Chapter 36
HOLLIS
The morning after my world exploded, I went for a run two seconds after I opened my eyes. I needed to burn off the anger and frustration churning through me. My feet pounded against the packed sand as I pushed myself harder and faster, until my lungs burned and my legs screamed for mercy.
It didn’t help. Nothing helped.
I kept replaying the conversation with Juno. The way she’d looked at me like I’d betrayed her. The way she’d told me to leave, her voice breaking even as she said the words. I’d screwed up. I knew that. But I hadn’t expected her to cut me loose so quickly.
Business first. Always business first.
I understood it. I even respected it on some level. But it didn’t make it hurt any less.
I glanced out at the ocean and then at the shore. I’d run a lot farther than I normally did. And it wasn’t nearly far enough.
I slowed to a jog near the pier, my chest heaving. A kid stood near the water’s edge, struggling with a kite that had tangled itself into an impressive knot. His mom stood a few feet away, looking helpless.
“Need some help?” I called out.
The kid looked up, his face red from frustration. “It’s stuck.”
I walked over and examined the mess. The run had left me breathless but stopping allowed me to slow my heart rate. The string had wrapped around itself multiple times, and the tail was completely twisted. It would take a few minutes to untangle, but it was doable.
“Let me see what I can do.”
I sat down in the sand and got to work, carefully unwinding each loop and knot. The kid watched me with wide eyes, probably wondering why some random sweaty guy had decided to help him.
“You like kites?” I asked as I worked.
“Yeah. My dad gave me this one before he went on deployment.”
“That’s cool. What branch?”
“Navy.”
I nodded, focusing on a particularly stubborn knot. “My brothers and I used to fly kites down here all the time. I can’t count the number of tangled strings we dealt with.”
The kid looked curious. “Really?”
“Really.” I finally got the last knot free and handed the kite back to him. “There you go. Good as new.”
“Thanks, mister!”
He ran off toward his mom, who mouthed “thank you” at me. I waved and headed back down the beach toward my house. I decided to walk. My legs were going to be feeling that run later.
It was a long, slow walk back home.
The simple act of helping that kid had given me a moment of peace. A reminder that not everyone was mad at me. But the moment I stepped through my front door, reality came crashing back.
I showered, threw on sweats, and spent the rest of the day brooding on my couch. I checked my phone compulsively, hoping for a message from Juno that never came. The internet continued its feeding frenzy, and I couldn’t stop reading the comments even though each one felt like a knife twist.
Pictures from the last twenty years were flooding social media. Me at Disneyland when I was eight eating a corndog. Me eating a cheeseburger when I’d probably been sixteen. Someone had apparently taken a picture of me at a bar stuffing myself with loaded nachos.
I had no idea there were so many pictures of me eating. In one of them, I had sour cream on my lip. I vaguely remembered that night. We were celebrating Micah’s twenty-first. Or maybe it was Drew’s.
Some of these pictures might have been AI.
I was in a dark place. I’d barely slept the night before.
My mind had been running through worst-case scenarios on an endless loop.
B Well was done if I couldn’t turn this around.
My reputation was shot. I’d lost Juno. Everything I’d worked for had evaporated because of one stupid burger on the wrong day.
Micah showed up around noon without calling first. He had a key. I’d given all my brothers one for emergencies. I looked up from where I’d been sitting on the deck for the last hour staring out at the ocean.
“You look like shit,” he said, walking in and dropping into the chair beside mine.
“Thanks. That’s exactly what I needed to hear.”
He crossed his arms and cocked his brow when he noticed the bottle of beer in my hand.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” I said.
My laptop sat open on the middle table with about fifteen browser tabs visible, all of them showing different social media platforms where people were still tearing me apart.
“When’s the last time you ate?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Hollis.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re spiraling.” He reached over and shut my laptop with more force than necessary. “Get up. We’re going to lunch.”
I laughed, but it came out bitter. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”
“Why not?”
“Because apparently everything I eat is newsworthy now.” I gestured at my phone. “Did you see the photos people have been digging up? They’re analyzing my childhood diet like it’s some kind of expose.”
Micah picked up my phone and scrolled through the feed. His expression darkened. “Okay, that’s ridiculous.”
“That’s the internet.” I sank deeper into the couch. “So no, I’m not going out to lunch where someone can film me eating a salad and accuse me of virtue signaling or eating a sandwich with actual bread and call me a hypocrite again. I’ll just stay here where it’s safe.”
“Safe and miserable.”
“Better miserable than wrecking my business.”
He set my phone down. “Look, I get it. This sucks. It sucks hard. But hiding in your house isn’t going to fix anything. And you need to eat.” He studied my face. “When’s the last time you talked to Juno?”
My chest tightened at her name. “Yesterday. When she told me we needed space while she cleaned up the mess I made.”
“Space,” Micah repeated. “What does that mean?”
“It means she’s prioritizing business over whatever we had.” I rubbed my face with both hands. “I don’t blame her. I screwed up. I cost her company its reputation again. Why would she want anything to do with me?”
“Because she cares about you?”
I snorted. “I thought she did. Now I’m not so sure.”
Micah was quiet for a moment. “You’re in love with her.”
I looked up sharply. “What?”
