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“Do you, Mace? Look, I like Dillon and I can’t say that about all the founders I’ve invested in. I’d like to knock out a bunch of them too. Dillon is the real deal. He has the smarts and the heart and all the right intentions, but he’s doing everything you need for the first time.”
“So am I.” Which was the point. Ipseity was a game changer.
“I get your loyalty. I admire it.”
Is that all it was? Dillon was his family. Was he thinking clearly enough? He was tired all the time and constantly on edge. Getting to the end of every week with an intact business plan was the biggest challenge he’d ever faced. He’d learned enough to know business and loyalty were incompatible forces, but they’d come so far in seven months, in fifteen years of dreaming, doing it without Dillon was a severing his whole body revolted against.
“We’ll work harder.”
“Shake it off, Mace.”
“You don’t understand me.” Jay widened his stance, folded his arms. “We’ll work harder, jump higher, sprint faster. We’ll take on a coach, a leadership mentor full-time, we’ll even dilute our shares to get the right person, but I’m not doing this without Dillon as equal partner.”
“You do know what you’re saying?”
As surely as Jay knew how to bake a good sourdough. Mace nodded, once, the back of his neck so tight it was a wonder his head moved at all.
Jay sighed. “I could close you down now and there are twenty, forty, a hundred other guys like you, just as hungry, who’ll take your place.”
Mace shrugged. He’d made his decision. Jay would make his and there was nothing he could do to alter it.
“Talk to Cin. She can help you on this.”
He hadn’t talked to Cinta in days and he knew she was uptight about her show. He couldn’t involve her in this any more than he could make her stop looking at him like he’d broken them. She’d done enough for him and Dillon on the way here with counsel and advice. And he’d done nothing lately for her.
“You were there for her.”
Jay inclined his head. His hair was barbershop perfect. It was hard to believe he’d been in a dressing gown when they met. “What are you asking me?”
“I’m thanking you. You were there for Cinta when she was in trouble.”
“I was. Not that she truly needed me.” Jay smiled for the first time. “She had it under control. She was lonely and didn’t know by how much before you arrived. I was keeping her company. I hope you get that us doing business has put distance between her and I. You’re a conflict of interest.”
He was conflict all round; fighting deadlines, time, Dillon, Anderson, Cinta and now Jay.
“Take tonight to think it over.”
“I’m done thinking, Jay.”
He left Jay in the car park and made his walk out official by getting in the car. He went home, but she wasn’t there and that had the effect of turning his frustration into anger. He changed and went for a run, his legs protesting the sudden burst of activity after almost none for at least a fortnight.
He shouldn’t have hit Dillon. He should’ve called Cinta and gone to meet her wherever she was, taken her flowers in some dumb show that everything was okay between them. It was not okay, it was fraying at the edges. Buster had taught him to darn so he knew he could stitch them back together, but he needed time and time had become a commodity more rationed than free money.
The last time he’d tried to make time sparkle for them, he’d taken Cinta out to dinner, but spent twenty minutes standing outside the restaurant talking to Anderson on his phone. He’d been distracted when he came back inside, and they’d eaten in silence. He hadn’t been able to look at her, though she never said a word in complaint. Then he was so annoyed with himself he’d stayed up half the night working before crashing on the sofa in the office again, feeling like he didn’t deserve to lie next to her.
When his phone rang he hoped to God it was her and she had time for him. He pulled up and leant on telegraph pole, fumbled in his shorts for his handset.
“Where are you?”
Dillon. He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to get enough oxygen on the next intake to talk.
“Wait, I don’t care where you are. But I need to know what you said to Jay.”
“Told him I was out if we weren’t equal partners.”
“Yeah, fuckwit to the core. Did you also happen to mention taking on a mentor and doing the moonwalk bare-arse, wearing a ball and chain?”
Mace’s chest heaved. Close enough. “Yeah.”
