Page 40 of Meet Cute Reboot
She shrugs.
“All these homes are old.” I motion to my neighbor to the left. “This could be an untapped market. What would you think about adding a few stops to your ghost tours? We could...or you could bring it up at the neighborhood meeting to see if people have stories and if they’re willing to buy-in to the idea.”
Cassie cocks her head. Her eyes move side-to-side, her right brain and left brain working in tandem.
“It’s at six thirty,” I add. “I could introduce you.”
She lifts her chin and smacks her neck. Mosquitos. They’re relentless.
“It’s not a terrible idea,” she says after giving her neck a good scratch.
My lips break into a smile.
“But I don’t know. I’m really busy with both businesses at the moment. I don’t know if I have the bandwidth.”
It’s not a “no.” I take that as a victory. “Think about it.” I mask my excitement. If I show too much, it might scare her away.
“Okay.” Cassie shrugs again, allowing her hands to join in. “Well. Today’s been...odd? I guess I’ll talk to you later.” She descends the porch steps.
I don’t want to take my eyes off her petite frame, the gentle swell of her hips, but if she catches me staring, she’ll know it’s true. Everything my mom said is true. So, I enter the house before she climbs into her SUV.
My mom sleeps heavily through the evening. She doesn’t stir, doesn’t move a centimeter. I rearrange her a couple of times to make sure she doesn’t lose a limb from lack of circulation. At eleven o’clock I decide it’s her fault if she has to amputate body parts, and I go to bed.
When I wake up on Tuesday morning, I feel hopeful about my chances with Cassie despite my mom’s drunken word vomit last night. Cassie has a few days to think about my suggestion, and if I know her well—which I do—I expect her to jump on my idea to expand her tours to Benton Street. I can’t believe I thought of that on the fly.
In some ways, I feel like a teenage boy. I want to poke her arm, smack the back of her head in that annoying flirtatious way hormonal teenage boys do—their way of saying, “Hey I like you. Want to come to my neighborhood meeting Thursday night?”
But I’m no longer pubescent. I’m far from needing little blue pills, but my testosterone is on the downswing. In other words, I have a little more control. A little.
I’m reminded of that every time I replay last night’s front porch encounter with Cassie. I keep thinking about her hands, turning the image over and over in my mind, how thin and delicate her fingers are, beautiful enough to sell diamond rings and lotions and acrylic nails. I’m savoring the little details, like the cute curve of her pink nails, the way they gently round off at the tips.
I can’t sit around thinking about Cassie all day. I need to get my head back in the game. My whenever-I-feel-like-it, lackadaisical work schedule ends today.
Korg stirs as I sit up and swing my legs off the bed. As soon as I open the bedroom door, he sprints into the hallway. I let him out the front door to do his business and give him a few minutes to run free before calling him back in.
We both head into the kitchen. I fill his water bowl and dump a can of Pedigree into his food dish, and then I pop a pod into my Keurig. As the coffee is brewing, I see movement out of the corner of my eye. Goosebumps cascade down my arms and the skin on the back of my neck prickles.
It’s the cabinet door again. The one on the end that keeps opening by itself. I look over in time to watch the door swing slowly and then stop abruptly. Not weird at all.
I walk over and poke the bottom corner of the door with my index finger and send the door back where it came from, then I walk over, reopen the door, and wiggle it back and forth while eyeballing the hinges to see if they’re out of whack. They seem stable and tight, just like they were yesterday when I checked them. And the day before that.
Option 1: the cabinets are haunted.
Option 2: the kitchen is haunted.
Option 3: my house is haunted.
I’m going with Option 1. Luckily, the cabinets are leaving the premises soon, most likely under duress caused by sledgehammers and crowbars. I might just demolish the uppers myself to make sure it’s done right.
I shake off the eerie feeling and throw together a breakfast before the cabinet door decides to open on its own again. With breakfast in hand, I head to my office for my first honest day of work in two months.
I took time off to get Mom and me moved and settled. Financially, I could draw from my investments indefinitely, but I’m only thirty-five. It’s too early to retire. Besides, I like what I do.
My office is the only room in the house that I’ve bothered to “decorate.” I bought a couple of bookshelves, unpacked my graphic novel collection and my Funko Pop figures, pulled the moving paper off my ridiculously ornate solid wood desk (an impulse buy after I made my first million), and brought in my ergonomic Eames chair. I have dual monitors set up, so I don’t have to hunch over my MacBook. A cheap little ring light sits behind the monitors to brighten my face during virtual meetings.
The moss green walls lack picture frames or other ornamentation. A few cobwebs lace the corners. The bundle of cords at my feet is a technological nightmare. Regardless, I can function in here. I’ll let my interior decorator tend to the details.
My checklist for Stratos Capital’s Charleston office is basic: find an office space, hire an office manager, schmooze with local investors, see if they want a piece of our Charleston branch. That’s when the hard work starts, the part where I facilitate local business development and while doing so, roll up my sleeves and find brilliant people with brilliant ideas that can launch usall into the financial stratosphere. I built the L.A. office from scratch. I can do it again.