I’m saying.”
Noah glanced at Alex, but Alex shrugged. “Don’t look at me for answers,” Alex said. “I was in love once, remember? I went through the worst divorce in the fucking world. I’m never doing that again.”
“Thanks for the pep talk, guys,” I said. “Really helpful.”
Noah grinned. “I know, we’re assholes. And cynics. We should be more supportive, because this isn’t some random woman we’re talking about. This is Ava. She might as well be my little sister.” He frowned. “Which makes all of this weird enough that I can see where Aidan is coming from.”
I drained my beer. “Are we done? I’m going to go back to my expensive hotel room and mope, like I’ve been doing for the past four days. I haven’t moped enough today.”
“Leave Aidan to us,” Alex said. “He won’t stay mad forever—we won’t let him. You need to figure out what you’re going to say to Kaito Okada.”
I left the bar and walked out onto 41st Street as a light drizzle of rain started. It made no dent in the crowds on the sidewalk, a mix of tourists and native New Yorkers in a hurry to get wherever they needed to go. I wondered what Ava was doing right now in the Long Beach house, what she was thinking. Whether she was okay. Whether she wanted me there, or whether she was thinking of ways to move on.
As if she could read my mind, my phone rang in my pocket. Ava. I answered it as fast as I could as I made my way down the street. “Ava. Are you okay?”
It was her voice, the one I knew so well. The one I’d been waiting for. It said, “I’m fine. I’ve been resting. And thinking.”
In the hiredcar on the way to Long Island, I called Kaito Okada.
“Dane Scotland,” he said when he answered. “Do you know what time it is in Japan?”
“No,” I replied.
“Do you care?”
“No.”
“Just checking. You’re a day late in giving me an answer. How do you know I even want to talk to you?”
I had no idea the deadline had passed. I’d spent a few days in New York in a blur of worry over Ava and Aidan. “I know you want to talk to me because you answered the phone.”
“It’s true, I did answer. Well? Should I send the jet to Chicago to collect you?”
I looked out the window at the landscape passing by the gridlocked traffic, and I thought about Ava taking a pregnancy test. I hoped she’d wait for me. “No,” I said. “Don’t send the jet.”
“Dane,” he said, sighing. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m serious. Don’t send the jet. But I never said we couldn’t work together.”
There was a brief pause. “I’m listening,” Kaito said. “Mostly because it’s the middle of the night and I’m too tired to hang up, but I’m listening.”
“I’ll contribute to your cancer project on two conditions,” I said as the bridge fell away behind the hired car and Manhattan started to recede.
“What are they?”
“First, that I work only as a consultant. And second, that you don’t pay me.”
“Okay, you’ve actually managed to surprise me. You don’t want any pay?”
“What I want is freedom,” I said. “I want to work on whatever projects I want, whenever I want. I’ll travel to Japan twice a year and contribute everything I can to the cancer project. The rest of my time is my own.”
“And what about Tower VC?”
I looked out the window again. “I’m no longer part of Tower VC. I’m resigning. I’m going to be independent, at least for a while, so I can start a family.”
Kaito cleared his throat. “Dane, you’re not married. I was just in Chicago a few days ago and your girlfriend had left you. Remember?”
“I remember. I’m going to get her back, and we’re going to have a baby.”
“You seem awfully confident about that.”
“I am.” I leaned back in my seat. “I’m sorry, Kaito. You gave me a good offer, and I know I confused the hell out of you. Aside from the fact that you’re a genius, I actually like you. I don’t mean to jerk you around. But that’s the only offer I have on the table.”
“She must be very special. You’re sure about this?”
“She is, and yes, I am.”
“All right. I’ll take your offer of free labor, just to get access to the contents of your brain. I have my own wife and children, so I can’t complain too much. I’ll have my lawyers draft an agreement at a sane hour of the morning. And I want you in Tokyo next month.”
I agreed and hung up. It was a big deal. I was going to work with Kaito Okada on the biggest, most secret project he’d ever done. I was leaving Tower VC, which I’d helped found. I was on the outs with my best friend with no plan as to how to make him forgive me. And I was technically unemployed by my own choice.
I didn’t think of any of that. I put the phone in my lap and forgot about Kaito, about Aidan, about cancer or AI or anything. They were all gone from my mind. Because I was going to see Ava, and that was all that mattered.