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“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll try and keep that in mind.”
I retired to my room and spent a few minutes putting together an outfit for tomorrow. I was seriously running out of good stuff to wear. There was no way I was going to wear my frumpy stuff in front of him. I didn’t know if he was trying to lure me in just so he could drop me on my ass. If so, I wanted to look good when it happened.
I chose a pair of black slacks and a beige top. It wasn’t exactly sexy. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of sexy clothes, which was just another sad reminder of the state of my life. I had slowly been shriveling up. I had to shake it off. I had to claw my way back to the land of the living.
I didn’t know if Jon was my way back to the living but maybe. Maybe he was my answer to finally finding true happiness. My life was good, but it wasn’t great. I wanted excitement. I wanted greatness. Something told me Jon would bring that kind of excitement into my life.
“Come on, Handcock.” I patted the bed and waited for him to jump up. “Buddy, your namesake would be so surprised to see you. I bet he might even be a little insulted. I wouldn’t be. I think it’s awesome. I have to say, when I named you, I never thought we would be seeing him again.”
I smiled at the idea of Jon meeting the cat. That was a little embarrassing. He would know I’d been thinking about him. I wasn’t sure I was ready to admit that just yet.
16
JON
Idressed with the sole purpose of impressing Macy. It’d been a long time since I tried to impress a woman. Usually, it just kind of happened. I hated that I wanted to impress her, though. It was as if I had multiple people inside my head battling it out. Part of me wanted to lean into the idea of having a relationship with her. The other part of me was telling me to run as far and as fast as I could. Then there was that little devil demanding revenge.
I had to hold on to the devil’s horns. It was self-preservation. She had the power to take me down. Again. I couldn’t let myself fall into that same trap. There was no denying the chemistry between us. We had a serious attraction that was just as powerful as it had been that first night we saw each other.
I needed to stick with my plan. I was going to woo her. She would soften toward me and come to work for me. Even if she didn’t work for me, I could still reel her in. I wanted to pull her in and then drop her on her ass like she had done to me.
On my way to the college, I got stopped at a light with an older woman selling flowers on the corner. I rolled down my window and honked the horn of my little red sports car. She rushed over and passed me a bouquet. I handed her a fifty and took off at the green.
When I got to the college, it only took about thirty seconds before I found the office she worked in. She wasn’t there. I left the flowers on her desk and found my way to the lecture hall.
I was going to ask her to dinner again, but my plan had evolved. I wasn’t going to try and convince her to work for me. I didn’t need her to work for me to make this plan work. We’d go to dinner, I would make her think there was a chance of us getting together, and then I would ghost her. I would let her know there was not a chance in hell I would ever want her in my life.
I pushed open the door and found my team already getting things together. “These bios look great,” one said.
“What bios?” I asked.
“We passed on some information to the young woman helping facilitate this,” she explained. “She did a great job. She made sure to note all the organizations you donate to and included their information for those that want to emulate you.”
I picked up the packets that were going to be handed out today. I ignored the black and white picture of me on the cover. I was reading the introductory paragraph. It was about what it meant to be generous with one’s time as well as their money. There were a few quotes from a speech I had given at a foundation event last year.
“Did you put this together?” I asked.
“We sent her some highlights of things we thought were important,” the woman answered. “She put it all in that piece.”
I nodded and put the packet back on the table. “Impressive. These were already here?”
“Macy was here a bit ago. She went to get coffee or something.”
I felt a little guilty for being so demanding yesterday. It wasn’t really my style, but I was trying to find every way possible to stick it to her. If anyone asked, I would say the flowers were for the hard work she put in yesterday.
I finally caught a glimpse of Macy but didn’t get a chance to talk to her before the seminar started. I had my little mic on and was feeling in my element. Yesterday had gone well, judging by the crowd in the hall today. There were actually people standing against the back wall.
“For those of you that were here yesterday, you heard all about thehowto get a business started,” I said from the front of the room. I was glad for the cordless mic. It left me free to move about. I couldn’t stand staying in one place. “Now, before we get into the good stuff, I want to talk to you about setting realistic goals. There are all kinds of acronyms you will hear in the world of business about goal setting. Some are good. I would say my main rule when it comes to goals is hit them. Don’t set a goal and not hit it. I’m a stickler for charts and graphs. I’m the guy checking the numbers every single day. My team knows I want to see the brass tacks every morning. When you get lost in the day-to-day, you forget about the goals. If you don’t know what you sold on Monday and Tuesday, and then you decide to check on Friday, you’re either going to be pleasantly surprised or panicked.”
I looked into the crowd and watched the people taking notes. I continued to talk about some of my best practices. Moments like these felt a little surreal. I remembered my father giving me these talks. Some days, I still felt like the young kid hanging on every word. Now, at the ripe old age of thirty-three, I was giving the same lecture my father had given me.
“Why watches?” a student asked during the Q and A session.
“My father was a watch repairman,” I answered. “He had a small shop in downtown San Francisco. My mom worked out of the home and I would often find myself hanging out with my dad. I was always fascinated by the idea of time. And then there were all these little gadgets tracking the time. I’m sure it is probably a boring subject to most, but to me, I couldn’t get enough of it. I would always marvel at the various watches my dad would work on. I started talking to my dad about making his own watches. He seemed to know which parts were good and which were bad. I used to listen to him complain about this or that part. I told him to make his own watch. That’s where it started.”
“Do you design the watches?”
I nodded. “I do. But not alone. I have an amazing design team that helps, but I do a lot of the sketches. My team takes my ideas and makes them into these amazing watches.”
