Taylor scrunched her face and stuck her tongue out at London. These two reminded Samiah so much of herself and Denise. It was amazing to think they’d all met just last week.
“So Hashtag Squad Goals will have a standing date every Friday?” Taylor asked.
“Yes. And these are to be ouronlydates for the next six months,” London said. “We’re working on ourselves.”
“I’m in,” Samiah said. “We get together once a week and update each other on how things are going. Sounds like a plan.”
Sorta.She still wasn’t 100 percent sure about this no-dating thing.
They finished off their tapas and margaritas, then parted ways with reminders already set in their phones to meet at the Mediterranean place across the street at the same time next week.
As she made her way to her car, Samiah couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that had settled in her stomach since Taylor started making that list. She should have told them about her app. Saying it out loud, having others to hold her accountable—it was the kind of motivation she needed to finally see her dream through.
She slid behind the wheel of her Mustang and gripped the steering wheel.
“What are you so afraid of?” she whispered.
What else but fear was stopping her from pursuing the dream that had once been so important to her? If she weren’t serious about developing her app she would have tossed out all those notebooks when packing up her apartment earlier this year. She would have put that box out with the trash instead of stashing it in the back of her hall closet once she moved into her condo. Seriously, what was stopping her?
You know what’s stopping you.
It took a lot more than just an amazing idea to bring an app to market. It took money to develop it and man-hours to work on it. Her handsome salary was enough to allow her to live credit card debt–free and save well for retirement, but it wasn’t enough to launch an app.
Maybe she should just do as she’d said she would and find herself a hobby. Hobbies were more realistic. If a hobby didn’t work out, she wouldn’t feel as if she’d wasted all her time and money. She wouldn’t feel as if she’d failed.
“Okay, so that’s a lie,” Samiah said. She’d always been notoriously hard on herself, regardless of what she was trying to accomplish. But she had a feeling that failing at this particular thing would affect her differently than if it was some random hobby she’d decided to take up.
She caught every red light on her drive home. On the way in, she stopped at the alcove of chrome-plated mailboxes just left of the elevator bank. She opened her mailbox and slid out a bundle of letters and magazines. Standing next to the recycling bin, she threw away the flyers and junk mail. When she got to one of the half-dozen tech magazines she subscribed to, Samiah stopped short.
On its back cover was an advertisement for the Future in Innovation Tech Conference. One of the hallmarks of the FITC was the opportunity for start-ups in the tech world to showcase their products and secure venture capital.
The conference would be held in Austin next spring.
“Seriously, universe?” Samiah grumbled.
On the way up to her floor, she leafed through the magazine until she found the two-page spread listing the highlights of the upcoming conference. Once in her condo, she dropped her purse on the kitchen island, grabbed a can of soda from the fridge, and went into the living room. Samiah kicked her heels off, plopped onto the sofa, and spread the magazine open on her lap.
Her grandmother used to say that God always sent you signs. And for the really stubborn ones, he knocked you in the head.
God had used a sledgehammer on her.
“Okay,” Samiah whispered as she looked over the magazine. “I guess I’m doing this.”
She squelched the panic that bubbled up in her chest. Would it be a risk? Maybe. But what good was she if she wasn’t ready to risk it all for something she believed in?
She could do this. Shewoulddo this.
She was going to make the Just Friends app happen.
Chapter Eight
Daniel sat hunched over his keyboard, a Philadelphia 76ers hoodie covering his head, Wu-Tang Clan blasting through the headphones covering his ears. He was dimly aware of the activity going on around him, but his brain’s focus remained locked on the continual string of white letters and numbers flying across the black screen. The feeling that came over him when writing code like this was a natural high.
Writing code was part of what he would be doing if he’d gone into the private sector. But that wasn’t the path he’d chosen and he was okay with that.
He didn’t regret his decision to join FinCEN after graduation, despite it costing him his ex-girlfriend. Joelle had assumed his four years with the Marines would be the extent of his commitment to embracing his family’s long history of serving the country. She left after he turned down a lucrative offer from a tech firm in Boulder, Colorado, claiming she didn’t sign up to be with someone who wanted to live as a pauper in some government job.
Yeah, his bank account would look better if he’d gone with any of the offers he’d received after finishing at Stanford, but Daniel knew he would never feel fulfilled in those jobs. The obligation to serve had been ingrained in him since birth.
