Lie With Me

by Holloway, Taylor

  “Yes.”

  “But you two ended up sleeping together instead?”

  I sighed. “Right again.”

  “And you’re in love with him?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  If it wasn’t love that I was feeling, I didn’t know what it was. I’d never felt so turned inside out.

  “Is Lucas in love with you?”

  I wish.

  “He’s in love with his ex. He said that he cared about me too, but I don’t think he realizes how hung up on her he is. He’s clearly still in love with her.”

  “So, what are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going home. I’m about to get on the plane. That was, um, actually the reason that I was calling in the first place.” Way back when I wasn’t a weeping, emotional mess.

  “To tell me you were going home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Rae, I think you should consider that Lucas might be as confused as you are.” Annie’s voice was careful.

  “Maybe, but he’s better off without me. I kept the truth about Azure Group from him. I told him, but probably much too late. I betrayed him.” My heart hurt.

  “No, you didn’t. You did your job. You two were doing business together.”

  “I hate my job.”

  I heard Annie laugh in the background. “I know the feeling.”

  “I just want to go home and sleep for a week.” I pinched the bridge of my nose but it did nothing to help my headache.

  “So, go home and sleep for a week. The world will work itself out.”

  “Hey Annie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re a really good friend. Thanks for listening to my meltdown.”

  “What else are friends for?”

  It was raining cats and dogs in New York. My flight was delayed by the bad weather, and we circled high above the clouds for hours. I wished I could just fly up above the tempest that was raging in me. Instead, I was trapped inside the roiling storm.

  Rationally, I knew that Lucas would do what he would do. He was a smart man. Hell, he was a genuine, certified genius. If he couldn’t figure this situation out, I knew I had no chance of it. The entire problem was out of my hands now. I wished I could put it out of my mind, too, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d said to him.

  I hadn’t pulled any punches in that elevator. Lucas probably thought I was cruel now, and not worth the effort. Maybe I deserved to be hated for everything I’d done. But I thought Victoria did too. It bothered me a lot that I’d all but pushed them back together. He deserved so much more than either of us. He deserved someone good and pure and worthy of him.

  If he wanted to, Lucas could easily cost me my job now. It would be a petty revenge, and an unequal one, but I wouldn’t blame him one bit if he called up McKenzie and told her every word of what I told him. I could only imagine that he had a few choice words for her, too. The truth was, I really didn’t care if I got fired. Besides, they couldn’t fire me. I quit.

  While the plane was waiting to land, I emailed my letter of resignation to Azure Group. I’d thought that I wanted to be in charge of the acquisitions team, but I clearly wasn’t cut out for it. I was too soft. Lucas had given me a gift, in a fucked up, perverse way. He’d given me the gift of clarity, and with it, I was going to get the hell out of Azure Group while I still had half a soul to lose. I wouldn’t let them turn me into the type of person who fucks over innocent business owners like Lucas for the almighty dollar and feels nothing. At least I felt like shit. That must mean I still had some conscience left.

  McKenzie could shove my promotion up her snotty ass. It simply wasn’t worth it to me. I told her as much in my rambling resignation letter.

  … Nothing about this deal was made in good faith, and I resent that I was made into your pawn. I know that I can’t stop you from doing anything, but I can choose not to be a part of your organization anymore. I’ve shared your plan to scrap the Notable Match code with Stevenson. It was a hard thing to do since I’ve always been loyal to my employers, but it was the right thing to do and I can’t regret it. Please don’t take your anger out on Annie or Kyle, as they were not involved...

  I copied Kyle and Annie on the message and hit send with a trembling finger and a generous sip of overpriced airplane gin. It didn’t make me feel better to tell McKenzie to go to hell. There was no righteous victory to be found for me anymore. I was complicit in the scheme to rob Lucas of the success he’d earned. His app deserved to be famous.