“You’re in love with her,” he said again, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “This isn’t just about the business partnership falling apart.”
I wanted to deny it. I’d been telling myself all day I couldn’t possibly be in love with her. Three weeks wasn’t enough time. But the lie wouldn’t come. Instead, I just sat there feeling exposed.
“Yeah,” I admitted quietly. “I think I am.”
“Have you told her?”
“No. What’s the point? She made it pretty clear where I stand on her priority list.”
“Well, sure. You can’t wreck a girl’s family business and expect hearts in her eyes.
” Micah leaned back in his chair. “Look, I’m not saying she handled this perfectly.
But she’s under a ton of pressure. Her father’s company is taking heat because of your mistake.
She’s probably terrified of losing everything she’s worked for. ”
“I know that.”
“So fight for her. Fight for both of you.” He stood up. “But you can’t do that from your couch, wallowing in self-pity. You need to get up, get out of this house, and start fixing what you broke.”
“I don’t know where to even start to fix this,” I said with a sigh.
“Start with lunch.”
“Nope. Not leaving.”
“God, you’re a pain in the ass.”
“Yep.”
“I’ll order lunch.”
“Go pick it up,” I said. “I don’t want some DoorDasher posting about what they delivered to my house.”
He laughed. “Damn, you’re paranoid.”
“It’s not paranoia if it’s actually happening,” I said. “These people are obsessed with me.”
Micah pulled out his phone and started scrolling through delivery apps while I stayed planted in my chair, arms crossed, staring at nothing.
“I’ll get something from that Thai place you like,” he said.
He placed the order, then grabbed his keys and headed for the door. “Back in ten. Don’t move.”
I grunted something noncommittal and watched him go. True to his word, he was back in under fifteen minutes, carrying two bags of food and wearing the kind of self-satisfied grin that usually meant he’d done something ridiculous.
“Delivery guy was parked at the end of the street,” he announced as he set the bags on the table between the chairs. “I jogged down there like a lunatic waving my arms so he wouldn’t come any closer. Pretty sure he thinks I’m unhinged.”
I snorted despite myself. “You are unhinged.”
“Worked though.” He unpacked the containers, steam rising when he popped the lids.
The smell of garlic and chili filled the air, and my stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten anything substantial since yesterday.
We ate in relative silence for a while, the only sounds the occasional clink of forks and the low hum of the ocean.
Micah didn’t push the conversation again. He just sat there, occasionally passing me more napkins or stealing a piece of my chicken, like my life wasn’t currently on fire. By the time we finished, things felt less end-of-the-worldish. Not settled, not even close, but enough that I could breathe.
He gathered the trash, clapped me on the shoulder once, and headed out with a quiet, “Call me if you need anything.”
I stayed on the deck and contemplated my next steps. I wasn’t going to let a bunch of internet warriors stop something I’d been working way too hard on. There had to be an angle I hadn’t considered before.
My phone buzzed with an email notification. I almost ignored it, but something made me look. The sender was listed as “Curly’s Corporate Communications.”
My first instinct was to delete it. They were probably pissed at me too for some reason. But curiosity got the better of me, and I opened it. I read through the email and laughed bitterly.
Thank you so much for your patronage! We at Curly’s see this as an incredible opportunity for both of our brands. The publicity has been enormous, and we believe we could capitalize on this moment by bringing you on as a spokesperson. We’d love to discuss the possibility of a partnership.
They wanted me to be their spokesperson. They wanted to turn this disaster into a promotional opportunity. They wanted to use me to sell their processed garbage while I stood in the ashes of my own business.
I started typing an angry response, my fingers flying over the keyboard.
Thanks for reaching out, fuck nuggets, but I’m not interested in promoting food that makes people sick. My business is built on actually helping people, not?—
I stopped mid-sentence.
Wait.
An idea began to form. A wild, potentially disastrous idea that might be the only way to salvage this mess.
I deleted the angry message and typed a new one. I hit send before I could second-guess myself. Their response was fast. Curly’s rep could meet at three o’clock at their corporate office in LA. Perfect.
I looked at the time. That gave me an hour to prepare.
I called Toby.
“Hey, man,” he said when he answered. “How are you holding up?”
“I need you to meet me at the office in thirty minutes. Bring your camera equipment.”
“What’s going on?”
“I have a plan. It’s either going to fix everything or make it so much worse. But as they say, if you’re walking through hell, keep walking.”
“Those are my favorite kind of plans.” I could hear the grin in his voice. “I’ll be there.”
I hung up and headed to my car. Twenty minutes later, I was at the B Well facility, loading a cooler with a dozen of our plant-based burgers. Toby showed up as I was securing the cooler in my trunk.
“Okay, I’m here,” he said, pulling his camera bag from his car. “Want to tell me what we’re doing?”
“We’re going to Curly’s corporate office.”
His eyebrows shot up. “The company that’s trending because of you?”
“The very same. They offered me a spokesperson deal.”
His eyes nearly popped out of his skull. “And you’re considering it?”
“No.” I slammed the trunk closed. “But I have an alternate proposal for them. And if it goes well, I’m going to need you to film it.”
Toby grinned and hoisted his camera bag onto his shoulder. “Then let’s go make some content.”