“My investor. She’s sick. She’s not coming tomorrow.”
The greenhouse goes silent except for the hum of grow lights and the distant sound of traffic. Around me, perfectly packaged trees sit ready for a presentation that no longer has an audience. This reeks of my father’s intervention.
“Fuck,” Vick says simply.
I sink onto a stool, staring at months of work that suddenly feels pointless. “I was never going to succeed at this.”
“Hey,” Eliza says sharply. “Don’t you dare.”
“Eliza, face facts. I have no investors, no way forward, and parents who are going to spend the rest of my life saying, ‘I told you so.’”
“You have something better than investors right now.” She gestures around the greenhouse. “You have people who believe in you. You have a product that works. And you have proof that your ideas can bring people together.”
I look around at the faces surrounding me—friends who gave up their Thursday night to help me succeed, sisters who barely know me but showed up because I matter to Eliza.
“One investor doesn’t make or break your entire future,” Eden adds. “There are other people with money who care about sustainability.”
“And honestly,” Eva says, still typing on her phone, “your socials are going to generate interest whether or not tomorrow night works out. I’ve been posting reels like crazy, and the response is already incredible.”
I want to trust that they’re right. This isn’t the end of everything.
It’s hard to imagine a life outside my parents’ sphere of influence, though.
“Fuck it,” Eliza says, crushing her cup with a strong hand. “We’re going to a fancy-ass party tomorrow. We’re going to have a ton of fun and regroup. We’ll figure something out.”
Kash nods. “You can always work for me if you need money for rent,” he says, waving a hand around. “It’s not like you don’t have advanced degrees.”
Vick snaps his fingers. “Yeah, dude. Go to the party. Light a Yule log on fire. No regrets.”
The air feels heavy as everyone files out. Eliza tells her family she’s going to drive me home since she abstained from the nog, and I had quite a bit.
I want to trust her. If her unconventional goat business can keep the lights on, surely we can find a way forward with my mini trees.
Maybe I’ll feel more hopeful in the morning. Right now, I sort of wish her herd had finished eating my entire crop.
26
Eliza
Reed slumps against my passenger seat like a bale of wet hay, his typical ramrod posture completely abandoned. Either the eggnog hit him hard, or he’s more stressed than he admitted about his business.
“You can take the carpool lane,” he mumbles, his voice thick with alcohol and disappointment.
I glance at him as I navigate the highway toward his neighborhood, taking in the way exhaustion has settled into the lines around his eyes. There’s dark stubble shadowing his jaw, and his hair sticks up at odd angles where he’s been running his hands through it. He looks older somehow, depleted in a way that makes my chest ache.
“It was all pointless,” he says, staring out the window at the twinkling Christmas lights lining the streets. “Two years of research, and for what? So I could prove my father right about me being impractical?”
“It wasn’t pointless.” I turn the radio down, where Bing Crosby is crooning about white Christmases. “One investor canceling doesn’t erase everything you’ve accomplished.”
“What have I accomplished? I grew some tiny trees nobody wants to buy.”
“Reed.” I pull into his apartment complex parking lot and face him fully. “What about a loan? There have to be people out there who?—”
“You don’t understand.” His eyes are glassy with more than just alcohol. “It’s not just about finding funding. It’s about whether any of this matters. Whether I’m just playing with expensive toys while pretending to save the world.”
The vulnerability in his voice pierces my heart. I recognize that tone, that particular flavor of self-doubt that comes from having people dismiss my own ideas as naïve or insignificant.
“I understand more than you think,” I whisper. “Do you know how many times I’ve been told that goat landscaping is a cute hobby? That I should get a real job and leave the weed work to men with chemicals?”
