“But you seem like someone who needs certainty.”
She wasn’t wrong. I’d built my entire life around control, structure, predictability. Evergreen Apps had succeeded because I’d created systems that eliminated chaos. But lately—especially in the last three days—I’d been questioning whether control was the same as living.
“What about you?” I asked, deflecting. “What do you do when you’re not planning impossible Christmas parties?”
“I work at Ultra Bright Technologies. Project coordination.”
That explained a lot. The vision board, the organized layouts, the way she’d already started problem-solving the ceiling installation issue… She might seem scattered with her coffee disasters and enthusiastic Christmas plans, but there was structure underneath the chaos.
“That explains the punctuality,” I said.
“Does it?” She tilted her head, her expression curious. “You barely know me.”
“I know you threw a cranberry-orange muffin at fate and won an eight-thousand-dollar venue. I know you’re planning a party for people who took you in when you had no one. I know you think magic matters more than fire codes.” I paused. “You’re also the kind of person who offers to help a stranger wait for a package in a mail room.”
She was quiet for a moment, and I worried I’d said too much. Revealed too much. But then she smiled—a smile that was both genuine and devastating at the same time.
“You’re not what I expected,” she said.
“What did you expect?”
“More…stuffy? You run a successful company, you own a penthouse, and you drive a car that probably costs more than I make in two years. I thought you’d be all business, all the time.”
“Iamall business.”
“You’re sitting in a mail room with me right now instead of sending an assistant to wait for your package.”
Fair point. “Maybe I wanted to make sure it arrived intact.”
“Or maybe,” she said, her voice softer now, “you’re not as rigid as you pretend to be.”
Before I could figure out what to say to that, my phone vibrated. The transport team was ten minutes out.
“They’re close,” I said, grateful for the interruption.
Mollie nodded but didn’t move from her spot against the table. We stood there in comfortable silence, surrounded by other people’s packages and the hum of the building’s HVAC system. It should have been awkward. It should have felt like wasted time.
Instead, it felt like the most honest moment I’d had in months.
“Can I ask you something?” she said finally.
“Go ahead.”
“Why event planning? You clearly have the brain for any number of tech ventures. Why build a platform around something so dependent on other people’s happiness?”
No one had ever asked me that. They asked about revenue, scalability, market share. Never about why.
“My sister got married five years ago,” I said. “She hired this wedding planner who promised the world and delivered chaos. Wrong flowers, late vendors, a cake that collapsed. She spent her wedding day crying in the bathroom while I tried to fix everything.” I paused, remembering. “That’s when I realized events are these fragile, precious things. One wrong move, and you’ve ruined someone’s most important memory. I wanted to build a platform that would never let that happen. A system that connects people with reliable vendors, manages timelines, and prevents disasters.”
“So you created the technology to make perfect events possible.”
“Exactly. Though this time of year, I shift more toward hosting. The Evergreen Room, community benefits, corporate parties—it’s part of being involved locally. Plus, it lets me test the platform in real-world conditions.”
“And maintain control,” she added, but she was smiling.
“That too.”
“So you became the control freak who makes magic happen perfectly.”
