Page 22 of His Hot Mess

“Potentially. But all this is going to take you higher than the original estimate.”

“Then I’ll save money by doing my own… accounting.”

I almost laughed. “You? Accounting?”

“Yes!” she snapped. “I think you have it backward you know.”

“Have what backward?”

“Who drives who crazy.”

I lowered the clipboard and sat on the edge of the ancient formica desk where Debbie of Debbie’s place must have done all her bookkeeping, or crosswords, or whatever Debbie used to do back here. “I’m just saying there are practical aspects to running a business that I think you haven’t thought of. Did you ever finish your plan?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of? You mean you signed the lease on this place without completing your business plan? You got Charles to commit fifteen grand without knowing if any of this is going to work? I don’t know whether to admire your confidence or be concerned for your sanity.”

Sadie seemed to falter. She looked at the ground. We were no longer sparring. What I’d said scared her.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” I said, guilt rising.

She lifted her chin and looked me in the eye. “I’m going to make this work.” There were tears in her eyes.

The guilt turned to shame.You made her fucking cry, Slade.

Hesitating, I took a few steps over to where she stood and pulled the old chair out from behind the desk.

Sadie flopped into it.

“Listen, I’ve been where you are,” I said. “Excited to start a business, overwhelmed, but so full ofreadinessyou just want to dive straight in. But I had a… a mentor. Someone to walk me through it. I don’t know how I would have done it without him.”

Never mind that I hadn’t spoken to him since the day after his daughter left me at the altar. I was still thankful to Jessica’s dad for guiding me through the startup of my old business. Though it hadn’t been without it’s bumps.

“I don’t wantyouto be my mentor,” Sadie said, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve.

“Oh, god. That’s not what I mean. I can’t imagine a worse partnership, really.”

Her eyes flooded then.

Fuck.

“What I mean is I think it’s better if mentor-mentee relationships aren’t peers, you know? Like, I don’t think you’d like me telling you what to doallthe time.”

I recalled the time I tried to teach Jessica how to ski. It had been an unmitigated disaster that seemed to exacerbate all the issues in our relationship.

“What I’m trying to say—badly—is that I had an advantage. I had someone who could guide me through the stuff at the beginning. The usual startup problems.” Even if Ron had been a little too prescriptive at times, having someone to ask questions of was huge.

I considered for a moment, needing desperately to make her feel better. “You could ask Lucy? She started her own business, right?”

“No,” Sadie said. Her voice was firm. “No. I need to do this without her. I want this to be my thing.” Her voice went soft again. “I’ve never actually done something so big on my own.”

I could actually understand that. While it had been useful learning from Jessica’s father, I hadn’t felt like I’d always had full say over what my business would look like. I’d felt obligated to take my father-in-law’s advice a lot of the time. To design the business the way he would.

What I’d needed, and what Sadie could use, I realized, was an impartial third party. And I happened to know someone who might work. One of Grayscale’s recent clients, Jake Colson, had a partner who was a business lawyer. I remembered her saying she was thinking of starting up a firm in town to support small business owners.

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of Cat sooner.

“I know someone who might be able to help with some of the logistics,” I said. “I don’t really know her all that well, but she’s a lawyer. Experienced. And not related to you. She could probably at least help you finish your business plan if that’s what you want to do, and talk to you about all the logistical stuff. Legal filing and all that. I can send you her contact info and you could just… talk?”

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