“We were joined at the hip after that. We were the perfect business partners because we have similar work ethics. We both go hard, nonstop. And then we fell in love, and that made it even better. I assumed we’d be together forever.”
She caught his expression, and knew that he got it.
“I heard about Gretchen. I’m sorry. Breakups are the worst.”
He looked down at the table. “I just saw her on the lake. She’s really happy now. She deserves it. I wasn’t giving her what she wanted, so that’s on me.”
“She wanted to get married?” Kendra didn’t remember much about Gretchen other than freckles and a sunny smile; they’d never been in the same friend groups.
“Sure.” He shrugged. “I have nothing against marriage. I guess I just…I was waiting for something, I don’t know what. Something that would tell me it’s time to get married.”
Men. Kendra didn’t say it out loud, but good lord, did they need everything mapped out for them?
“If it was me, I would have just proposed,” she told him. “Not to you, obviously. To my man.”
“Did you? With Dominic?”
“No, because we were focusing on the business first. We had this unspoken agreement that once we got the app underway, we’d deal with our personal relationship.”
“Unspoken agreement,” he repeated, and she could hear for herself how sketchy that sounded. “I hope the business end of things was more official.”
Warmth flooded her face. She’d been so freaking blind. “That’s the problem. We have a contract, but the exit clause is too loose. Technically, he’s still an equal partner, but he slow-rolls everything. It takes him weeks to answer a single email. He wants me to buy him out, but I don’t have the money. In the meantime, anything I do for the business makes it more valuable and therefore more pricey to buy him out. He left me in limbo.”
Jason shook his head, nothing but sympathy in those dark blue eyes. No judgement. Jason didn’t judge, she realized. Maybe because he’d had struggles of his own.
“What’s this jackass doing now?”
His phrasing filled her with delight. “Behind my back, he went to this big international firm and pitched himself as an expert in recycled plastic business opportunities. Companies always want to say they’re doing something for the environment to offset their horrendous records. He got himself hired as a kind of recycled plastic czar with a huge budget including seed money for small ventures around the world. He gets to travel wherever he wants searching for new businesses to invest in. It’s a dream job for him. He’s in London now.”
“My Irish grandmother used to say, you can’t trust the Brits. Sometimes there was spitting involved. If she saw an English Breakfast tea bag, she’d literally stomp on it and grind it to dust. If she was still alive, you could sic her on Dominic.”
It didn’t fix anything, but it made her laugh. “Guess I should have listened to your grandma.”
“To be honest, she was off her rocker. Not just about that. She also believed that fairies lived in her chimney and came out at night to make trouble. She made me set up a videocamera to catch them in the act. When there was nothing on the tape, she suddenly remembered that fairies are invisible.”
It occurred to Kendra that talking to Jason was like floating down a river in an inner tube, soaking in the scenery along the way. He didn’t rush to get to the end. He took in everything along the way.
Was that why she’d always seen him as unambitious? Because he wasn’t going full-tilt for the end goal?
Kirk and Gina stopped by their table for a quick word. Gina had a question about the next day’s staffing schedule for the restaurant, and asked if anyone could give her a hand restocking the cabin kitchens. Kendra answered automatically. She could probably manage Alvin’s Burgers and Blues in her sleep. It presented no challenges. It posed no problems.
It also gave her a lot of comfort, working so close to her father. So there was that.
As they left, Gina gave her a quick wink. Not hard to interpret. Rebound, rebound.
When they were alone again, Jason sipped his beer and said, “So, not to be too critical of your ex, but he sounds like your basic selfish jerk. How does that count as your failure?”
“How? How much time do you have?”
He gestured at the crowd of pizza customers. “As much time as it takes. They close at eleven, but we could always go somewhere else.”
Was that an invite? She looked at him closely, but didn’t see any kind of come-on in those deep blue eyes of his. Rebound, rebound. Gina’s chant kept running through her mind. She shushed it. Jason deserved better than just being someone’s rebound. He was a good guy.
Back to her failures.
“Business mistake.” She checked off item one on her fingers. “I trusted him too much business-wise.”
“How? You had a contract.”
“Yes, but it obviously had glaring loopholes. And there’s nothing to stop him from using my ideas in his new position.”
He shrugged. “Still doesn’t seem like a failure. Sorry. You can’t control everything. No one can.”
Apparently not. Which sucked, because she really liked to feel in control.
“I failed to anticipate what an ass he was. I thought we were the same degree of dedicated. I didn’t see that he was mostly dedicated to himself.”
“Live and learn.”
That comment rubbed her the wrong way. “I hate when people say that. It sounds like an excuse for screwing up.”
“So you think you have to do everything perfectly the first time?” He swished the beer around in his glass. She noticed that he didn’t actually drink very much. The beer seemed to be mostly a prop. She also noticed that his hands looked strong. Those weren’t laptop hands. They were heavy-fire-hose hands.
“I usually do,” she said simply.
He laughed, that dimple in his cheek flashing. “True. So maybe you’re spoiled by your own incredible competence. Everyone screws up sometimes.”
“I don’t let myself screw up.” Now that she’d said that out loud, she realized how exhausting it had been, upholding that standard. Maybe it would be a relief to let it go.
“You’re awfully hard on yourself, especially because your screwup didn’t hurt anyone. Besides yourself,” he added. Then pulled an “apology” face. “Sorry. Did that sound bad?”
“No. I guess you’re right. No bystanders were harmed by my bad judgement about men. But that’s the thing. I’m always the one warning my friends about their bad choices. I’m the smart one. My entire reputation, down the drain, like that.” She snapped her fingers, trying to come off as joking. “Dominic really fucked me over.”
“My sister’s like that.” Jason shook his head and took a sip of beer. “She’s seventeen now and therefore pretty much knows everything. If you can believe it, she’s in the middle of some kind of intervention right now for one of her friends. I can’t go back until she’s done.”
Kendra searched her memory for her name. “Holly, right?” She’d seen Holly and her friends at Alvin’s Burgers a few times, now that she thought about it.