3. Skye
Skye
T he second I’m barefoot, wine poured, and Spotify set to Sad Girl Indie Pop, I sink into my couch and open my laptop like I’m about to fall down a rabbit hole before remembering his card.
I leap off the couch. I’m already two glasses into a bottle of wine when I finally let myself pick up the card again.
It’s been sitting on my kitchen island since I walked in, untouched and somehow humming with judgment.
Sleek matte black, gold lettering, thick enough to probably double as a weapon if I threw it hard enough.
Reece Blackwood.
Founder & CEO – Blackwood Ventures
Private.
Of course it is.
I set the card down like it’s radioactive and sink back onto my couch in a tangle of bare legs and half-folded laundry.
The TV is playing some old Friends rerun I’ve seen a thousand times, but the volume’s muted and my brain’s doing the kind of unhinged, wine-laced gymnastics that only ever ends in regret or online shopping.
“Reece Blackwood.”
I whisper it into the silence like it’ll make this feel less surreal.
It doesn’t.
I’m in my oversized Garfield sleep shirt, the one with the hole in the shoulder, drinking Sauvignon Blanc straight out of a stemless glass that says Don ’ t even ask in pink script. The label lied—it’s not crisp. It tastes like citrus and bad decisions.
And yet here I am.
Being professionally courted by a billionaire. A dangerously hot, emotionally unreadable billionaire who happens to be the father of the boy who took my virginity in the back of a Honda Civic.
Awesome .
I groan and drop my head against the back of the couch.
What the hell is happening?
Tonight was supposed to be about Maya. About laughing and toasting her win and maybe pretending I still had some sort of direction in life.
Instead… I ran into him .
I turn my attention back to my computer, fingers already in position before I can talk myself out of it, keying in Reece Blackwood. The man. The myth. The… fucking menace who has no business aging like a silver-haired god.
The search results are immediate. Press releases, Forbes articles, keynote clips from tech summits I didn’t know existed.
And the photos… Jesus, the fucking photos.
He’s devastating in his crisp suits, but nothing compares to the brooding intensity of his gaze. Half of these candid photos could be cologne ads. The other half look like he’s about to close a billion-dollar deal while simultaneously unhooking your bra with his mind.
I click through a feature on his company, Blackwood & Crane. I knew they were rich. I just didn’t know they were rich-rich. Like ‘yachts with helipads’ rich.
There’s a quote from him about innovation and legacy, but all I can focus on is the way his mouth moves when he says it. The way his hands are resting lightly on the table, like they’re not capable of gripping too tightly. Of pulling. Of holding.
Pages and pages. Glossy magazine features, Forbes articles, think pieces on his early company sale and reclusive lifestyle. One headline reads, “Chicago’s Quiet Billionaire Keeps Winning.”
Yeah. No kidding.
I click one. There’s a photo from a charity gala, him in a tux, jaw clenched, eyes like frozen steel. The woman next to him is stunning, but his body isn’t angled toward her.
Another article says he’s “notoriously private,” “pragmatic,” and “married to his work.” No scandals. No dates. Just success and a perfectly pressed suit.
God, even his Wikipedia page is intimidating.
I scroll down until I find the old stuff. The early years. He built his first startup when he was twenty-six. His wife passed away when Archer was fourteen. He sold the company for 2.3 billion dollars when Archer was twenty-one and stayed on as CEO.
Which means… he was grieving. All those years I used to wonder why he was never around.
Why he was always this distant shadow I occasionally glimpsed during visits at Archer’s house or holidays.
I knew that Archer’s mom had died from cancer a few years before I met him, but he always played it off like it was something he and his dad didn’t talk much about, so I never pushed it.
But now that I’m older and realize how soon after she had passed that they moved to my small Illinois town, I realize that Reece was probably still grieving.
And working. And building something colossal while his kid brought home a mouthy high school girlfriend who lived in Doc Martens and ran off of sarcasm.
I feel like I should understand that now.
Maybe that’s what tonight really did—opened some weird emotional time capsule I didn’t realize I’d buried. Made me remember things I thought I’d forgotten.
Like the way Archer would talk about his dad, as if he was myth more than man. The way I’d catch Reece’s voice on calls from the other room, cool and commanding even when he was saying mundane shit like, yes, tell the board I ’ ll review it tonight.
