Page 102 of Knot Your Sunshine
The document loads slowly. Inside: spreadsheets within spreadsheets. Raw data dumps of unfiltered numbers. Revenue streams broken down by hour, marketing costs itemized to the penny, customer acquisition metrics…
There'sso muchdata, and to make things worse, it's completely unreadable.
I sigh and rub my temples. It's a deliberate maze. Gotta be. Designed to overwhelm anyone without an advanced degree in data analysis.
But too bad for that prick, I don't need a degree. I have something more powerful: the bone-deep need to prove every single one of them wrong.
I drag the chair closer, its wheels squeaking. The cushion sighs as I settle in, cracking my knuckles.
Line by line, I start dissecting their data. Looking for the story underneath.
My fingers fly across the keyboard. Formulas populate. Graphs generate. Patterns emerge from the chaos.
My eyes burn but I don't stop. My shoulders ache but I don't move.
Because Grandma's right. Everly women don't quit.
We rise up to a challenge. We fight.
And right now, I'm determined to save my dream my own damn self.
Chapter forty-one
Noa
This is your fault.
Josh's voice echoes in my suite as I sit on the edge of my bed, unable to sleep, my palms pressing against my eyes.
I lift my head from my hands, staring at the wall across from me.
Josh isn't wrong.
I'm the one who demanded the marketing push. I'm the one who told her everything was fine when I didn't know for sure. I'm the one who decided to have a meeting without her.
I thought I was protecting her when I was actually—
I slam my fist into the wall next to my bed. Pain shoots through my knuckles. The drywall barely dents, but the ache feels deserved, necessary even.
A knock interrupts my spiral.
I don't answer, but the door opens anyway.
"Hey, man." Keanu's voice lacks its usual warmth, each word careful, deliberate. "Couldn't sleep either. Saw light under your door, and heard a knocking sound just now." He pauses in the doorway. "Can I come in?"
My shoulders lift and fall in what barely qualifies as acknowledgment.
He crosses the room and exhales long and slow before sitting on the edge of my bed. "We really screwed this up, didn't we? And Josh... he's taking it hard."
He's right about that. Josh has always been the most emotional of our pack, hiding behind all that logic. That's why I've always felt responsible for protecting him, ever since we were kids and he was getting bullied. That's what I do. What I've always done. But now...
My hands drop to my lap, fingers still throbbing from the wall.
I failed him.
Just like I failed Keanu.
And Mia...
