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She softened her glare, actually smiled at both of them.
And then she told them about the dinner—sans her wine throwing. She told them about the offers and the contracts she’d been sent and was reviewing—along with her attorney. She told them how she thought it was actually going to happen and she was going to get the funding she needed to get the necessary resources that the app needed to be successful.
“The actual coding is simple,” she said. “I finished most of it just by watching YouTube tutorials, and the rest of it, my engineer helped me with. But I wasn’t having much luck making the connections to get the actual listings from the various databases. Well, that, and the connections I did make were going to mean parting with more capital than I thought was prudent. But luckily, Rafe and Ben connected me with some people, and one lady in particular, Mrs. Jacobs, has a ton of real estate experience and has made a good offer.”
“That’s awesome,” Anton said, snagging a few more of her fries.
“Yeah,” she agreed excitedly. “And then if the rollout goes like planned, hopefully we can secure some advertisers. Eventually, I want to charge a fee to list a property and/or a membership cost or a match charge to expand the avenues of income. But that would be much further down the line. We need users first.”
Pride on Anton’s face.
Maybe even a glimmer on Gabe’s, too.
They talked a few more minutes about her future plans—free memberships for those looking for low-cost rentals, charges for landlords who listed above market price, maybe even connecting homeless shelters and people looking for housing.
It was all big picture.
All hope that someone would want to use it.
But she had faith and she’d worked her ass off and it was so close she could almost picture this all beginning to happen.
So, she was going to hold on to that.
And she did through the rest of dinner, through hearing about Gabe’s new job, through hearing about Anton and his girlfriend moving in together.
She held on to it through paying the bill (though Gabe won that round).
She held on to it all the way to her car, through Anton’s hug and tug of her ponytail, through Gabe’s squeeze.
But it slipped away when Gabe pulled back and ordered, “Don’t be so hard on them, yeah?”
Same old shit.
Her sadness was a heavy, heavy cloak dropped onto her shoulders, weighing her down.
She’d relaxed.
She’d thought she and her brother might be making actual progress, but Gabe still saw her as a little kid he could order around.
And when push came to shove…
Nothing had changed.
She swallowed hard, shoved down the hurt, sat in the driver’s seat, and said, “Yeah.”
Then she closed the door, turned on the ignition, and drove away.
Things didn’t change.
She’d forgotten that for a moment.
A sigh.
But she wouldn’t forget.
Not ever again.
Thirteen
