Page 32 of Stirring Up Love
On the other end of the line, Darius sighed. “Simone already screwed you over once. What’s to stop her from doing it again? And this time, she could tank your company.”
Brought up short by the vast size of the terminal, Finn hesitated. He didn’t agree with Darius’s reasoning. The only way Simone could screw him would be tonottake the deal. Which, judging by their conversation last night, was a very real possibility.
Cell phone to his ear, he searched the bustling concourse for the check-in kiosks. “I did things your way and went on the show, and now you want me to throw away two hundred thousand dollars?”
“No, I just want you to be careful,” Darius said. “Watching you two together ...” His friend let out another sigh. “I just worry you’re not thinking clearly. You’ve been at each other’s throats all summer, and suddenly you think partnering with her is a good idea?”
Despite his hesitancy to go on the show, now that a deal was within his grasp—a chance for a future he’d been too scared to even dream of—he wouldn’t throw it all away just because of personal differences with Simone.
Intense personal differences.
“Do I think a partnership with two billionaires willing to finance Finn’s Secret Sauce to the tune of two hundred thousand dollars is a good idea? Yeah.”
He finally spotted the check-in line and stepped up behind a couple with hiking boots and oversize backpacks. Only his second time in an airport, and the whole experience felt like he’d made the jump from tricycle to motorcycle, skipping the training wheels and ten-speed. He’d never expected to get the privilege to fly on a plane in his lifetime, and yet he was about to partner with two of the richest people in the world.
And one of the snarkiest.
The backpackers exited the line, and he stepped up. After reading through all the options on the screen, he selected one that made sense. The screen beeped aggressively. He tried a different option. The screen flashed alarmingly.
Darius was still muttering in his ear, and Finn refocused on the conversation: “... spent years working on your self-esteem. And I’m not convinced a merger with a woman who hates your guts is progress.’”
Trust his big brother stand-in to bring him back down to earth. But he’d come a long way, thanks to therapy and prioritizing his mental health.
“You do realize I’m not seventeen anymore, right?” He hit another button, and the screen froze. At this rate he’d be walking back to Illinois. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here trying to convince you a partnership with some of the best business minds in America is a good idea.”
The machine beeped an error message, and Finn swore. “An opportunity that you signed me up for, might I remind you. You know mycredit is a wreck. Without an investment fromThe Executives, I’m back at square one.”
“Then convince them to take just you! You don’t need—”
“Except I do. That’s the whole point.” Fed up with the argument and the worthless machine, Finn shoved his credit card in the slot. It jammed. He crouched down and dug his fingers into the opening, which upon closer inspection was labeledBoarding Pass. Oops.
“It’s a package deal. All or nothing.” And he couldn’t walk away with nothing. Not with hope in reach. “My track record with women might not be the greatest”—an understatement, given his penchant for always wanting to believe the best of people—“but even you can see this is different. It’s not romantic. Partnering with Simone is a smart move.”
“Smart, yes, but also risky. Just don’t lose your head, Finn.”
His card finally popped free, and he shoved it into his wallet. A crinkled boarding pass ground its way out of the slot and dropped to the floor.
Lose his head over Simone? “Never. But listen, I’m cutting it close. I’ll text when I land.”
Fumbling to end the call, he jogged over to the line at security and tapped the shoulder of the man in front of him. “Hey, sorry to do this, but my flight leaves in forty-five minutes. Is there any way you can let me by?”
The guy glared at him but stepped infinitesimally to the side, and Finn squeezed past, bumping into the retractable line divider. He righted the teetering stand, then repeated his entreaty to the backpacking couple, then a harried mother with three kids and a pregnant belly, who urged her children to get out of his way while shooting him a kind smile.
By the time he’d made it through security and found his gate, he was sweating through his jacket. A crowd of people were milling around, craning their necks and scrolling through their phones. Shoot, had he missed his flight? His stomach shot into his throat.
“Where ya headed?” Finn looked down to find a grandfatherly figure at his shoulder.
“Uh, St.Louis,” he said.
“Not tonight you aren’t.” So hewastoo late. The man grinned, gleeful to be the bearer of bad news. “Snowstorms picked up, grounded all flights to the Midwest.”
“Snowstorms?” Finn didn’t see the connection. Not like a little snow would stop a jet airliner.
The man nodded and then pointed with his cane toward the rows of TVs mounted overhead, showing news anchors with their hoods up, shouting at the camera through whiteout conditions. “They’re calling it the blizzard of the century. We might be stuck here for days.”
Days?He didn’t have days to spare. The way things had been left between him and Simone, he would be lucky to ever see her again, let alone convince her to sign off on the deal. If he didn’t reach out soon, he might miss out on his chance at $200,000 and a future for his company. Lose out on a chance to affect so many lives.
But a quick scan of the displays confirmed the man’s dire prediction. DELAYED flashed next to his flight number in red letters of finality. Like it or not, he was stuck, thousands of miles away from Simone and the chance to talk her into taking the deal.
