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“It’s not funny!”
“I’m sorry. I’m just not used to you losing your cool like this. You work with Don, for god’s sake.”
I groaned. “But I’ve had years to desensitize myself to Don. Plus, let’s face it, we practically have him under our thumb. Just smile and laugh at his terrible jokes, and he basically lets us run the company. Nathan, on the other hand, is a micromanager from hell.”
She winced, knowing firsthand how much I couldn’t stand being told what to do. “Did he seem mad?”
“I don’t know.” I pulled open the door to our favorite café and gestured for Lila to enter first. “I don’t think so? I mean, he said he agreed that respect should be mutual.”
“It sounds like you just put him in his place, then. It’s not like he can fire you for sticking up for yourself.”
“But he can make my life—and working on this project—a living nightmare.” I groaned as we placed our usual latte orders with the barista.
“Maybe it’ll finally give you the motivation to quit and work with me full time.”
“Lila, be for real.”
Drinks in hand, we spilled into our back corner booth that might as well have our names engraved on it for how many hours we’d spent working at it.
“I am for real. We’ve worked our asses off to get where we are and it’s not enough. We’re growing faster than we can handle. It’s time we invest in this.”
“How can we invest if we don’t have actual jobs bringing in real money?”
She glared at me. This had been an ongoing issue for about a month now—ever since our membership had been steadily growing. Lila wanted to build out an app and expand to other cities. She thought this could be bigger than just a local Denver meet-up. I agreed—of course I did. I put everything into this company, and I knew it could succeed. But quitting our jobs and taking a risk like that? It went against all of my instincts.
“I meant investing our time and effort. Obviously, money will be tight but we’ve both been saving for this exact moment. You knew this was coming. I don’t understand why you’re trying to back out now that it’s so close to becoming a reality.”
Feeling guilty, I took a sip of my latte and averted my eyes. She was right. I was full-on chickening out.
“I just need some time.”
“That’s what you keep saying.” She pulled out her personal laptop and began typing something.
As we worked in silence, my brain kept going over her words. I couldn’t keep putting off this problem forever. Lila had grown increasingly frustrated and I couldn’t blame her.
I sighed and looked down at my own computer where I had started transferring all of the new sign-ups into our system.
Why could I feel so confident in myself and my abilities at work but not in this setting? We’d already proven to ourselves we could build a successful business model. What was I so afraid of?
Embarrassment.
Losing money.
Failure.
My last boyfriend, Brian, had engrained those fears into my mind. We had met when I moved here after college and were about to move in together when Lila and I started ConnectHer. He thought she wasn’t a good influence on me. That should have been my first clue that it wasn’t going to work out with us. While I tried to grow this idea I had for a company, he spent his time belittling me and telling me my “side hustle” was never going to take off. He berated me for spending so much time on it. We didn’t make it very long after that.
It didn’t help that my parents weren’t exactly thrilled with ConnectHer either. They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t satisfied with my rock-solid career that paid well.
Those nagging thoughts all loomed heavy in my mind as I stood at the brink of this life-altering decision. In my heart I knew I couldn’t let Lila—or myself—down. But my head still screamed at me to be responsible and not take the risky route.
I was smart, capable, and hardworking. I would tell anyone in the world to bet on me. Hell, I even broke up with Brian because he couldn’t. I’d spent hours on the phone arguing with my parents, telling them I could make it.
Now why couldn’t I tell myself?
Chapter Seven
NATHAN
