I’d loved her. Now that I was a desert, I could view in hindsight what had not been clear to me when I was too lost in the thick of my emotions. I’d loved her. I’d loved her so much it was still not possible to quantify. But it was also past tense. I was no longer in love with Victoria.
I stared down at my feet. “I’m sorry Victoria. I can’t do this.” I didn’t want to see her face when I said it, but I couldn’t resist. I looked up to see disbelief on Victoria’s face. She shook her head.
“Why? Because of that girl? Rae?” She sneered.
That girl?
I resisted the impulse to roll my eyes at Victoria or snap at her. She was too vulnerable to make fun of, even though she’d laughed at my pain enough times. I wouldn’t stoop to her level. I wasn’t a cruel person, and I wouldn’t let her turn me into one.
“No Victoria. It’s not because of Rae. We aren’t together anymore, and trust me, our relationship was never what you thought. This is because of me.”
Once upon a time, Victoria and I had been right for each other. Victoria had been vivacious, fun, and creative. Back then, she’d been more empathetic and less narcissistic. She’d healed me when I was in a very dark and desolate place emotionally. I’d given her the structure and pragmatism she needed to grow and reach her potential. Our time together had been good for a long time. It was full of chemical excitement and hormonal overload. We’d been young. The problem was that we grew up. We grew into strangers that had nothing in common. I wanted to make it work, but she’d ultimately had the right idea. Not all love is meant to last. Now, for the first time, I was willing to accept that Victoria and I were done.
Wendy had told me that I needed to fight for true love. Fight for my soulmate. Fight for my happy ending. All of Wendy’s advice had been good, but none of it was about Victoria.
But Victoria was still attractive. I couldn’t deny it and wouldn’t ever try. Even now, with her mascara smeared underneath her eyes like war paint and her skin blotchy and red from crying, she was prettier than most women on their best day. Most women, however, weren’t Rae.
When I first met Rae, all I could think about was how much I wished she were Victoria. Now that I was finally face to face with Victoria again, and she was swearing that she still loved me, all I could think about was how much I wished she were Rae.
You’re the biggest fucking moron that has ever walked the earth, my heart whispered. You let Rae walk away from you. And for what?
“Where’s Kane’s gig tonight?” I asked her.
She frowned. “Houston. Why? Lucas, we need to talk. We were meant to be together.” She put a hand on my arm. “Let me convince you. You know that I can convince you.” Her voice had turned into that throaty purr that always turned me on. It did nothing for me now.
I shook my head at her. “No. I don’t want to be convinced. Look, I gotta go,” I told Victoria. “I’m sorry you waited so long for nothing.”
My words had more meanings than one. She’d waited too long to decide she wanted me. In the meantime, I’d fallen out of love with her. I was in love with someone else. Someone who really was right for me. It was time for me to take some action. I might not be able to save my company, but there was a chance that I could make Rae mine. And if it worked, I’d have Victoria to thank for it.
37
Lucas
It brought me no joy to press send on the text twenty minutes later, but it was necessary.
Lucas: Hey man, you don’t know me but I’m Victoria’s ex, Lucas. I thought you should know that she just tried to cheat on you with me.
Jason: What? How’d you get this number? Is this a prank?
Lucas: Ryan Marks gave me your number.
Jason: Nobody has this number. I barely know Ryan. He doesn’t have it.
Lucas: Yeah, he does. He got it from Ian Finley and Ian got it from your manager.
Jason: What’s my manager’s name?
Lucas: Fuck if I know. Dude. I’m just trying to help you. Take it or leave it.
Jason: So… this isn’t a prank?
Lucas: I’m afraid not. Sorry.
Jason: This had better not be Vic.
Lucas: I have no idea who that is. I’m Lucas Stevenson.
Jason: Wait, you’re Lucas? Victoria’s ex Lucas Stevenson? The genius app guy?
Lucas: Uh, yes. Victoria’s ex. That’s me.
Jason: … Fuck.
Lucas: I’m sorry to tell you like this.
Jason: Fuck.
Lucas: I’ll leave you alone. I just thought you’d want to know.
