Chapter 4
FOUR
Alex
This has got to be the longest, most drawn out meeting I have ever been a part of. My eyes follow the presentation on the large screen attached to the wall, but my brain has a hard time staying engaged.
I should’ve never agreed to do this today since I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay engaged. This is too big of a project for me to make the wrong decision. There’s too much money at stake, and losing money is not something I am accustomed to.
”The numbers projected for the first year support the expansion,” Melanie, the presenter concludes. “We will need to be conservative with our other investments, but as you see on page twenty-seven of the report, this is only short term…”
As I sit at the head of the table, I don’t acknowledge the hopeful smile she sends my way. I understand that this would triple her commission for the year if it works out, but I am more concerned about my bottom line than hers.
”We are always conservative in our investments. So how much more conservative are you talking?”
The room falls silent when I speak. All heads turn to stare at me, waiting to follow my lead on how they would vote on this. They know that I will not put any money at all into a project I don’t believe in one hundred percent. If there is even a shadow of a doubt, I back out.
Melanie stares at me like a deer caught in the headlights.
She was comfortable during the entire presentation, but now she’s losing steam.
That tells me that I am right to be apprehensive about this project.
And if I catch this when I am not even running at full capacity, it is clear to me that I would find even more holes in it once I gave it my full focus.
The cell on the table in front of me buzzes with a message. I ignore it as I am not into the habit of taking calls while I am in meetings. I do however glance at it with the corner of my eye while I wait for my number one saleswoman to answer my question.
I am surprised when I see it’s a message from Kyle.
Call me back asap, this is urgent!
My first instinct is to ignore the message. But then I realize that he never sent me a message like that. He is not the type to leave cryptic messages either, and now my curiosity is piqued.
”We are going to take a ten-minute break while you come up with a viable answer.”
Relief instantly floods Melanie’s face. She rushes back to where her laptop is sitting with the rest of her stuff. The others on the team gather around her.
I sit up from my chair and walk out of the room, not seeing any sense in hovering over her. It would only make her nervous and unable to perform, which would be of no good to my business.
Depending on what Kyle has to tell me, I might need some privacy, so I head toward my office as I tap on his phone number to call him.
“Whoa! You actually called!” The surprise in his voice is obvious. He makes it sound like I never call him when he asks. Although, I’m not sure when is the last time that he did ask for a call back.
“What’s so urgent?”
“Dude,” he says in a frazzled voice. “You’re not going to believe what I am about to tell you. I hope you’re sitting down. Are you sitting down?”
For whatever reason, I can sense the importance of his question, but I refuse to show it. Instead, I start walking faster toward my office.
“I just go out of a meeting, so no, I am not sitting.”
“Oh, you have got to sit down for this one.” He is frazzled and all over the place. I can’t imagine what could cause this. Unless…
“Are you drunk?” I ask him. “I thought you were done with day drinking now that you’re in a serious relationship and all.”
I try to present a false sense of sarcasm, but on the inside, I am jealous that my best friend is so damn domesticated lately.
“Fuck no,” he laughs. “But I do need a drink.” There’s some shuffling noise sounding from his end, like he’s typing on a keyboard maybe.
“I’m assuming this is about the latest project you’ve been working on,” I conclude. “Is it finally finished?”
Kyle is my best video game developer. His talent has always been above anything else in the industry, and when I came across the opportunity to buy a distribution company, I jumped at it. I hired him on a contracting basis, paying him well enough that he doesn’t have to look elsewhere.
“No,” he now replies. “I am stuck on this one level. No inspiration. I’m gonna ask Zara’s brother to test it out so far, maybe he has any good feedback.”
I clench my teeth in annoyance. I used to be his go-to for situations such as this one. But I can’t bitch since I am trying to get on Zara’s good side, and complaining about her brother would get me zero points.
“Okay, are you sitting down now?” he demands to know.
I smirk at that. “How do you know I wasn’t sitting down already?”
“I could hear people talking, then not talking. You’re walking down the hallway from the conference room,” he declares.
Shaking my head, I finally enter my office and slam the door closed behind me. I walk over to my desk and drop in the seat, ready to bring my laptop back to life and check on a few things while Kyle tells me about whatever the hell got up his ass.
“Okay, fucker, I’m sitting. Go for it,” I encourage.
I love face recognition, I decide as the laptop comes to life right away. I have a few irons in the fire, so I figure I should check on the stock market first. I get live updates on my cell phone, but I get more satisfaction out of seeing everything on a larger scale.
“I was checking my emails today,” Kyle starts. “And I noticed that I had a notification from the Holidates account.”
I roll my eyes at that. The Holidates app is supposed to help you find a date for any family or work event, revolving mainly around holidays, but you can use it for non-holiday type events.
Kyle signed up for it to find a date who didn’t look like a stripper to our friend Ray’s wedding.
Zara was on there looking for a date to a Fourth of July party.
They met, and they broke all the rules coming with the app. They fell in love, which in turn almost ruined my friendship with Kyle as well with the rest of our group of friends. Implying that Zara was a gold digger was not my first offense.
“Dude, did you hear me?”
I realize that I was so into my thoughts, I stopped listening to Kyle.
“Yeah, man. You checked your email and found a message from the Holidates. I don’t know why that required for me to leave a very important meeting. I thought you were dying or some shit.”
“Dude!” He sounds incredulous now. “Didn’t you hear when I told you what the message was about?”
“A hot date?” I snicker. “I know I’m not supposed to talk about Zara at all, but how does she feel now that you got a replacement lined up?”
