Page 85 of Smoke and Glitter

The call ends while I'm still smiling. For once, I don't open the schedule again. I pick up my phone instead.

The interview has already been sent to the group chat from the label. Someone has pulled the quote from the middle, the one Nix came up with on her own. There are congratulations underneath it, a handful of messages from people who spent most of the last month convinced this was going to go badly.

I should send Nix something obnoxious. I probably will. My thumb moves down the screen. Past Anna. Past Summer. Sam's name is still there.

I stop.

He would understand why today mattered. The thought arrives without warning and without any of the careful sorting I've gotten good at since I left Chicago.

He knew about Nix before any of this worked. Before London. Before press days and sponsor emails and rooms full of reporters waiting for her to screw up. He sat on his apartment floor with me in the middle of the night while her entire career was spread across his coffee table and asked me which part was the problem.

He'd ask what she said. I'd tell him she changed the answer.

He'd probably say, Was it better?

And I'd say yes.

My thumb stays over his name.

I don't open the thread.

After a few seconds, I lock the phone and set it beside the laptop.

The room doesn't change. I'm still smiling a little, which makes it worse.

I wanted to tell him.

Chapter fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Sam

Doug calls while I'm in the office working through invoices.

"I need to close the loop on Pilsen," he says. "You've got thirty days before I have to pull the file."

I put down the invoice in my hand. "That's it?"

"That's me stretching it. Your operating history is still thin for what you're asking, and you're carrying debt from the Vibes buildout. Neither of those kills the deal by itself. The judgment on an active company with your name attached to it does."

My eyes go through the open office door and land on the bar. The envelope is exactly where it has been.

Doug keeps talking. "Clear the old company and we can have another conversation. Leave it where it is and there isn't anything I can do."

"I understand."

"Then deal with the part you can deal with."

We hang up. I sit there for a minute before calling the leasing agent.

She answers with, "Please tell me you're ready."

"Not yet."

The pause tells me enough.

"How bad?"