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“I don’t see how you have a choice. This is going to require some tough calls… and some balls, for that matter. That’s life at the top, man. Welcome to the dark side.”

Alex is reminded of Chuck’s warning about how CEOs have to do the dirty work. Everyone close to him now had a habit of reminding him just how hard this job is.

“First, I need to figure out this MedLine shit. I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know jack about medical supplies.”

“I might be able to help there. We’ve funded a few med-tech start-ups over the past few years. My analysts did a ton of research on the sector. I’ll see what they can dig up on MedLine and if there’s a path to off-load it. But you need something now—especially to keep the board off your back. I’m telling you, closures or layoffs or both. What stores aren’t performing?”

“The Brookline and downtown stores are problematic. But they’ve only been open for a few years. We’re giving them time to grow,” Alex admits begrudgingly.

It had been Alex who pushed Poppy to open stores in Milwaukee’s “food deserts,” a term Simone had told him about after she’d volunteered with a local nonprofit on a food insecurity study. At the time he genuinely thought opening them was a good business decision and a good decision for the city. And his wife’s encouragement and enthusiasm for this prospect was, admittedly, another motivating factor.

“You mean you’re waiting for gentrification to hurry up.” Connor laughs like this is the funniest thing he’d thought all day. “You don’t have time for that. Shoppers in those neighborhoods are going to Walmart, not a bougie, pricey store like Hartwell. They’re getting Cheetos in supersized bags, not artisanal Parmesan crisps. That’s why you have no traffic. They gotta go.”

“We’ll get crucified in the press—‘Hartwell abandons the community’—I can see it now.” Alex is even more terrified of being crucified by Simone. She’d been so proud when Hartwell opened in those neighborhoods. They’d gone to the openings together. Langston cut the ribbon at the downtown store. Closing them would feel like reneging on a promise. To those people. To his wife.

Connor shrugs. “Can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. They’ll get over it. You know what’s harder to get over than bad PR? Bankruptcy. You don’t have that many options, man. And I’ll bet the other stores are still getting their asses kicked by delivery services, am I right?”

“Yeah. Of course they are.”

“That’s why your app’s such a perfect fucking fix.”

“There’s no money to launch it now.”

Before Alex knows what’s happening, Connor’s fumbling around in his soft leather man purse for his phone. He pokes around at the screen for a second.

“Look, you got this, Alex. You can turn this around. Close those stores. Get the app off the ground. I’m transferring cash to you from my personal account. How does $250K sound? Three hundred? That way you can keep the app in development while you get your financials in order.” Connor’s glowing, filled with righteous energy, being able to throw around his cash like this is his love language.

“I can’t take your money.”

“It’s nothing.”

Connor calling a quarter of a million dollars “nothing” causes Alex’s stomach to turn. Or maybe it’s the shame of being offered help at all. What’s that they say about pride? Well, it doesn’t matter because there’s no way he’s taking Connor’s money, even if it means falling flat on his face. Besides, $250K is actually nothing considering the state of the balance sheets, like adding or removing a bucket of water from a lake. If he was going to take any money from Connor, Alex would drop it back in his savings account to replace all those missing zeros from losing his good-faith payment for the house and before Simone notices it’s gone. He doesn’t worry about that too much, though, because she rarely looks at their accounts, which surprises him since she’s such a control freak about everything else. But it was nice that she trusted him so completely, even though now that trust makes him feel like utter shit. Same coin, different side.

“Okay then, holler if you change your mind.”

“I won’t,” Alex snaps more harshly than is called for, and he definitely didn’t need to slam his empty whisky glass on the table with such force either, but oh well.

Connor throws his hands up in a theatrical surrender. “Cool, cool. I get it. And you got this.”

Is he being sincere or patronizing? It’s such a thin line, but Alex decides it doesn’t matter.

“Come on, let’s go,” Connor says, jumping up.

“What are you talking about? We’re on a boat. Go where?”

“Swimming!” The way he says this, with such childlike glee, shoots Alex right back to Tate and finding Connor standing by his bunk bed, making an impassioned case for some misadventure, usually one that would get them in trouble, like stealing boxes of cereal from the dining hall or hijacking Sylvester’s maintenance cart to take a spin.

“No way, man. The water is freezing. We’ll drown or get hypothermia.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Alex. We’re not going to die. We’re going to live forever!” Connor screams this as he sheds his shoes and rips off his wool sweater, jogs over to the railing. “Get over here!”

Alex obeys, just as he did all those times at Tate, and follows his friend to the edge, looking down at the inky-black water swirling ten feet below.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never done a cold plunge? Does wonders for the body. I go to a place once a week for cryotherapy in a prissy marble pool, but this is the real deal. Come on, baptism by ice, baby.”

“I don’t know… I…”

But before Alex can even finish his sentence, Connor has thrust himself overboard. The loud splash his body makes echoes across the water, followed by an exhilarated scream. “Letttttt’s gooo!!!! Get in here! You’ll feel like a new man.”