  The one thing I could tell myself was that at least he’d have his money. I’d gone through the final closing documents and upped the purchase price by ten percent—back up to market price. Since the arrangement I’d made with Lucas was now null and void, it seemed only fair. Azure Group had agreed to the initial figure, so they could hardly complain. It made me feel the tiniest bit better to ensure that Lucas would at least be compensated properly.

  The closing was at nine a.m. on Monday morning. Given that I’d emailed on a Sunday night, there was really no way for anyone to do a thing. Azure Group had already signed their side of the deal. All that was needed was for Lucas to show up and sign his side to release the funds sitting in escrow. Simultaneously, the source code and backups would be uploaded automatically from Lucas’ servers to Azure Group, giving them formal possession of what they already considered their property.

  A light tap on my shoulder pulled me out of imaginings of the closing. A flight attendant was at my shoulder. She frowned at me like she’d been attempting to get my attention for some time. “Please put your tray table up, Miss. And power down your laptop as well. We’ll finally be landing soon.”

  I nodded numbly. “Sorry.”

  We began our descent into the storm.

  35

  Lucas

  I spent the whole day pacing in my apartment. Back and forth. Back and forth. Like a neurotic zoo tiger. Or a crazy person.

  I had very little to show for my day of frantic pacing. It brought me little clarity and less peace. The only thing it did manage to bring me was a well-worn path in the carpet and the bored-yet-somehow-still-judgmental gazes of Moxie and Bob. They probably thought I’d lost my mind. They were probably right.

  Victoria’s texts from this morning were still on my phone, taunting me, but still unanswered. I had no idea what I should say to her, if anything. Did I still have feelings for her? Yes. But maybe I always would. She’d been a powerful force in my life at a time that I needed someone like her. It was another, much more complicated question as to whether we belonged together now.

  It wasn’t just Victoria that kept me pacing. Rae’s words to me the night before echoed through my brain on repeat.

  They change their agreements whenever it suits them. It’s now in their interest to liquidate it.

  She was right. Of course, she was right. Azure Group was many times larger than any ordinary mortal like me. If I thought I was scheming, I was grossly outclassed. Azure Group was filled with people smarter, shrewder, and more scheming than I ever thought about being.

  Individuals don’t win against multi-billion-dollar corporations.

  Rae was right again. Multi-billion-dollar corporations can do basically anything they want to do in our society. I wasn’t such a naïve, insulated member of the white, male, ruling class that I didn’t notice how big business screwing over the little guy hard, early, and often. And that was legal. They could take an extra-legal approach if it appealed to them. If I seriously pissed Azure Group off, they could just, you know, kill me. They’d almost certainly get away with it, too. They’d make it look like an accident or pay off some cops. The idea that I might be able to challenge them was laughable.

  Azure Group already has your code. You gave it to them. Back out now and they’ll destroy it anyway. You either let them pay you for the pleasure and enjoy being CEO of a shell for five years or fight them and lose. They’ll send your case over to our legal department and sue you for e
verything you’re worth. They want Notable Match dead and their pockets are deeper than yours. No matter what you do, Notable Match gets fucked. But you should still sign the deal, because if you don’t, you get destroyed for free.

  There was no system created by humans that can’t be dismantled and destroyed by smarter, more determined humans. One of my strengths was in knowing when I wasn’t the smartest guy in the room. When it came to the law, I knew I wasn’t likely to be the smartest guy. Not by a long shot. I’m sure my agreement with them was thoroughly exploitable. My algorithms might be incomprehensibly opaque, but my lawyer was one guy and they had an army.

  I ran a hand through my hair in frustration for the thousandth time. I probably looked like a mad scientist at this point. I wished that I was a mad scientist. Maybe then I could figure out how to save Notable Match.

  Just take the money and run. Forget about Notable Match.

