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Thank you for confirming your participation in the Billy. You will receive another email with the conference program and lodging arrangements.
Heart pounding in my chest, I refresh the page every two seconds until the program arrives. I click on the attachment, scrolling down the list of events: keynote speech, panels, a day-long scavenger hunt in the woods. Not that they matter, most of the conference value is in the fireside chats not listed on any program, where business deals are made, alliances forged, and enemies crushed.
Still, I go over the list of speakers one more time, and my heart positively stops in my chest when I catch my name on the list. I’m on a panel titled The Future of Fitness, Brick and Mortar or Social Media? Heavy Weight or Natural? And I’m pitted against none other than the founder of Power Training, Gabriel, Chief Executive Alphahole, Mercer.
Is this a coincidence? I haven’t heard from him in a week, not since I barged in on him working out and made an ass of myself. But it can’t be a fluke of fate. Nothing about MGM says he leaves circumstances to chance. But… not even the Mighty Gabriel Mercer can have that kind of sway over Billy Westwood. Westwood is a genius, a gazillionaire, a visionary. Men like him don’t owe favors to anyone and can’t be strong-armed into doing anything they don’t want to.
I stare at the screen, shaken by this unexpected turn of events.
I am not sure what to think.
I try to remember everything I know about Billy Westwood.
He’s been one of the youngest entrepreneurs to become a unicorn and he’s the founder and CEO of Silicon Billy, the biggest and most influential venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. He founded the Billy Conference hoping to bring together the best minds of the country, but the conference soon grew into a global gathering of the brightest minds in business, law, and politics.
In his spare time, he’s written a few bestselling novels. And his employees love him, adore him, really, at least according to the interviews that have appeared in the press in recent years.
But still… the coolest businessman on the planet or not, it can’t be a coincidence that he put me on a panel with MGM. What connection could Billy and Gabriel have that would allow me to attend the conference?
I rack my brain, trying to remember if I’ve read something about the two of them together. But no. An internet search of the two names comes up equally empty.
And now I’m back to square one. I’m turning my thoughts over and over like a Rubik’s cube.
I can’t crack the riddle myself. I need a second opinion. I grab my phone and dial Marissa.
She picks up on the second ring. “Hey, honey, I’m heading to a meeting. I only have a few minutes.”
“I’ve been invited to the Billy,” I cut to the chase.
The shriek Marissa gives me in response prompts me to distance the phone from my ear. “Oh my gosh, Blake, you’ve been anointed… you’re in the inner circle… you’re…” She pauses. “Wait, why aren’t you screaming with joy?”
“The invitations should’ve gone out months ago, and I only received mine today.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And I’m on a panel against Gabriel Mercer.”
“Oh.” Marissa’s tone confirms all my suspicions.
“Do you think he’s the reason I’ve been invited?”
“It doesn’t sound casual. But do you even care if Mercer is behind a last-second invitation? I mean, it’s the Billy, I’d kill to go there. Your invite doesn’t have a plus one on it by chance, does it?”
“No, sorry. And, yes, it matters because going to the Billy has been a dream for so long, and I don’t want to be invited only as a misguided ploy in the Gabriel Mercer Show. I wanted to get there on my own merits.”
“So you’re not going?” My friend sounds appalled.
“Of course I’m going. I just need to find a way to make that man regret assuming squaring off with me at the most coveted business conference in the world would be a fun way to woo me.”
“What’s the title of the panel?”
“The Future of Fitness,” I read from the conference program. “Brick and Mortar or Social Media? Heavy Weight or Natural?”
“I get the first part but why ask the second question?”
“Power Training, Gabriel’s gyms,” I explain, “are all about lifting heavy weights, his clientele is more beefed-up dudes wanting to build mass. While in my system, I try only to use the natural weight of the body to train and make the body lean. They probably want to explore which offer gets the better market share and maybe explore the merits of both.”
Marissa chuckles. “All you have to do is show a video of him doing ballet to prove lifting heavy weights isn’t the pinnacle of body-mind coordination.”
