Page 130 of The Grumpy Billionaire

Fergus nods slowly. “She’s not wrong. You almost never make a mistake, but when you do, you’re very unhappy.”

“I’m probably going to want to kill myself for telling you this,” Ronan says, “but your quest for perfect play limits you. You don’t bluff. You play purely on probabilities, and yes, you win most of the time, but you don’t utilize all of the possibilities of the game.”

Cooper groans and tosses a peanut at Ronan. “Maybe you don’t regret telling him that, Ronan, but I know I regret it. If Hugo starts bluffing?”

“So we double his ante again,” Ronan says.

Luther gives me a hard look. “Ronan’s right. Your purely mathematical game means you can never level up.”

“But how can I ignore what I know?” I ask.

“You need to take risks, man,” Luther says. “You need to break a few things—that’s how you level up. You know how to bluff. Commit to a losing hand once in a while.”

My heart races. It’s not me.

“So, there’s trouble?” Fergus asks. “With the woman?”

“Yeah.”

“Out with it,” Cooper says.

I balk—we’re not that kind of group. We do cards; we don’t do feelings.

Ronan demands the story. Even cold-hearted Leon chimes in. The prospect of them doing some kind of group analysis of my problems is too much attention. What’s more, I’ve never helped them with their problems. It would be uneven.

But maybe this is part of breaking things. My mind flashes on Stella’s brilliant recklessness, her genius for risk and abandon. It inspires me.

So I go for it. I tell my friends what Stella said. Before I know it, I’m telling them about our first-kiss argument, and the leap seconds, and my piece-of-shit data model. How I screwed up her career. I tell them about her love of Dali and of light and shadow, and how determined she’s been to be more organized and how we never run out of things to talk about. To laugh about.

“It sounds like she’s still yours to lose,” Ronan offers, managing to look impossibly regal, even in an old sweater.

“Agree,” Cooper says. “She’s thinking about it—that’s a good sign.”

“But you can’t wait around for her to decide,” Fergus warns. “You need to take action. Get in front of this.”

“She wants to think about it. She sees being with me as a gamble, I think.”

Fergus suggests I show her the books I plan to read.

“No, think big—bigger than books, bigger than words,” Ronan says. “You need to show her you’re invested in changing. And whatever you come up with, go even bigger.”

“Easy for you to say,” Cooper says. “Mr. The-planet-is-my-oyster.”

Ronan shrugs. He probably has stories to tell—he really seems to be from a different world, but he’s the most intensely private man I’ve ever met, so he stays with the shrug.

They argue about whether change can actually happen that fast.

“I agree, it has to be big,” Cooper says, ripping open another bag of chips. “Embrace that imperfection where it counts. Go for a home run.”

“But embracing imperfection doesn’t mean you don’t get to do your best,” Luther says. “Some shit like you’ve decided to button your shirt wrong or play poker by rules that are just fucked? No.”

“Yeah, no more throwing the game,” Leon warns. “We get you don’t give a shit about money, but come on.”

“No more playing like an asshole,” I say. “But maybe I’ll bluff.”

Cooper shoots Ronan a dirty look. “You see what you’ve done? You’ve created a monster.”

I lean back and cross my legs. “Are we dealing or what? Things are about to get wild. Maybe.”

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