  It wasn’t bad advice. Rae was as practical, as always. The money that was heading my way was well up into the seven digits. I’d be set for many, many decades. But that wasn’t what I wanted. What I wanted was to see Notable Match live up to its potential. I believed in the power of technology to bring people together. I believed that Notable Match offered something very different from what was currently available in the marketplace. It wasn’t the cure for cancer or anything but putting people together could make them happy. I wanted to make people happy. That mattered to me.

  I’d had a happy childhood mostly because my parents had a happy marriage. Growing up where and when I did, a lot of my friends’ parents were divorced. I knew that I was lucky to have the family life that I had. My sister, brother, and I never had to worry about the things my friends with divorced parents did. I never had to be stressed out about celebrating holidays twice, or whether my parents would get into an embarrassing fight at a soccer game. The idea that in some small way I could help people find the same happiness my parents had was valuable not just to me but to society.

  My musings were interrupted by a knock on the door. My heart leapt, thinking that maybe Rae had returned. But when I threw the door open, it was Annie, Rae’s coworker.

  “Hi Annie.”

  “Hi Mr. Stevenson,” she said, clearly uncomfortable to be calling on me alone. “Rae caught the earlier flight out this afternoon, but she emailed that she forgot something at her hotel and wanted me to drop this off for you.”

  She handed me an envelope.

  “What is it?” Whatever it was, it was light

  Annie shook her head. “She didn’t say.” She shifted from foot to foot. “Well, I gotta run. Me and Kyle’s flight leaves in an hour. Congratulations on your closing.”

  “Thanks.”

  I shut the door and ripped into the envelope. Disappointment shot through me. The only things in the envelope were my stock certificates. I threw the envelope on my kitchen table an almost missed the note that accompanied them. I scooped it up to read it eagerly.

  Dear Lucas, I know you’ve probably got a lot on your mind, but maybe having these certificates back will help just a little. I hope you’ll believed me that I never wanted to make your life more difficult or hurt you. I didn’t want the deal to go down the way it did. I hope you get everything you deserve in life. If Victoria is the person who can make you happy, then I hope you get her too. I wish things could have been different between us. Anyway, I consider our deal to be complete so I’m returning your stock certificates now. All the best, Rae.

  I read and re-read the letter until I could recite it from memory. Does it still count as a dear-john letter if it comes from your fake girlfriend? It definitely felt that way to me. I shoved the note away from me on the table, feeling sick to my stomach.

  The day was wasted, but even though I had come to no decisive conclusions, a couple of things did become clearer to me during my pacing. Not fighting—simply rolling over and accepting my fate like Moxie and Bob did when I trimmed their claws down, was not an option. It simply wasn’t in me. Surrender was not an option when it came to Notable Match, and certainly not an option when it came to Rae. It was time for me to stop pouting in my apartment and do something about my problems. Now if only I knew what that something should be, I’d really be off to a good start.

  36

  Lucas

  I was hungry, it was dark, and I didn’t want takeout. That meant I had to go to the grocery store. After a day spent puttering around my apartment like a crazy person, I dressed and ventured out reluctantly. My mind could have spent forever recycling the same problems and fruitless solutions, but my stomach was a lot less patient. The only thing I had in my barren cupboard was cat food, and I wasn’t ready to stoop that low.

  “Lucas! Lucas, wait for me!”

  I froze mid-step in the lobby of my building. I know that voice. I’ll always know that voice. A moment later, a familiar face appeared next to me.

  “Victoria what are you doing here?”

  Victoria didn’t look her usual, polished self. Not remotely. Her makeup was smeared, and her nose was red. There was a tissue clutched in her left hand. She’d obviously been crying.

  Because of me and Rae? Had she been crying over me?

  “Lucas, I’m sorry for ambushing you like this. I just really need to talk to you.” Her voice shook, and her green eyes were wide and bloodshot.

  I stared at her in disbelief. “Victoria? How long have you been waiting down here?”