Jason: Did you fuck her?
Lucas: No. Definitely not. We’re done.
Jason: She came onto you.
Lucas: Yeah. I think it was a jealousy thing more than anything, if it helps.
Jason: Um, not really, no. It doesn’t help.
Lucas: I know the feeling. She cheated on me too when we were together. A lot.
Jason: Ok. Shit. I wondered why she was being so weird.
Lucas: Yeah.
Jason: God dammit. Well, thanks man. She clearly didn’t deserve you. LOL. Didn’t deserve me either. At least this means I can go out clubbing tonight!
Lucas: You’re taking this surprisingly well. I’m glad. I was kind of worried you’d freak out on me and threaten me or something.
Jason: Threaten you over Victoria? No way. What can I say? I bounce back. Musicians have to deal well with rejection. Victoria and I weren’t exactly soulmates anyway. I’ll be fine… well, after I dump her spoiled, cheating ass.
Lucas: Glad to hear it. Be safe man. Love your music. Axial Tilt is amazing.
Jason: Thanks! That means a lot. And I owe you one. You ever need a favor, call me. I’m good for it. You have my word.
Lucas: No way. You don’t owe me anything. But, um, a bit of unsolicited advice? Get an STD test. I may not be the first.
Jason: Good call. On it. Thanks again.
Jason Kane sounded like a chill guy. I was glad he was gonna be ok. Ratting out Victoria was the right thing to do, even if it did come with just the slightest thrill of vindication. I had no doubt that Victoria would be ok too. She was probably picking someone new up to soothe her ego as I texted with her boyfriend. Victoria really just needed to meet someone that was as insane as she was. Or maybe she just needed to be polyamorous and was trying to fit a square peg in a round hole? I didn’t really care much. That was all her problem.
Besides, I had problems of my own. At least I knew what to do now. I was sitting on the plane to New York, about to take off, before I remembered something very important. I whipped out my phone and started tapping surreptitiously and hoping that the flight attendants wouldn’t see what I was doing.
Lucas: Cole, you up?
Cole: Seriously? We’ve been over this. You aren’t my type.
Lucas: Yeah right. I’m everyone’s type.
Cole: Oh, are we talking about blood donations or something? I was talking about how ugly you are. Is there an actual reason you’re texting at 11 p.m.?
Lucas: I gotta go out of town for a couple of days. Can you feed Moxie and Bob until I get home?
Cole: No. Sorry. Ordinarily I’d say yes, but Kate and I are going to visit her mom tomorrow in Plano.
Lucas: Shit. Ward and Emma are on their honeymoon.
Cole: LOL This is what happens when you only have two friends.
Lucas: I have more than two friends.
Cole: Name one.
Lucas: Ryan Marks.
Cole: Fine. Get him to feed the cats.
Lucas: He’s in Dallas this week.
Cole: Ok so you have three friends. You’re a sad man.
Lucas: Ian’s my friend too.
Cole: Ian’s an actual idiot. Like, a certified idiot. Did you see how drunk he got at the wedding? That shit was disgraceful.
Lucas: He’s got poor impulse control, you know that. He’s still my friend. That’s four.
Cole: Ian only counts as half a friend. Three and a
half.
Lucas: This is fun but do you have Wendy’s number?
Cole: Seriously? You’re gonna make poor little Wendy feed your cats?
Lucas: No. I’m going to politely ask Wendy if she will please, kindly feed my cats.
Cole: No way man. Wendy’s too nice. You can’t ask her for a favor like that. She’ll feel obligated to say yes. But she’s allergic to cats too.
Lucas: She’s allergic to everything. I’ll pay her.
Cole: Her allergies are no joke.
Lucas: I’ll pay her and buy her a gas mask too.
Cole: Kate says I can’t give you her number.
Lucas: WTF. It takes five minutes to feed the cats. In and out. If she’s really slow.
Cole: Kate says no.
Lucas: Come on. Don’t be whipped. What’s her number?
Cole: This is Kate texting now. Leave Wendy alone.
