Page 28 of Personal Disaster

“I haven’t done a good enough job of covering my tracks.”

“You mean the tracks of anyone and everyone you try to help in a retroactive way? No, you can’t erase all of their blunders. That’s the reality of it, and we knew that when you had this crazy idea. Don’t worry aboutit.”

“You’ll be implicated.”

“I have plausible deniability, but beyond that, I don’t really care if anyone knows my politics align with well-intentioned internet rebels. That would probably do wonders for my stock price. Which you will benefit from, need I remindyou?”

“You don’t need to remind me, no.” I swear under my breath.

“Make contingency plans. Meanwhile, we now have eight million people signed up for FishMail. Lemons, lemonade.” It’s his new fully-encrypted free email service. Like Gmail on protective steroids.

While I’m hiding in the shadows, Toby is about to step onto the main stage in the battle for individual liberty and free speech.

Poppy has a FishMail email address. I’m sure she uses it to protect her sources.

But some of the ass-monkeys who would troll her have those accounts, too. It’s a double-edged sword that makes me uneasy because she needs to take self-defense workshops. And there I go again, worrying about Poppy when I’ve got business interests to protect.

Priorities, Marcus.

Except I don’t think for a second that my priorities are backwards right now. Not at all. There’s something special about her. I knew that the second her ponytail swished intoview.

“She wrote an article about coming out here. It’s not about me. It’s about…” I rub my thumb into the corner of my eye. “Fuck. It’s about a lot of good things, and I feel like a heel, and she’s just left. And I don’t know what todo.”

“About the story? About the situation? Or about thegirl?”

“All of the above.”

“Okay. Well, I’m biased, but I like a good ‘go all in to get the girl’ approach. And as for the rest…have some faith. It’ll sort itself out. Maybe it’s time you slide out of hiding. Just a little.”

I grunt. I hate that answer.

And I think the worst part is that he might be right.

* * *

Over the next few days,I manage to bury that thought under a pile of work. The week after Poppy leaves is a false return to normal. It’s the height of summer and we’re swamped with visitors, which means a lot of site inspections and too many rescues.

Four days go by and she doesn’t phone. I start to regret leaving it open-ended when she left—call me soon, I’dsaid.

I should pick up the phone myself, but something is holding meback.

Is it a whole pile of secrets you’re still keeping from her?Yeah, that’s part ofit.

But there’s some baser shit, too. Like she stomped into my life and with one flick of her perky ponytail she had me rocked with feelings I’d long-thought myself immune to. I’ve spent fifteen years closed off to anything other than casual, no-strings fun—and sporadic fun at that—because when I was in California, I knew I wasn’t sticking around.

Deep down, I knew from the start I was leaving, which is why when I invested in Starfish Instrumentation, it was as a silent partner. I didn’t want to be part of Toby’s grand plan. I just wanted to ensure he had the means to make it happen. And that investment—our investment, because my cousin Astrid went in on it too, with part of her inheritance—has paid us back handsomely, many timesover.

Speaking of which…

I distract myself from thoughts of perky ponytails by logging into my computer at home and pulling up the latest prospectus package for Dane Capital. Astrid’s the only person who calls it that, though. Officially it’s a numbered corporation, and the capital funds are managed by an environmentally-conscious firm who finds us projects to contribute venture capital and seed money to—always anonymously.

We’re picky. We get this packet of investment ideas every quarter and we usually pick one, maybetwo.

Astrid has already read through it. There are digital post-it notes all over the files. I skim through them first. If she doesn’t like a proposal, there’s a slim chance I’m going to either, so those don’t need as close a review as the handful she doeslike.

My cousin is hard to please.

We have that in common.

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