  “A while.” She looked down at her combat-booted feet. She stuffed her hands into the pockets of the fashionable pair of pink denim overalls she was wearing. A stray thought flickered through my mind that Rae wouldn’t be caught dead in those overalls. I beat it into submission. Rae was gone.

  I wondered vaguely how long Victoria had been waiting in the lobby that she wasn’t willing to share. An hour? Two? Since she texted me before Rae left? That was around noon. It was now nearly seven p.m. My mind resisted my attempts to make sense of the situation.

  “Why didn’t you come upstairs and knock on the door?” I asked her.

  It wasn’t like she didn’t know where I lived. She’d lived there too, not that long ago. We’d picked it out together, during much happier times. She used to love it there.

  Victoria’s bloodshot green eyes blinked, and then narrowed. “I didn’t know if Rae was there with you… I didn’t want to interrupt anything and I wanted to talk to you alone.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. So, I said nothing. Victoria frowned. Jealousy and dislike were clear on her face. I’d realized long ago that Victoria was the jealous type. She didn’t even like it when waitresses smiled at me in restaurants (and had gone off on women who hit on me before in fairly spectacular fashion once or twice). But what had once been vaguely charming and cute to me now felt cloying and obnoxious. I wasn’t her personal property. She had thrown me away. Rae also wasn’t her rival. There was no competition. And it wasn’t just because Rae was gone, either.

  There was a time when I wouldn’t have considered this moment anything less than a total victory. But now, I felt… nothing. I looked at Victoria and felt absolutely fucking nothing. The emptiness in me was painless, but vast. I could imagine a tumbleweed slowly working its way across a huge, empty desert in my heart. It was too desolate on that barren landscape for any emotion to take hold. Certainly not the elation and love I ought to be feeling.

  “I got your text,” I finally told Victoria. She stared at me like she was waiting for me to say something else, but I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say. This morning my entire life imploded. I didn’t want to use something so seismic as the double wounds of Azure Group and Rae to explain why I hadn’t returned her text for a lunch date. Besides, I wasn’t sure if returning her text was still something I wanted to do.

  “I miss you, Lucas. I… I think that you and I should give it another shot. I still want you.” The words tumbled out of her mouth like she was tripping over them.

  God, how many times had I drea
med of her saying that? At least a thousand times. So why did I feel nothing?

  The moment stretched. It became awkward. We stared at each other across a gulf of unspoken pain and misplaced expectations. This wasn’t how I expected this to be.

  The only thing I could think about was the first time she’d cheated on me. Well, it was the first time I knew that she’d cheated on me. It probably hadn’t been the actual first time. The feeling of shock and pain was palpable, even now. I may not be able to feel new things now that my heart was a lifeless desert, but I could remember them.

  Betrayal is a memorable thing. I felt inadequate and small. Stupid and gullible. Transparent and paper thin. The pain lingered on and on, even after we fought, and I forgave her and tried to move on. It felt like someone had tied an incredibly heavy weight to my ankle and I was doomed to drag that pain of knowing she’d strayed around forever. No matter what I did, I couldn’t escape it. The idea that she might be causing that pain to someone else made my stomach cramp with physical discomfort.

  “Did you break up with Kane?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

  Her lips parted. It wasn’t what she expected me to say. “I will.” Her alto voice was strong and convincing. She probably believed it, too. But I knew better. She always sounded that way when she told me she’d never cheat again.

  “Does he know where you are right now?”

  Was he waiting in her bed? Or by the phone? Was he worried about her while she was barking up my tree?

  She shook her head. “Jason’s at a gig. I had to talk to you. Lucas, please, talk to me.” She paused. “I can’t keep pretending like I’m happy for you and Rae. You’re meant to be with me, not her.”

  “Do you love me, Victoria?” In my new, desert-like state, I could be direct.

  “Yes.” She raised her chin up and stared me in the eye. “I love you. And I know that you still love me.” Her green eyes held no deceit that I could find. She was telling me the truth as she knew it.