Goddamn it. I ran through my list of contacts and cringed. Cole was right. I only had two real friends that I could trust and depend on. Ryan travelled too much, and I didn’t really trust Ian. Ian was the type of guy who would go to my apartment and release a bunch of live mice, so the cats could hunt them, or simply forget to feed them entirely and have a kegger in my apartment. The guy had a lot of growing up to do.
This was a real problem. If the cats weren’t fed on time they definitely wouldn’t die, but they would certainly poop in my shoes to express their displeasure. They were vengeful little creatures, but I loved them. I thought I was going to need to pay my lawyer to feed the cats until I remembered something. I knew a world-famous Rockstar that owed me a favor. I hoped that Jason Kane liked cats.
I hadn’t packed any luggage for my impromptu trip, and when I got off the plane in New York, it was 3 a.m. and fucking freezing. Rae hadn’t been kidding about the shitty weather. I called an Uber and ended up spending the night in an IHOP on the corner across the street from the building that housed Azure Group.
Rae had blocked my number, and I didn’t know where she lived, so ambushing her at work was my only way of getting in touch with her. Was it a creepy stalker-ish thing to do? Hell yes, it was. But I had a plan. So, although I was exhausted, I ordered myself some subpar buttermilk pancakes, drank the stale-ass coffee, and settled in for a good, long wait.
At least I had plenty of time to rehearse what I would say to Rae.
38
Rae
Despite being newly unemployed, I woke up Monday morning and got ready to go into the office. I had a little family of cactuses that needed to be retrieved from my cubicle. I wasn’t going to let them die just because I quit. They hadn’t done anything wrong. Those cactuses were my one personal item at my desk, and they represented my humanity in the face of Azure Group’s oppressive corporate evil. They were my totems. They had to be rescued.
It was a thin reason for going to the office where I was no longer employed, but I’d not been unemployed since I was fifteen years old and honestly didn’t know what else to do. The alternative was sitting around in my apartment and agonizing over whether or not Lucas would show up to his closing, whether he had ever cared about me, and whether or not I’d ever see him again. I was fairly certain that the answer to the last two questions were no. I just wasn’t ready to confront them yet.
I was just about to leave the house for the office when a knock at my door made me pause. Who on earth would be here at six a.m.? I stared through the peephole warily.
“Annie?” I threw the door open and stared at her in disbelief. “You know where I live?”
Annie hugged me, and I hugged her back with more excitement than I thought I had in me. I was really, really glad to see her. I wasn’t sure if I’d get the chance to say goodbye. I was afraid to text her because I only had her corporate cell phone number, not her personal one. I didn’t want to get her in trouble for continuing to talk to me or put her in an awkward position by making her decide not to reply. Next to her on the ground, she had my cactuses in a banker’s box.
“I’ve got mad hacker skills,” she said simply. “I just looked it up in your HR file.”
I smirked. That figured. I’d always suspected that Annie’s skill set was a lot more useful than Kyle’s. Azure Group paid him more, of course. That company could go to hell.
“Thank you for bringing my cactuses. I was just on the way to go pick them up.” They were going to love getting some natural light. I already knew what window I’d put them in.
“No problem. I stopped by early this morning and I thought you might want them.”
“Come on in,” I said, beckoning her inside. “Do you want some coffee? I’ve still got some in the pot. It’s hazelnut flavored.”
She shook her head. “I have to go into work in a minute,” she replied. “But I wanted to come by first and tell you about the plan.” Annie looked excited.
I felt my eyebrows climb up my forehead. “The plan? What plan? There’s a plan?”
She nodded seriously. She raised a finger to pause me, took out her corporate cell phone from her purse and put in my microwave. My eyebrows were probably threatening my hairline they were so far up my face. Was Annie secretly Edward Snowden or something? Was Azure Group listening in?
“It’s just a precaution,” she told me. “Do you still have yours?”
I shook my head. “I dropped my phone and laptop in the mailbox right after I quit. I wanted a clean break.” I might have also given them both a good once-over with a powerful magnet just to be sure they would never work again, too.
“Good. That’s good,” she said. I half wondered if Annie was going to go all double-oh-seven and scan my kitchen for bugs, but she didn’t.
