Page 67 of The Hard Launch

“Do it,” Jude tells him, and walks away.

“One,” I say to the QA guy, in my most threatening tone. I hold up a single finger. “You have one hour.”

And then I run to catch up with Jude, telling Trevor that he needs to come with me as I hustle past.

“Hang on,” Trevor tells Jude. He reads from his phone, “Can you see out of both eyes?”

“What?”

“Do you have a severe headache? How about numbness, specific to one side of your body?”

“I’m not having a stroke, Trev. I’m doing this. It’s happening.” Jude says, clapping Trevor on the back. He’s smiling, and not in a deranged madman kind of way. Not even like the Jude I spent weeks flirting with in a conference room. There’s a lightness to him that I don’t know I’ve seen before.

I sit down on the couch; I’m suddenly feeling a little dizzy.

“The LOI specifically calls out that we can’t release any new products without Corday Ford’s approval while the deal’s pending,” Trevor says.

“I know. But I decided I don’t care,” Jude tells him, spreading his palms wide.

“Bro.”

“Hi,” I say. They both turn to me. “A question about the consequences.”

“Oh, they’re bad,” Jude says.

“It’ll probably kill the deal,” Trevor adds.

“I thought you said they were bad,” I tell him.

“And then they’ll sue the shit out of Lettercat. And probably Jude, too.”

“You don’t care?” I ask Jude.

With zero hesitation he shrugs, and then smiles at me. “Fuck it. I’m a pirate.”

I smile back, because I can’t help it.

“I’ll be a pirate,” I say.

“Bros,” Trevor says. “What are you talking about?”

With Glenn still out on leave, Amber is the only other officer of the company in the building. Jude pings her and asks her to come into his office, where Trevor is fretting about his future reputation and I’m running through the once-abandoned launch day checklist.

“What’s going on?” she says.

“It’s probably a good idea for you to go home for the day,” Jude tells her. “I’m about to violate the terms of the Letter of Intent.”

“Oh, that’s great,” she says. “I’ll head out and go to Pilates. Good for you guys.”

Once she’s left the office, Jude, Trevor, and I walk out to the floor, where Jude smacks the gong repeatedly. As its sound rolls over the cubicles, heads lift from desks, AirPods come out.

Jude clears his throat, then looks around at all the people watching him, waiting for the next bit of bad news.

“I want to start by apologizing to all of you. I was supposed to be leading this company, and I was taking orders instead. You guys deserve better than that. Your work deserves better than that.”

No one’s disagreeing.

“So what we’re going to do now is, as soon as QA gives us the thumbs-up, we’re pushing the release that I canceled last week. This might not be the smart or responsible thing to do, but Corday Ford’s planning to rip the heart out Lettercat. I can’t let that happen, so we’re launching Roar today.”