I close the tab before I start imagining him reading my résumé out loud in that voice. The one that makes me want to fantasize about myself writhing beneath him in all sorts of compromising positions.
Back then, he felt like something out of reach. He was intimidating and distant. Now? I close the browser and push my laptop away. Now he’s… offering me a job. Temporarily. Professionally. Totally not weird… Except it is because he’s hot as fuck and now I can’t stop thinking about it.
God, it ’ s so weird .
My brain’s a hamster wheel of what-ifs. What if I took the job? What if it’s a disaster? What if I say something wildly inappropriate on my first day and end up as a meme?
Or worse… what if I like it?
What if I like him ?
I glance at the card again. Then down at my wine. Then back at the card.
And suddenly I’m laughing. Loud, ridiculous, tipsy laughter that fills the whole apartment and bounces off the exposed brick like it’s trying to make sure I really feel how insane this all is.
“Get a grip, Skye,” I mutter, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye.
But even as I say it, I can’t help the small, secret thrill that runs through me. Because for the first time in weeks, I don’t feel numb. Or rejected. Or invisible. I feel… curious. Alive. Like something shifted tonight.
I pick up the card again and trace my finger over the gold lettering. The bottom line is, I need a job and I don’t really have the luxury of time right now. Besides, a man like Reece Blackwood wouldn’t let a stupid crush from his son’s ex ever become something.
Archer… what the hell would he think if he knew I worked for his dad?
It’s always a bad idea to open Instagram after two and a half glasses of wine. And yet here I am, curled into my couch like a human cinnamon roll of bad decisions, thumbs moving faster than my common sense.
I shouldn’t do it. I know better. But the part of my brain that wants closure, or maybe it’s chaos, wins.
First up: Archer.
I haven’t thought about him in at least a few years. Maybe longer. He’s a scar I don’t poke unless I’m feeling particularly self-destructive and tonight qualifies.
His profile is still public. Of course it is. He always loved the attention. Loved being seen. I can’t help but smile back at his photos. He always was charming and he certainly got a healthy dose of his dad’s good looks that have only gotten better with age as well.
He still has that same smirk, same confident stance.
I got over the heartbreak of Archer. It took a long time, and sometimes I worry that it did change my outlook on love.
Or at least my outlook on trust. Maybe that’s why Shane felt like he never truly knew me, because I was too guarded to ever actually let him in.
I push that thought aside before I take myself too far down memory lane.
Archer is tagged at rooftop bars, charity events, Cubs games. He looks older, obviously, but still too pretty for his own good. Like a GQ model who got bitten by a finance bro and decided to lean in.
I scroll.
There’s a post from a month ago, him in a black tux just like his dad, only his arm is around a woman with cheekbones that could slice granite.
They look happy and for some stupid reason, it stings. Not because I want it to be me with him, but because I can’t seem to ever pick the right guy.
We haven’t spoken in years. The last time I saw him was on campus, the day I found out about the cheating. He didn’t even deny it. Just stared at me like I was overreacting. Like fidelity was a suggestion and I’d failed the cool-girl test by expecting loyalty.
I can still hear my voice cracking when I asked him why. Still feel the sick heat in my cheeks when he shrugged and said, “It wasn ’ t serious, Skye. I was just drunk and stupid, it didn’t mean anything.”
Except it did. To me.
He was my first love. My first everything.
The boy I built a future around, only to have him set fire to it without blinking.
He knew the pain it caused six-year-old me when my dad ditched my mom and me.
He knew the fears I had about being abandoned again and still he turned right around and used my worst fear against me.
He didn’t just break my heart. He disappeared, transferring to a different school only two weeks after it happened, leaving me to gain closure on my own.
I don’t miss him. But I miss the girl who believed in him. The one who thought love was enough. I hate how fast my throat closes. How quick the old ache returns, sharp and stupid. We were teenagers. It was a lifetime ago.
I close the app and toss my phone aside, but it doesn’t stick. Five seconds later, I pick it back up and do something even dumber.
I look up Shane.
There’s a part of me that hopes he’s miserable. That he’s spiraling, lost, alone like me. That he regrets walking away from me because I worked late and forgot to text back and didn’t want to spend Sundays watching NFL RedZone while folding his fucking laundry every weekend.
But no. Of course not.