"The fuck's going on Harrison?" I asked him.
"Whatchu mean?" he replied.
"I mean, we're buying Amy Reid's invention?"
"Oh, that," he said a bit sheepishly. "I sort of hoped you wouldn't find out until after you were back, but I guess now is as good a time as ever."
"The fuck, man. Why didn't you consult me on this?" I was legitimately angry at my brother in a way I hadn't ever been before.
"Uh, because it was clear you weren't going to do the right thing. You were going to let that little girl run off into the sunset with that device and bankrupt our company because of your crush. No way, man."
"What did you offer the company to buy it?" I asked.
"Don't worry about it. It's well within the R&D budget," my brother replied, side stepping my question.
"I don't care about whether it's in the budget or not," I seethed. I'd never really gotten angry at Harrison before. I'd always been the protective older brother for him. But, I really felt like he'd crossed a line here. Although, my feelings about Amy could have been exacerbating my feelings a bit. "The only reason you've got money to play around with is because you haven't been doing what you're supposed to be doing."
"It's too early for this, E," my brother replied, yawning.
"How much, Harrison?"
"Ten million," he replied back simply.
Fuck. There was no way that Amy's company was going to turn down a paycheck like that. In their best dreams, Amy's device might have generated that in profits after years of heavy marketing. She was right. She'd read the writing on the wall before anyone else. Standard had made an offer to buy her invention so that they could sit on it and continue to make money the best way they knew how.
I hated that I had some part to play in all of this. If I had just kept my distance from her from the start, maybe all of this wouldn't have happened this way.
"Is it already done?" I asked Harrison.
"Yeah, man. You know how the lawyers work. The deal's inked. We can't unwind it."
Well, that wasn't entirely true. Unless the money had already exchanged hands, there was always a way to unwind things. However, what Harrison was telling me was that it'd be messy and the press would get involved. Definitely two things we wanted to avoid at the moment.
"Hear me now, Harrison. You are not just going to sit on this invention. Do I make myself clear? You bought it, you're going to figure it out and put it to good use?"
"Yeah, whatever, E. Good luck getting the board to go along with that."
"Just wait and see," I said, gritting my teeth.
19
AMY
6 Months Later
I sat at my office desk, unable to focus on work. Since the "Big Sale" as it was called in our company, I'd had basically nothing to do. However, Jeff had decided not to fire me, considering I'd made the company several millions of dollars.
Of course, I'd never seen a dime of that, other than being allowed to keep my job. What was worse was that, because I didn't own any of the rights to the device, I'd been completely unable to negotiate any of the terms of the sale. All of that had been handled by Jeff and one of Standard's lawyers. When I finally got a hold of the final contract, all my suspicions had been confirmed.
Standard had no intention of using the device. They were paying an exorbitant fee to sit on the device so that it couldn't hurt their normal way of doing things. There was nothing in there stating that if they didn't use it within a certain amount of time, the invention reverted back to us or to the public. The whole thing made me sick.
Ethan had gone completely silent for these last six months. He was usually in the papers every so often. As much as I hated it, I found myself looking and hoping that I might see him. But, he had all but disappeared since the conference. It made me worry that something might be seriously wrong. The press had the same concern. But, the company had issued a public statement saying that all was well, and that he was just extremely busy with work.
My days were the same, drawn out boredom. I hadn't been given any funds or authority to work on anything new. I was basically just coming into the office to do nothing, and I could feel the depression starting to creep in day by day. I'd thought about leaving every single day, but some weird hope that things would get better kept me here for some reason.
My phone rang and I turned to look at the screen. The number read "Unavailable." I shrugged and picked it up, anyway. I had nothing better to do.
"Hello?" I asked.