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His friends carried on, still not listening apparently.
“Yeah, we have to talk, get sensitive,” Lance said. “We can’t just grunt a few words about our shitty day and then get our cocks sucked.”
“This is a great conversation,” he said, swinging the glass to his lips. “We should do this more often. Next time we’ll rip one of you apart.”
The weight of his friends’ expectation hung in the air as he gulped the much-needed alcohol. Now, apparently, they wanted to listen. Instinct demanded he argue. To tell the guys they were wrong. That he did have real relationships. That the women he dated weren’t superficial and two-dimensional.
Except if they were wrong, he wouldn’t have complained about every woman he dated being quick to bring up marriage. Even the younger women, those in their early twenties, they all eventually talked about serious commitment.
His friends weren’t wrong about the quality of his relationships either. He didn’t connect and share. For months, maybe years, everything had felt mechanical, like he was going through the motions. At work, he knew what was expected of him. New investments, listening to pitches, the excitement of a risk, those were the things that warmed his blood.
But in his personal life… When was the last time he’d listened when a date was talking? Really listened? He couldn’t remember. They’d go for drinks, for dinner, and they’d tell him about their careers or their friends. He’d hear them. The words went in. They just didn’t linger. He’d respond appropriately but couldn’t recite any of his own mutterings. Conversations like that didn’t stick.
Professional Xander could be bold or harsh, whatever was required. Personal Xander spent most of his life numb. Work was always on his mind. Dates felt like a waste of his time. During them, he usually focused on how quickly he could get back to work or some situation connected to the business. When was the last time he’d been enraptured by a woman? The last time he’d been in the moment with one? He couldn’t remember that either. In fact, he had no memory of ever being consumed by a personal relationship the way he was by a professional one.
Lowering the glass, he exhaled. “God, it’s depressing.”
Rather than commiserate, his friends smiled and nodded in agreement. Even his friendships were professional. Ethan Atwell was his CFO, keeping a tight rein on the many strands of Venture International Incorporated, VII, colloquially known as “Seven.” Lance Payne was his Chief Operations Officer, working his ass off to keep the wheels turning in the ever-expanding juggernaut.
“Want to talk some more about the Summit Sponsorship?” Ethan asked.
That inspired such interest, he took a step toward the table. “Yes. God, please.”
“No, no, no,” Lance said, not so quick to move on. “We don’t identify problems and then ignore them. Did we get as far as we did by giving up?”
“What are you thinking?”
Ethan might be interested to know; he wasn’t as eager. That light in Lance’s eye was ominous. He’d seen it before. Inspiration had struck his buddy. In business, that worked out for him. Lance’s ability to think fast on his feet made him good at what he did.
“We practice our people skills,” Lance said, rising to go over to the file box in the corner. “For ninety days, he’s got to make it work with a real woman.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked. “Cut my allowance?”
“No, you keep your money,” Lance said, retrieving a file. “You just can’t tell her about it. You don’t tell her your real name or what you really do. She’s got to believe you’re just a regular Joe.”
“Why would I agree to that?”
“The business won’t suffer,” Lance said, mirroring him in his approach to the table until they came to a stop on opposite sides. “You do what you do, just… I don’t know, rent a shitty, regular Joe looking office with crappy furniture and a fake plant… You do what you do remotely. We’ll pick a random city in the US. Topher will rent you an apartment, basic, one bed.”
“You want to set me up in a drug den?”
“No,” Lance said on a snicker. “You can live in a nice, safe neighborhood. The aim is to prove our point, not to get you killed.”
“Your point that I can’t keep a woman happy without money,” he said to his friend’s shrug. “Aren’t we getting a little old for frat boy games?”
Thirty-five wasn’t exactly ancient, he just didn’t have the patience for screwing around like he used to. Which was maybe the foundation of his buddies’ point and why it was breaking through. His professional life was soaring, yet he was unsatisfied. Going to bland hotel suite after bland hotel suite, his personal life was a revolving door of blah. If it wasn’t some corporate function, it was a charity event, or a date with a perfectly fine woman.
He was the job. Nothing more. He loved the job. But he was good at it, maybe too good. The challenge used to be his favorite part. He’d gotten so good, it was almost impossible to fail. Seven was so huge now that even he couldn’t control every nuance. That was when he’d set up the Summit Sponsorship. The program invited start-up companies to pitch ideas for investment. It was supposed to help him recapture the high of the early days. Sometimes he got glimmers of that stimulation, but there was no exhilaration anymore, no real thrill.
“If you’re scared…” Lance said, smirking.
Deadpan, he looked at Ethan. “And now he thinks he can bait me into it.”
“I think it’s worth a cool million.”
A million dollars was nothing. Why would he play along for the sake of such a measly amount—Lance held up a file and then tossed it across the table.
He didn’t have to open the file to know whose it was. “BlueGold,” he said, recalling their disagreement earlier in the day. “It’s a dud.”
