“I suppose you don’t care about Joey or Nancy or Cheryl either,” I shout. “No, frigid Mars Price, Mr. Man of No Freaking Words, has zero opinions about how the nonprofit he’s single-handedly funding will operate. You don’t want anything to do with any of it—”
“I can’t have anything to do with it,” he shouts, spinning around. He glares from Caleb to me. “What the hell am I going to do?” he says, glancing between us again. “I have no college education, Tess. I never even graduated secondary school before I went pro. You’re all pushing me to think about what comes next after I retire, but there is no next. I play hockey. It’s the only thing I know. I have no expertise in conservation or dune restoration. Caleb is more qualified to assist than I am,” he says with a wave of his hand. “At least he has a degree in chemistry.”
Caleb blinks at his partner. “Mars—”
“Don’t” Ilmari glares at him. “Don’t make light of this.”
“I would never,” Caleb says gently.
“I am useless to you in this endeavor,” Mars says at me. “I gave you the only thing I can offer: capital. The rest is up to you.”
“Mars, you have so many gifts, so many talents—”
“Don’t patronize me,” he snaps. “I don’t need your pity.”
“Mars, I don’t—”
“I hired you to do the work I am wholly unqualified to do,” he says over me. “I need you to do this for me. Will you?”
Slowly, I nod.
“Good. Then, moving forward, you need not include me in every detail of your planning. Agreed?”
I nod again.
His gaze darts to Caleb. “Come. We must go.” Not waiting for Caleb’s reply, he spins on his heel and leaves the office.
Caleb glances at me, his usual asshole smirk firmly tucked away. “We knew he was stewing about something, but we didn’t know what or why. Don’t be angry with him?”
I shake my head. “No. No, never.”
“I’ll talk to him,” he says, crossing the few feet of carpet to my side. He wraps me in a side hug, kissing my temple. “You good?”
I nod. “Yeah, it’s fine, Cay. Really.”
He gives me a half-smile that quickly falls. “Please just…don’t stop trying to be his friend, okay? He’ll never admit it, but he needs one.”
“We all do,” I reply.
He nods. “See you later, Tess.”
With that, he turns and follows after the brooding Finn, leaving me alone in the new head office of Out of the Net.
A few hours later, I’m leaning out the window of my car, ordering some fast-food on my way to the office supply store. A pierced kid with green hair takes my credit card, thrusting a large iced tea out the window at me. I’m juggling my drink and the bag of food as the kid tries to hand me back my card and a straw, which I promptly drop out the side of the car.
“Shit—sorry,” I call up to the kid.
He wordlessly hands me another straw as my phone starts to ring, buzzing in the cupholder.
I juggle everything into place, plopping the tea in the other cupholder and tossing my bag of food on the passenger seat. The car behind me honks, clearly incensed that they’re having to wait 3.7 seconds too long for me to move out of the way.
“Hold your fucking horses,” I shout out my window, snatching for my phone.
The name on the front of the phone glows: CHARLIE PUTNAM.
Shit, my lawyer is calling. Never a good sign.
I answer the phone, turning it on speaker. “Hey, Charlie. Can you hear me? I’m in the car on the prepaid.”
“Yeah, honey,” he calls in his thick Kentucky drawl. “I can hear you real good.”
Charlie Putnam is a peach of a man born and bred near Elizabethtown, and he has the accent to prove it. He stands all of 5’0”， and I think his bowties are surgically attached to his body. But he’s a shark in the courtroom, and he doesn’t nickel and dime me, which I appreciate.
“Did he sign yet?”
“What’s that, honey?” he says. “Oh, no, not yet. His counsel has ten days to respond to our request, remember? It’s only been five.”
I don’t even bother to let myself feel surprised or disappointed. “Why are you calling me, then? Don’t get me wrong, I love the sound of your voice,” I add, and he chuckles.
“Well, honey, it’s like this. I’m getting a lot of calls to the office demanding to know where you are and why you can’t be reached. Frankly, it’s reaching the level of harassment.”