My project beckoned me from the workbench. I’d found the standing record player alongside the road in pretty rough condition. Someone must have thought it didn’t match the aesthetic of their home and couldn’t sell it. They didn’t know that it was a player from the year my dad was born—and that Icould sand it down and stain it to perfection, sourcing true-to-the-era knobs to replace the missing ones.
I put on my safety glasses and got the roughest grit sandpaper to begin taking away the years of life that had worn on the record player while my mind relaxed. My best ideas always came to me out here, when my body was working hard and my mind could take a back seat to the physical work.
The break was needed, because I was leading the build-out of a new arm of the app, which took a lot of mental work aside from usual operations. But the more I focused on the record player, the more my mind wandered away from business to my date with Jada this Sunday. I’d heard of playing hard to get before, but something told me Jada wasn’t playing. Dating, even a billionaire, wasn’t on her list of priorities.
So what had changed her mind?
I blew on the record player, clearing a thin layer of sawdust before continuing. Sanding was always the longest part of a project, but it was also the most important. If you skimped on sanding, the whole project would look cheap, no matter how many layers of paint or stain you covered it with.
I grabbed a new sheet of sandpaper, continuing my work until my phone ringing on the table drew me out of my focused trance. My eyebrows drew together in confusion—only a select few people signaled the ringtone on my phone this late at night.
When I picked it up, Jude’s name was on the phone. My chest clenched, dangerously hoping he had good news from his meeting with Aleyna. “How’d it go?” I answered.
“You’re on with me and the others,” Jude said.
Quentin mumbled, “What’s going on?” He’d probably been sleeping. The guy was like a drill sergeant about getting eight hours a night.
The others waited quietly with me.
Jude said, “She took a little... convincing.”
Cruz laughed. “You hooked up with her, didn’t you?¡Ay, Dios mío!”
Jude replied, “She seemed amenable to a dealifwe could get their brother, Jasper, on board. She thought Damien could likely be talked into selling his shares if all three of them did it.”
My chest lightened for the first time in days.
“Thank God,” Aaric said, his Nordic accent thicker than usual.
“You’re welcome, but I prefer to go by Jude,” he said, a smirk to his tone.
I rolled my eyes. “Let’s not get our hopes up too high yet,” I reminded everyone, especially myself. “Jasper’s cult will likely see control of the company as a chance to gain new members.”
Aaric said, “Cult’s a little strongly worded, don’t you think?”
“What would you call it?” Tossing my sandpaper onto the table, I left the garage. “People buzz their heads to join.”
Cruz said, “Isn’t that to prevent lice on the commune?”
Quentin let out a heavy sigh. “Can we table this for tomorrow?”
Jude said, “Our assistants put a meeting in everyone’s calendar for tomorrow so we can come up with a plan to convince Jasper. I won’t be able to charm him into an agreement the same way I did with Aleyna.”
“Gross, me neither,” Cruz said.
Aaric said, “Me three.”
Quentin huffed, “Good night.”
We chuckled as we hung up the call. But a heavy weight settled back over me. Getting Aleyna potentially on our side already felt like a short-won victory, considering who we’d have to convince to keep her loyalty.
Inside my room, I stripped to my underwear and lay in my Egyptian cotton sheets—one of the luxuries I found worth splurging on. As the soft material cocooned my skin and I closedmy eyes, thoughts of apps and deals and pretty brown eyes swirled in my mind.
I should have been focusing on the meeting tomorrow morning, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my date Sunday morning.
12.Bryce
As soon asI got out of the elevator, Maya was there to meet me with a black coffee.
