Page 27 of The Grumpy Billionaire

“What? You’re a data scientist; aren’t you all about getting to the bottom of things?”

“Not all things are worth getting to the bottom of.”

Stella looks hurt. “Are you saying that because you think I won’t like what I find?”

“Chasing sunk costs is a major waste of time, that’s all.”

“Oh my god, thatiswhat you’re saying. You think I’ll get a negative outcome.” She flips it faster and faster. “You think I’ll be disappointed.”

I go around the desk and pluck the adaptor from her hand. This works to halt the visual chaos, but we’re too close now, and her sadness is palpable. Most people are mysteries to me, but I’ve always been able to feel Stella.

“I don’t think you’ll be disappointed, but sunk costs shouldn’t affect future actions.”

“It’s not a sunk cost if there’s something I need to know,” she says.

“What is there to know other than Zevin Media is the kind of place to relocate a worker only to leave them high and dry?”

She sighs. It’s a sigh I know well, one of the many Stella sounds that have played over and over in my mind.

But my favorite sigh of hers I only heard once. I was seventeen, home from college for the summer, napping in the small room where the Woodward kids would practice their instruments. If you drew the blinds, it was completely dark, save for the glint of Stella’s rented saxophone.

The perfect place to sleep while Charlie carried on his sometimes annoying Skypes.

And suddenly somebody sunk onto the daybed next to me and started kissing me, all flowery shampoo and lips like berry alcohol.

Kissing me. It seemed like a dream—a girl who smelled like Stella. Felt like Stella.

Something inside me crashed open, and I was ferocious with lust. I fisted her soft ponytail. I consumed her lips like a starving man.

I still remember the surprised catch of her breath, and that glorious sound when she sighed into that kiss. I can still feel her small hands gripping my shoulders, fingertips digging into flesh as she kissed me back.

And I kept on.

There in the otherworldly zone between sleeping and waking, I became unhinged from any sense of decency. My code was nowhere in sight. I was a runaway freight train, steely with power and unstoppable force.

Out of control, and I didn’t care.

I can’t even use the excuse that I wasn’t fully awake, because by that time, I was.

The intense pleasure of kissing her destroyed all reason, obliterated the codes that held my life together. Kissing her was suddenly more important than my word to my friend.

I was an addict, willing to trade anything for one more moment.

Until I came to my senses and pushed her away.

She mumbled something that sounded like “I didn’t know…” followed by something unintelligible, and then she ran out of there and left me reeling.

She’d kissed me—snuck in and kissed me.

Gradually, it occurred to me that this kiss was likely part of a drunken teen dare game. A boy had burst in on me some time before, blindfold in hand, stammering something about looking for the music room before I ran him out of there.

It was him she was supposed to kiss—not me. She thought I was the boy with the blindfold.

And I lost control. I hated myself for losing control. Losing control seemed like the worst thing somebody could do.

“I need to get back to work,” I say.

“Hint, hint. I get it!” She heads toward the door, but then spins around, because nothing is ever simple with Stella. “Hey, since when are you deathly allergic to pineapple?”

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