Page 18 of The Hard Launch

When the meeting breaks up, I don’t escape quickly enough. I leave the smallest opening, and it happens.

“Hey, Lacey. Can you hang for a minute?”

He’s trying to sound casual, but he’s not very good at it. I get a lot of raised eyebrows from my team; I’m in detention. I stay in my chair until everyone leaves. I won’t look at him, but I brace myself for a bullshit apology.

“What did I do?” he asks. His tone is more impatient than contrite.

“Are you kidding?” I say, incredulous.

“I’m not. I’m confused,” he says. “Monday morning everything was great, and now you won’t even look at me.”

I look over and see his pained expression, and I tilt my head to the side. “Well, maybe you and Trevor can scale up a tiger team to investigate.”

“Are you serious?” he asks. “Is that what this is about?”

I’m sad when I see he’s not pretending. He really is this oblivious. What’s more aggravating than having to explain to someone how inconsiderate they were?

“I spent seventy-two hours practically chained to a whiteboard with you, and the second you have an opportunity to choose your fratty himbo over me, you do it.”

He gets up from his chair and comes closer. He leans on the edge of the table and gives me a forlorn look that I bet he practices in the mirror. I notice he’s still gelling his hair the way I taught him to.

“Of course I wanted you on the team. But, Lacey, you’re building the bulk of the platform. You have a lot on your plate, so I thought you didn’t want to do it. You didn’t say anything.”

“Maybe I thought my work would speak for itself. For once.”

When I look at him, there’s hurt on his face. I’m surprised to see it there.

“I don’t know what more I can do to make you feel valued here,” he tells me. “I listen to you. I love your ideas. We’re all working on your plan. So what more, then? Do you want me to fire Trevor? Fine. I’ll fire him, if that’s what you need.”

He gets up and walks to the door. I’m pretty sure he’s just being dramatic, but I very much don’t want to build the podcasting bit.

“Jude?” I say, and he pauses without looking back. “Don’t fire Trevor.”

He shakes his head. And he leaves.

CHAPTER EIGHT

JUDE

I don’t have time for much outside of work right now, so it’s frustrating when the few hours of sleep I manage to get are filled with dreams where I’m at the office. It’s not restful to dream about meetings, or surprise visits from Edmund where he’s expecting a report I haven’t done. But those aren’t as bad as a new addition to the lineup, one where Lacey and I are in front of a whiteboard and I push her against it with one hand—a sexy push, not like a violent one—while my other hand reaches up her thigh, pulling her skirt up with it.

It doesn’t take a dream interpretation expert to see that this is my subconscious processing the experience of the past week or so of intense collaboration with Lacey, who is the only other person in the world who cares as much as I do about Lettercat. It’s unsurprising when you look at it this way. Predictable, actually, that what I want for the company would be transfigured in my dreams into a different type of desire.

Unless what it means is that I want to push Lacey up against a wall and take her skirt off, which is an objectively terrible thing for a CEO to be thinking about a team member. Especially one he respects so much and is relying on to save his company. In a series of very short skirts.

This is why you don’t bring your whole self to work. Some parts you just leave at home, or at least you’re supposed to.

I feel like I’m failing at everything these days.

“How about this?” my sister says when I tell her that last part. “Let’s plan a trip to Hawaii for when this thirty-day sprint is over, so you’ll have something really positive to look forward to. We can drink out of coconuts and be each other’s wingman.”

Ella’s heart is in the right place, but there’s no magical moment at the end of this thirty days. I’ll either be able to continue my push for funding, or I’m sprinting off a cliff. Hawaii’s not going to solve any of my problems. And also, this is supposed to be a work call.

“I don’t have time to look forward to anything. Can you give me a project update?” I ask.

“Lacey sent me some mockups today,” Ella says. “She wants me to review the UX her team’s building.”

“That’s great,” I said.