“Why is that good?” I was beginning to get seriously confused. This was not the Annie I knew. She looked determined, and not just in an ordinary way. This was a whole different level of determination. Her voice was usually soft, but today it was strong and decisive. She was even standing up straighter. “I’m so confused.”
“We don’t want them to be able to track your movements with the phone. They probably aren’t tracking me or anything, but I figured it was smart to shield the phone anyway.”
“We? Who is ‘we’?”
“Kyle and I think we know how to save Notable Match. But we need your help.”
My jaw went slack. “We can’t save it. It’s too late.” Annie’s presence in my apartment would seem to suggest otherwise, however. My inner optimist perked up her ears.
“No, it isn’t. It’s only six thirty a.m. east coast time. The deal won’t be signed until at least nine-thirty a.m. That means we still have several hours before Azure Group will own it.” She paused to evaluate my reaction.
“Ok. I’m listening.”
If they thought they knew how to save Notable Match, I was definitely listening. I was fucking all ears.
Annie smirked. “Alright, so the plan goes like this. We know that Azure Group wants to purchase Notable Match so that they can contain the technology, right?”
“Right.”
“The algorithms themselves are really the only valuable part of the company. But the algorithms are entirely incomprehensible. They were beyond bizarre. There’s no way that Azure Group could ever reverse engineer them.”
“What do the algorithms have to do with anything?” I asked.
Annie frowned at my interjection. “Well, for one, Azure Group has them. If we’re going to save them, we need to steal them back. Otherwise they could potentially use them against Lucas somehow.”
I blinked. “Well, ok. But we can steal them all we want and that won’t save Notable Match. Because if Lucas tries to pull out the deal now, that will just trigger the typical Azure Group overreaction. McKenzie personally promised the Datability people that she’d kill Notable Match. We both know how this will go. They’ll get legal involved and just bully Lucas into selling by burying him in expensive, endless litigation.”
“You’d be right, except that’s where you come in.”
> “Ok. I clearly shouldn’t have interrupted. Explain it your way.”
Annie’s smirk turned into a quick grin. “Thank you. So, while Kyle and I are going in and wiping all the data that Azure Group has on Lucas’ technology—and it’s definitely a two-person job—you are going to march into McKenzie’s Monday morning board meeting and lay down the terms of your sexual harassment lawsuit that will be the lynch pin that prevents Azure Group from bullying Lucas. As a side bonus, you’ll be providing a distraction that will help Kyle and I do the stealing.”
I laughed. “I don’t have a sexual harassment lawsuit.” I shook my head and smirked, thinking of Cliff. “God knows I should, but I don’t.”
Annie smirked. “Actually, you do.” She pulled out a file folder from her briefcase and handed it to me. It was thick and heavy. Thousands of pages.
I lifted the cover to see one of the many, many emails that Cliff and other managers had sent to me that were inappropriate. This particular one was fairly mild. It was about a blouse that I’d worn to a client meeting that was slightly tighter than my usual loose-fitting, boring, button down silk blouse. In the email, Cliff was suggesting that I purchase more blouses in that style for future client meetings or consider unbuttoning my blouses so that more cleavage was on display. A particular paragraph in the email was highlighted: You have a unique set of assets that can be used to influence key client impressions. Double D’s if I’m not mistaken. They won’t stay perky and jiggly forever. You might as well put them to good use.
“Cliff really is a huge pig,” I said with a shake of my head. He stared at my tits all the time. At this point I was just used to it.
“Keep going,” Annie encouraged. “It gets better.” She was quivering with excitement.
I thumbed through the emails that Annie had somehow gotten her hands on. They weren’t all to me, or from Cliff. Some of them were to Annie, or other women we worked with. Some of them were to Kyle and other men and women of color. We’d all been harassed during our time at Azure Group. Much of it was old fashioned sexual harassment or racism, but not all of it. There was a wealth of employment related lawsuit fodder in the folder. It was diverse, too. There was even some highly inappropriate weight-related bullshit that someone sent to Annie.
Lie With Me Page 20