Is it important to you?
I thought about the project, what it could mean for my business, and how good it would feel to help solve this problem for John.
ME
Very
JAKE
You can give them this number.
ME
Thanks!
JAKE
Any time. Looking forward to hitting the sheets with you.
I didn’t bother to stifle my laugh as I tucked my phone away and crossed to the front of the store to take my lovely, wrapped package of bedding from Julien.
All the pieces of my life were lining up beautifully.
7
Ihoisted the bag of clubs over my shoulder and headed down the green to the next hole. Mark waited for me, leaning against the golf cart and radiating smug asshole. Forcing myself to leave my computer long enough to play eighteen holes was already a challenge. There was no way I could ride around in a tiny car while I did it. Walking gave me a chance to corral my thoughts and make sense of things. It also kept the claustrophobic feelings at bay.
I’d started playing golf almost as soon as I’d started my business. Sitting through meetings was torture, but I could talk through problems with clients on the course, and if I kept moving while we did it, I came up with solutions that kept them coming back. It was the closest thing I’d done to networking and marketing and one I mostly did for fun now. I had more business than I had time, but I still enjoyed playing, and Mark enjoyed gloating. Both at my antiquated method of getting from hole to hole and at the four-stroke advantage he had over me. Enjoying the game hadn’t equated with being good at it. Not for me anyway.
“Nice of you to show up,” Mark said as I set my bag of clubs next to the cart.
“In ten years, one of us is going to have a bourbon paunch and the other one is still going to be loved by the ladies.” I studied the green in front of me and reached for my driver.
“The ladies love a little extra meat. That’s why they call them love handles.”
“If you say so.” I tipped my head and slanted my gaze at him.
“I know so.” He reached for his own driver and motioned with his club for me to tee off. “Julianna loves my meat.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Asshole,” I muttered under my breath as I squared my shoulders over the tee. I raised the club over my head and swung, feeling the head connect with the ball in a satisfying thwack. The drive went straight down the fairway, with the ball landing two-thirds of the way down. “It’s probably pity on her part anyway.”
Mark swung and connected with his ball, sending it down the fairway to come to rest on the edge of the green.
“Now who’s the asshole? It’s a rhetorical question,” he said when I opened my mouth to answer. “And pity is what I’m going to take on you. Look at how far your ball is from the hole. I’ll spot you two strokes so you can get it up on the green with mine.”
He jumped in the golf cart and took off down the edge of the fairway, leaving me to follow on foot. By the time I reached my ball, he’d played through and was retrieving his ball from the cup. It took me the two extra strokes and one additional one to sink my own ball. It was a good thing my ego wasn’t tied to my golf game.
“How’s work?” My friend relaxed against the cart, looking like a man who hadn’t been hauling a bag of clubs all over the course. “We haven’t talked since you finished that protein modeling thing.”
“The company was happy. So am I.” It had been incredibly satisfying to watch the pieces slide into place, and thepharmaceutical company had been more than satisfied with the results. I’d gotten an additional contract for 3D modeling, with the possibility of much more once the bioengineers had a chance to begin development of the therapeutics. It was going to be challenging to fit everything in over the next month, which made me think about the thing Elena asked me to do. “What do you know about the Essex Corporation?”
“The development company? They build high-end hotels and vacation properties. Why? You’re not thinking of investing or something, are you? I can’t imagine they need computer systems as advanced as the ones you design.”
“They don’t.” Their reservation system was simpler than anything I’d worked on since undergrad. Any coding they needed was straightforward to the point of being mundane. But Elena asked me to talk to them, so I would.
Doing something to help her had real appeal. It felt a little like taking care of her, which was something I’d learned I enjoyed very much from our last encounter. Computer work for Essex might be well outside of the scope of my normal jobs, but I could do it for her.
“A friend asked me to take a look at their computer systems.”
