“This is Ryan Flynn withThe Wall Street Journal.I’m trying to reach Este Todd for comment on the Redwood Security data breach.”
The next voicemail was fromUSA Today.ThenThe New York Times.Reporter after reporter had found my number.
“How?” was all I could say to Beau.
He took the phone from my hand and listened to the next voicemail for me.
“Marin Anders with NBC News?” He looked between me and the phone before throwing it on the bed and wrapping me up in his arms. “Fuck ’em. This will blow over. We can change your number in the morning.”
“I can’t go back to California like this. How did they get my number? Why do they know who I am?”
I knew the answer, of course. I had trusted the wrong person. Invested my time in the wrong venture. The ache and shame of failure sank in my chest. The job that was supposed to give me enough power to inoculate me from any kind of grief or loss was in embers.
When Beau said, “What if we don’t go back?” a small part of me wondered if I had willed him to say it.
Is this how my California dream ends? In hiding?
I went to L.A. to do this big thing. But what I got was nothing like what I had planned. Did I really want to run into Simon and his business friends? To have to watch the legal consequence stage of Redwood’s demise? Did I need to go back to sitting at a desk, trying to prove I could outwork and outsmart everyone else?
“Okay,” I said in a daze. “We won’t go back.”
It wasn’t like I had a booming social life on the West Coast—everything I had made for myself there felt like an extension of Simon now. Gemma was my only friend of note. While I would miss her, as soon as the words left my mouth, I knew my love affair with L.A. was over.
It hurt. Just not as much as I had expected it would. There was a time when all I could picture was my life on the West Coast. California had lured me in with sought-after jobs, sunshine, and the promise that anything was possible.
But I had left before, reinvented myself before. I told myself this would be the last time. Beau and I would start a life somewhere new, and I would find a version of myself that wasn’t buttressed by grief and ambition. “If we’re not going back, wherearewe going?” I asked after a few minutes, trying to catch up to the leap forward we seemed to be taking.
“I’ll get on the next plane to anywhere with you,” Beau said, and I knew he meant it. He was solid ground and a starry sky, like always. “Or we can stay here. But it’s been a few months, and we’ve had to buy two new suitcases. We need a home base. Or I mean, if we’re going to live like nomads, we’re going to need to stop shopping or pack lighter.”
“That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
He laughed and stepped closer, arms wrapping around my hips.
One last reinvention. One more fresh start.
This time, it would be different, because I would be with Beau. I didn’t know what I’d do with my days, but I had enough savings to take my time figuring things out.
“We’re moving to Florida?” I said, trying out the words to see how they felt in my mouth.
“Fuck California,” Beau interjected dryly. “The entire West Coast is dead to me if you’re not there.” He bent down and planted a warm kiss on my shoulder.
“So do we just stay here?”
“You want to live in a Ritz-Carlton?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Okay,” he agreed, smiling as he pulled me into a kiss. “We’ll have our mail forwarded to the cabana with the best breeze.”
“Really? You really want to do this?”
“All I want is to be where you are,” Beau said just before he kissed me deeply, tugging at my shirt as he pulled me toward the bed.
Behind us, the television glowed. But I ignored the news crawl. It would be days later before I found out.
The data breach had gutted Redwood’s stock price. The company was disintegrating in real time.
Chapter 26
