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“Yeah. I mean, I’m good for her too. I think.”
“Oh sure, of course. I like her. Your father did too, when we came out for your marathon. And she’s not seeing that out-of-town boyfriend anymore, right?”
“Right.” This was weird. My Mom never talked to me about girls. Like, ever. “What are you trying to say, Mom?”
“I’m just saying…”
“You’re not saying anything, actually.”
“Exactly. I know you don’t like to talk about these things. I was just giving you my two Canadian cents. They’re only worth about one and a half American pennies, so…”
“Mom. If you want to say something, just say it.”Maybe if someone says it out loud I can actually let myself think it.
“I just think you’re so cute together. The way you were at the wedding.”
“Marriage ceremony.”
“Yeah yeah yeah. You’ve been so ambitious for as long as I can remember, Theo, and we’re so proud of what you’ve accomplished, of course, but…You can’t run all the time, sometimes you just need to stay in one place and be with someone. And she’s a good someone. That’s all. I’ll let you go.Muah!”
“Mom?”
She’d hung up on me. My Mom hung up on me.
After Fitness Nerd made me a high net worth individual, I hired a personal business manager to handle my finances. It wasn’t easy for me to hand over the responsibility to a stranger, but I didn’t have the time or mental bandwidth to do things like pay bills or stay on top of the stock market once I had a growing company to run. My lawyer helped me find a guy that I liked and I had him sign a nondisclosure agreement about my situation with Gemma. He immediately tried to get me to do a post-nuptial agreement, as I’d expected he would.
He wanted it in writing that she would only get half of what’s in our joint bank account plus the car that I bought in our name, if and when we divorce, and none of my other assets. I wouldn’t even consider it. If anyone deserves half of everything I have, it’s Gemma Kelly. But she claimed she didn’t even want that. I believed her.
I just didn’t want to divorce her.
I was thirteen when my parents divorced, so “divorce” isn’t just a word to me like it is to Gemma, whose parents are still together, whose parents’ best friends are still together. My parents became friends again by the time I had graduated high school, after things had ended between my Dad and his girlfriend. My Mom eventually had the kind of career that she wouldn’t have been able to focus on as the wife of an investment banker. But I still haven’t forgotten how hard it was for her to get over the end of the marriage. It sucked for me too, and even though my Dad seemed happy with the woman he left my mother for, I saw how messed-up he was about it.
Even if ours was, by most people’s definition, a “fake marriage,” and the three years I spent with Gemma can’t compare to the seventeen years my parents were married, that wouldn’t make it any less of an ending. The divorce would be real. Just the concept of it was creating tension. Or was it the concept of us having sex with each other that was creating the tension? I couldn’t tell. All I knew was—there are two ways for me to relieve tension. Gemma was at work, so I couldn’t do it the preferred way, even if she were open to it. So that left going for a long run.
As much as I love and respect my mother, sometimes you do just have to run—to clear your head, or to focus on one thing. It’s not always about distance. Sometimes I feel closer to things when I’m running because I don’t have any technological distractions to keep me from thinking about them.
It was way too sunny and warm to be doing this now, but I only had a two hour window before I had to get on a video conference call with Palo Alto, so I sprayed on sunscreen and drove to the Silver Lake Reservoir with a liter of coconut water and a brain full of Gemma.
I was breaking in a new pair of running shoes, and I wasn’t sure if they were quite right for me. But I always give things a week, to figure out exactly what it is that’s not working. Whether it’s a product I’m developing, or a new eyeglasses prescription, or a girl I’m seeing. How long would I give it to see if it could work with Gemma? Ifwhatcould work, exactly?
I felt like Leonardo DiCaprio inThe Departed.I was like a cop who’s been so deep undercover for so long that I didn’t know who I was anymore. Was I a guy who’d always been attracted to her but was pretending to be her platonic friend, or was I her platonic friend who was finally realizing just how much I wanted to do dirty sexy things with her?
Bottom line: I wanted to do dirty sexy things with her while somehow not losing her as my best friend.
Is that even a thing?
I needed to make it a thing.
But I knew I shouldn’t change lanes without signaling first.
In geek speak: You can’t just hide that friend-zone app in your operating system and then update it to a new version that includes a dating option—it has to be uninstalled so the new version of the program can work. Teasing her like I had on Sunday morning after a drunken make-out session—that was a rookie move, but I knew I would be able to recover.
In entrepreneur speak: I was going to approach this as I would if I had a startup that needed to pivot from its initial business plan, to kickstart growth. I needed to keep it simple, focus on the key feature of my new approach, and clearly show how I stand out above any competitors. As if that weren’t totally obvious. Still, I needed to research my target customer.
After running about two miles, I did something I hadn’t done in years—I stopped mid-run to make a phone call.
Chloe answered almost immediately. “Hey! Did you get it?”
“Get what?”
