Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SOPHIE
“Holy fucking shitballs,” I mumble, staring at the email that just popped up on my computer screen.
I read it again. And again. Then I turn away from the computer, focusing on the wall of pictures on my bookshelf and taking three deep breaths before turning back to the screen to check and see if I made it all up.
Nope. It’s all still there.
Holy fuck again.
To: sophie.sullivan@
From: luke.davis@
Subject: Potential Meeting
Dear Ms. Sullivan,
My name is Luke Davis, and I am the founder and CEO of MasterLab, an educational technology startup in San Francisco focused on enhancing the value of K-12 STEM education through a multi-disciplinary approach that brings STEM tools, resources, and solutions into classrooms in a meaningful, highly personalized way that is carefully curated for the needs of each individual educational facility we serve.
It is not common knowledge yet, but I will be stepping down as CEO at the end of the year, and I am currently assisting the board in the search for my replacement.
You are at the top of my very, very short list, and if you are open to it, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the possibility of you interviewing for the position.
I am incredibly impressed with the work you have done with InspireSTEM, and I think you would be an excellent candidate for the role.
If you are willing, I can be available for a video call at your convenience.
All the best,
Luke
Holy fucknoli. Luke Davis. Emailing me. Reading it over a second time, I almost laugh at the way he introduces himself, like I don’t know exactly who he is and what MasterLab does.
Like I don’t devour all the white papers his company puts out detailing their sprawling and brilliant research into the most responsible and comprehensive ways to introduce kids to STEM education without overwhelming their brains with screens and other devices.
Like I don’t use their approaches in my own work every single day of my life.
Apparently, my only vocabulary today is fuck because holy fucking shit CEO of MasterLabs? Me? If I wasn’t already sitting down, I would probably collapse. Even being asked to interview is the offer of a lifetime.
I feel my grin explode.
“That’s a happy face.”
Whipping around in my chair at my dad’s voice, I see him for the second time in ten days leaning on my doorframe, grinning at me.
Not ready to tell him about the email I just got before I process it myself, I stand from my chair and walk over to hug him.
“It’s nothing. Just some good news about a donation. ”
“Better you than me,” he says, kissing the top of my head before letting me go. “I hated all that shit. I just wanted to make kids love computers.”
Giving him a wry smile, I flop into one of the big chairs arranged in a circle in the corner of my office. “Gotta have the donations to do that. So, what are you doing here?”
He takes the chair across from mine, leaning back and stretching out his legs.
“Just wanted to come see my baby girl. I’ve barely seen you since the big flood a couple weeks ago, and that’s a couple weeks too long.
Since the rest of my children abandoned me, I’m feeling useless and like maybe my greatest parenting days are behind me. ”
I smother a laugh at the most Gabe Sullivan response of all time because if there’s one thing about my dad, it’s that he’s an overprotective parent who likes it best when all four of his kids are where he is.
But with my sister in med school in New York and my brothers in college on the west coast, he’s having some separation issues.
“You know all four of us are adults, right?”
He scowls. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
I laugh and reach back to grab the bowl of jelly beans on my desk and my can of Dr Pepper. “So, what are you really doing here?”
Pulling his glasses off, he tucks them into the neck of his shirt. “I really did want to come check on you and see how it’s going with the house.”
I shrug, tossing a handful of jelly beans into my mouth. “You probably know more than I do. Tyler was, evidently, deadly serious about keeping all the details off my plate unless I need to know, and apparently, I don’t need to know yet.”
My dad studies me for a beat. “And living with him? You know your room at the house is always available if living with Ty is a little too much like living in a frat house full of athletes.”
I snort at that. “He’s cleaner and more organized than I could ever hope to be.
He mops and vacuums and has one of those long handle thingies with the feathers on the end to clean the tops of his kitchen cabinets.
He cooks. Literally cooks and picks my dirty clothes up off the floor and then hours later they appear in my drawers, all folded and good-smelling.
It’s like living in a hotel with housekeeping. ”
I leave out the times I’ve caught Tyler looking at me for a beat longer than normal, like I’m a mystery to be solved.
The couple more moments we’ve had where it feels like something is about to happen.
The brief moments where the tension seems to build, only for Tyler to flash me one of his habitual grins while everything seems to snap back to normal.
I have no idea what’s happening, and it’s driving me insane because it’s also possible nothing is happening at all, and this is just the way it is when we inhabit the same space day after day and I see what I want to see instead of what is, which is Tyler and me, destined to be friends forever but never more.
“I’m here! You better not have talked about anything important without me!”
My mom bursts into my office, clad in neon-pink leggings and a purple sweatshirt, dark brown hair she passed on to me curling down her back and a stack of bangles clinking on her wrist, and my dad beams like she’s the sun he’s been waiting for.
Catching her hand, he tugs her down into his lap and kisses her like I’m not sitting right here.
“Rory, as if we would ever gossip without you,” he says, using the nickname he gave her when they first met in college.
Apparently, he came up with it when they were on a trip to Iceland and they saw the northern lights for the first time.
He called her Rory after the aurora borealis, because she’s magical and colorful and one of a kind, and have you ever even heard of anything so perfectly romantic?
They broke up their senior year of college when my dad’s parents died and he had to go home to take care of his younger sisters, but ten years later he came back for her—and spent months proving to her that he was there for her and only her. They’ve been together ever since.
That’s the kind of love I grew up around.
Great, big, all-encompassing love. The kind of love that turns your life upside down and makes you into a different person than you were before you found it.
The kind of love takes hold and never lets go.
The kind I watched my entire life, and the kind I want for myself.
I’ve spent the last three years hoping Tyler would be the one to turn my life upside down.
Wondering if maybe he already has. Trying to push that thought out of my head, I think about how I feel when I text football guy.
When I see a message from him on my phone.
How he makes me smile and makes me think.
How I look forward to hearing from him every morning.
How I’m not the least bit interested in talking to anyone on that ridiculous app but him.
And still, thinking about going home to Tyler tonight makes my heart race and butterflies swarm my stomach.
I wonder if it will always be that way.
Shaking off the thought, I turn back to my parents who are now tangled together on the chair.
“No work today?” I ask my mom.
She grins, leaning back against my dad and kicking her feet up on my office coffee table as he wraps his arms around her.
“Taking the rest of the day off. The clients from hell finally came in this morning to execute the estate planning documents it took me six weeks and seven meetings with them to draft. I needed a brain break, and when your dad said he was coming to check on you, I figured I would tag along and see if we could convince you to take a couple hours off and have lunch with us.”
“Did someone say lunch?”
I look over just in time to see a smiling Tyler stroll into my office carrying a takeout tray with two massive fountain sodas in one hand and two paper bags in the other.
He tosses me a wink, and my heart literally leaps.
There is no other way to describe it. It knocks against my ribs so hard it’s like it’s trying to jump out of my chest and straight into the hands of this man with the scruff-covered jaw and messy hair and cozy blue hoodie that turns his ocean-blue eyes piercing.
Football guy who?
I try to school my expression into something that says anything other than I LOVE THIS MAN, but it’s no use.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mom giving me a considering look, and when my gaze meets Tyler’s, the look in his eyes has my stomach bottoming out, my breath backing up in my lungs.
But before I can try and pick apart what, exactly, it is that I’m seeing, his expression morphs back into the one I’m used to.
Back to best friend Tyler looking at his buddy Sophie.
“What are you doing here?” I manage, my voice coming out in a breathy rasp.