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Okay you know what, A.? Fuck you.
1:16 AM
Seriously. Fuck you. You wanna pretend we’re not really friends.
1:17 AM
That I don’t really exist. That I don’t have a name or a face.
1:22 AM
But you know what? I have actually been there for you. I have listened to you and supported you and told you about things that matter to me.
1:31 AM
And I am fucking tired of you pretending that this is fake, that we don’t know each other.
1:35 AM
I am tired of you flirting with me, then pretending we’re nothing.
1:45 AM
And I don’t mean that friend zone shit. If all you want is to be friends it’s cool.
2:18 AM
You flirt with me and make me feel like the most important person in your life.
2:19 AM
Then you don’t even want to know my name. How do you think that makes me feel?
* * *
2:42 AM
I believe in respecting boundaries. But your inconsistent boundaries are hurting me.
3:16 AM
For the record, my name is spelled like this:
F-U-C-K
O-F-F
* * *
Oh my god. Oh my god. My coffee arrives as I’m staring at my phone; I inhale it in a giant slurp that burns the roof of my mouth.
I check the read receipts. Yep. He saw them at six this morning. Fuck. I hadn’t thought that anything could make my hangover worse, but apparently, two hours of drunken, angry texts will do it.
Actual Physicist has not answered. I glance at the time. It’s eleven in the morning, and he hasn’t answered. The only time he has ever taken that long to answer anything I wrote has been when he was on an intercontinental flight.
Another gulp of searing coffee blisters my throat.
I don’t know what to say. How to fix this. I just know I have to say it.
Hey, A., I write. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. It looks stupid appended to that chat.
I hit send anyway.
Three seconds later, three dots appear. He’s typing. But they go away, and I don’t get a response.
I don’t get anything at all.
16
MARIA
I stumble through the day with the dedication and grace of a Jersey cow performing Swan Lake. I nurse a pounding headache that coffee, Advil, and water cannot fix.
I get notes from friends for the two morning classes I missed. I attend my afternoon class on game theory with a grim determination to do something right, and I hope the word salad I blankly transcribe will make sense to non-hungover me in some alternate universe, which preferably will start tomorrow.
I retreat home at the first possible instant.
The sound of water running in the kitchen sink greets me as I unlock the door. It must be Tina; Blake has a class, and besides, the chances of Blake doing dishes without a reminder are about equal to the possibility of an asteroid strike.
I set my bag on the front table, kick off my heels, and move into the open kitchen. The blinds are open, sunlight spilling across granite countertops.
“Hey,” I say, turning to the sink. And then I stop.
There’s a man standing at the sink, calmly rinsing off a pan. He’s older. His hair is a mix of dark and gray and white. He’s grayer than his publicity photos. I stare at him first in surprise, then in abject horror. Oh, fuck.
He looks up. His eyes land on me. They narrow briefly, and then he gives me the world’s most abbreviated nod. He turns off the water, gives the pan a shake, and sets it on the drying rack.
“You must be Maria.” His voice is like gravel.
Once I put a jar of honey in the refrigerator. I remember trying to pour it, holding it upside down and whacking it before realizing it was a futile endeavor. This is what my brain feels like at the moment.
He dries his hands on a towel. “I’m Adam,” he says. “Blake’s father.”
I swallow. “I know.”
Adam Reynolds is… He’s a legend, so much of one that I still don’t know how to get my mind around the fact that my roommate is dating his son. He founded Cyclone Technologies almost thirty years ago and nurtured it from an infant database software company to one of the largest corporations in the world.
He didn’t do it by being nice. People usually describe Cyclone as a cult of personality. Adam swears frequently in public, and from all accounts he’s worse in private. Blake insists he’s a really good guy and not at all an asshole. In private, Tina has informed me that he’s not always an asshole, which is an amendment that means absolutely nothing. There is, according to Tina, an entire handbook floating around Cyclone about how to manage Adam fucking Reynolds. The first rule of AFR club is don’t talk about AFR club.
I feel like I’ve opened the front door to discover a grizzly bear waiting in the hallway. I can’t remember if you’re supposed to run from bears.
Dammit, Blake. A little notice would have been appreciated.
One of the richest men in the world is doing dishes in my kitchen. You know. No big deal. I have the sudden urge to laugh hysterically.
“Hi.” My throat is dry. I tentatively hold my hand out.
He must see that motion, but he doesn’t shake my hand. Instead, he turns away, finds a towel, and starts drying the pan that he just cleaned. I’m left with my hand hanging in midair. I swipe it against my jeans.
What are you doing here? What should I do?
“Don’t worry,” he says dryly. “I don’t practice cannibalism during daylight hours.”
I choke. “That’s…good?”
I should just leave. Yes, it would be rude, but on the other hand, this is Adam Reynolds.
He puts the pan away.
“During daylight hours,” he says, “I just do dishes.” There’s a glint in his eye. He might be joking.
“I see that.” I swallow. “Um. Why? Why are you doing dishes?”
He shrugs. “They’re Blake’s, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
He shakes his head sadly. “Literally my kid’s only fault. He’s a fucking mess. Never picks up after himself.”
I draw in a breath. “He’s not…that bad.”
Adam Reynolds raises an eyebrow in my direction. “I lived with him for twenty-two years of his life. If you’re going to lie to me, at least choose a flavor of bullshit that I’m not intimately familiar with. He is exactly that bad.”
“Okay,” I manage. “Fine.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says, in what I think might be an attempt on his part to manage a conversational tone. “What the fuck has Tina been telling you about me? Am I that terrible?”
It’s not just what Tina says. I mean, practically all of Cyclone is willing to sing his praises. Yes, he’s an asshole, but… But he’s apparently a compelling asshole.
He’s fine, Tina once told me, as long as you don’t ask him personal questions.
Truth is, Adam Reynolds is like the popular guy at school times seven hundred. The guy who knows he’s got it and doesn’t have to try. He’s the one who would sit on a virtual throne at lunch, surveying the crowd of kids as if he were a lion overlooking a savannah, trying to find the weakest wildebeest.
I was always the weakest wildebeest. I don’t exactly have the best track record with people like Adam.
“Tina’s as much of an apologist as Blake,” I say.
The corner of his lip twitches up. “There, see? I was pretty fucking sure you had more than a couple monosyllables in you.” He pulls out a chair at the island and sits. “So is it just my reputation, or something specific?”
I swallow. “Your reputation is pretty specific.”
“Yeah.” He’s smiling. “It’s pretty useful, but I swear on my fucking market cap, I don’t usually terrorize children.”
“I’m not a child.”
He pulls out his phone. “Sure.” The word has a mocking edge. He glances at the face of his phone, shrugs, and looks back at me. “Let’s have this conversation in twenty years. You’re a fucking baby. You just don’t know it yet.”
There is zero chance that I’ll be running into Adam Reynolds in twenty years, but I’m not about to argue with him again. I take out my phone.
He must see something on my face.
“What,” he says. “You don’t think you’ll still be friends with Tina in twenty years?”