Kyle bursts into incontrollable laughter. “I swear I’d be rushing over there to fuck you up over that comment if I didn’t think this email I just got is your fucking karma.”
I lean back in my chair, rocking back and forth a couple of times, feeling like I lost the plot on this shit.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The mail from Holidates was with new matches based on the zip codes I added on there when I signed up.”
I shake my head incredulously. I wish he was here so I could slap him upside the head.
“I don’t give a fuck about your zip codes or about the Holidates. I told you from the beginning not to even get on there. You fell for it just like the other guys.”
“Once again…” There’s obvious effort in Kyle’s voice as he tries not to laugh. “I’d be offended had your karma not just knocked on my fucking door.”
I check the time to make sure that I’m not keeping my team waiting out in the conference room.
“How about we play guessing games sometime later, Kyle?” I suggest to my friend. “I have actual work to do, money to make, shit like that. I’m sure you got things to do, too.” I pause for dramatic effect. “Like make me money.”
Kyle is once again laughing his ass off, to the point where I am too annoyed to care about whatever the hell he thinks he’s telling me. So far, it’s been a whole bunch of nothing. Like I just told him, I was never a fan of this fake dating app, and I don’t need to know what they emailed him.
I am just about to hang up on him without even saying goodbye when I hear another voice in the background on his end.
“Have you told him yet?” Zara asks.
Kyle puts the phone against his chest, and I know this because there’s a weird static-like noise scratching my brain when he does that. I can hear him talking to Zara, though.
“I started telling him, but he didn’t hear me.”
“Oh, is there something wrong with the phone?” she asks. “I thought you just upgraded it.”
“Nah, babe, he just wasn’t paying attention.”
They both stop talking, leaving me to guess what they’re up to.
“I’m gonna hang up, Kyle,” I yell into the phone. “You’re dragging this out like a bad commercial break, so whatever you need to tell me can wait till later.”
“No, dude, hold on!” He sounds panicked. “I can’t hold this in any longer. I will die if I don’t tell you!”
“Tell me what, motherfucker?” I yell back. “You’ve been saying that for five minutes straight, and I still got nothing out of you!”
He takes a deep breath in. “Okay, ready?”
“Kyle,” I warn. “I swear to fuck that I will come over there and…”
“Mona joined the Holidates!”
My vision goes instantly blurry, and I am fairly sure that I just had a stroke.
“What did you just say?”
“Mona… Your ex-girlfriend who you…”
“I know who Mona is, fucker,” I growl at him.
“She signed up for the Holidates app.”
It’s funny. That’s what I thought he said the first time, too, but I still can’t quite process the information.
“That can’t be right.” My voice comes out weak.
“I can assure you that it’s her.” There is no sign of a shadow of a doubt in his tone. “Her picture is clear as day, and also her name.”
I run a hand through my hair. “You’re wrong. There are other women named Mona.”
“Isn’t her last name Higgins?” he inquires, but his tone suggests that he already knows.
“You’re wrong,” I repeat.
“Hold on.”
He fumbles with the phone, and all I hear now is him tapping on it, followed by my own phone buzzing. When I bring it down from my ear, I see a new text from Kyle. With shaky fingers, I tap on it, then on the screenshot he sent.
I almost drop the device to the ground when Mona’s face fills the screen. She smiles sexily into the camera, her lips looking like a wet dream. The eyeliner she has on is making her eyes pop, and I swear I just got an erection only from looking at her picture.
“Unfucking believable,” I mumble.
“It’s her, right?” Kyle asks, but he already knows the fucking answer.
Without another word, I end the call. I am in too much of a shock, and having a conversation with my friend who usually has the attention span of a squirrel is not within my current bandwidth.
A knock at the door gets me out of my stupor, but it’s short lived. I turn my head and stare at it refusing to invite in whoever is on the other side.
“Alex, may I come in?”
I groan out loud. It’s Melissa, my top saleswoman who was on her way to bombing her presentation before I paused the meeting.
“Come in.”
I sound angry and mad at the world. I hope she’ll get the hint and walk out of here without wasting more of my time.
The door opens slowly, then her smiling face pops in. “Hey, we’re ready for you when you are,” she says. “I’m pretty sure I figured out our dilemma from earlier, and you will like the outcome.”
“Pretty sure guarantees me nothing,” I growl at her. “I need certainty. I will not throw money at something that might work out.”
The smile dies on Melissa’s face, and her eyes round with worry.
“I apologize, Alex. I misspoke. I am certain that the numbers support…”
I put a hand up to stop her. “No.”
She swallows hard, visibly worried about where I’m going with this.
“My time and money are too valuable to waste it on something I do not believe in. Go back to the drawing board. We’ll reschedule the meeting.”
She stares at me for a few more moments before nodding my way. “Understood.”
The door closes, and I am once again alone and free to stare at Mona’s picture in the text that Kyle sent to me.
The more I look at it, the more distraught I get.
But why? I’m the one who sent her away. She is free to do whatever the hell she wants to.
Why do I feel like she’s cheating on me by being on this site?
Frowning at the screen, I zoom in on the picture she posted on there. She used to send me sexy selfies all the time. In fact, I’m pretty sure this one here is cropped from one she sent me where her cleavage was on display.
I get out of the text and go straight to the photo app. There is no hesitation when I tap on the album named Mona, then start scrolling until I find the picture I am looking for. My hand clenches on the phone, anger flooding all my senses. How dare she do this to me?
But she’s not doing anything to me. We’re not together. I didn’t want to be with her anymore.
And my dick hasn’t worked since.