Page 1 of Catalyst

CHAPTER1

Adam

The smellof brand-new sports equipment hits me as I walk down the dim hallway. It’s early, too early for my employees to have arrived, making the silence of the building hang heavy in the air. I step onto the main floor of Sidelines Sporting Goods, where racks of athletic clothes span the middle of the room. A multitude of sports gear surrounds the outer edges, and the second floor of the building has an open balcony, which houses our camping and outdoor equipment.

No matter how many times I take in this room, it will never get old.

This is my company. My brainchild. And with the help of my brother, Matthew, we’ve built it into a successful franchise.

We started as a small business on Main Street in Westlake, North Carolina, with one goal: to provide the highest quality equipment at a price everyone can afford. It was a tiny store, but we put everything we had into it. Long hours, plenty of disappointment, and a hefty dose of blind faith took us from our tiny rental space to owning our own building. Now, there are Sidelines stores in major cities all across the country.

It’s been over ten years since we opened that first store. Ten years of working around the clock to make this business as successful as it is. We’re still based in our building in Westlake, much to the annoyance of some of our partners. I recognize that it’s a small town and has very little in the way of entertainment. It’s not flashy or inviting, by any means, but it’s home. This is where we started, where we grew into what we are now.

Sure, it would be easier to move our company to a city like Greensboro, but we’d lose sight of who we are and why we’re doing this in the first place. So, I work twice as hard to keep our company growing while staying true to our original mission.

Matthew says I work too much. That the business is thriving and I don’t need to keep working twelve-hour days. I disagree. The business is only thriving because I put so much time into it. If I give up now, everything would start falling by the wayside. I refuse for my company to become a joke because I stopped putting in the effort.

After making my rounds along the edge of the main floor, I head upstairs to my office. With the exception of the IT department and the floor manager, all of our business offices are on the third floor.

The place is quiet as I walk out of the stairwell. The offices along the outside edge of the space are empty, their frosted glass walls dark and lifeless. The stillness of the early morning is my favorite part of getting here before everyone else.

I unlock the door to my office and turn on the lights once I’m inside. Despite having the corner office, the room is pretty underwhelming. I have a desk and a couple of chairs on one side, and a small loveseat, chair, and coffee table on the other side, along with a six-seat conference table that runs alongside the windows.

Tessa, my assistant, hung up some paintings and added decorations, stating my office shouldn’t look like I was still running a start-up. I guess she has a point. It looked very bachelor pad before she put her magic touch on it. She even added throw pillows to the couch. Not my first choice, but I have to admit, they make it look more comfortable.

My first half hour behind my desk is spent catching up on emails before Tessa comes waddling into the room, holding two ceramic mugs. Her dark hair is piled into a bun on top of her head, and she’s wearing a long, loose-fitting black dress. She sets a mug on my coffee table before maneuvering herself into the chair. “Good morning.” She sighs, rubbing her very pregnant belly with one hand while sipping from her tea mug in the other.

I grab my tablet from my desk and walk to the couch. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a whale. I’m exhausted from the short walk in here.”

“You could take the time off now, you know. I can manage without an assistant for a couple of weeks.” Tessa’s twin babies are due in a little over two months, and her doctor told her she needed to start taking it easy, which is why her maternity leave starts soon.

Rest isn’t exactly in Tessa’s vocabulary, though. She’s being stubborn about leaving before she’s forced to by the doctor, which means she spends her mornings in the office before I make her go home to finish the rest of her work in bed.

It was the only compromise she would accept when I tried to get her to stop working altogether. She argued that because she was already taking a much longer maternity leave than normal, she should stick around as long as possible to ensure the transition to my temp assistant would go smoothly.

“You are a brilliant man, Adam, but when it comes to managing your time, you suck.” Her eyebrow raise will serve her well as a mother.

I tilt my head in acceptance of her point. “Okay, timekeeper. Whatcha got?”

Tessa goes through my schedule, reminding me of my trip to New Orleans next week. We’re in talks to be the official equipment provider for the city’s professional football team. This contract could open the door to other professional sports teams, putting our company on the map as the number one provider of sports equipment at any level.

“I’m also training the temp assistant while you’re gone. Timing on this trip sucks, but we can’t do anything about it now.”

“Do we have any choice in who we get?” I’m still not sold on this idea. Tessa has been my assistant for the last seven years. She knows every one of my idiosyncrasies almost better than I do. Not to mention, she puts up with my surly attitude with an ease I’ll never understand. I have no clue how I’m going to survive without her.

“We’ve worked with this agency several times and have been happy each time. I’m not worried about it.”

“I’m glad someone isn’t,” I mutter. All I can hope is that the new person isn’t an incompetent moron. As much as I don’t want to admit it, Tessa is right. I’m awful at keeping track of my schedule. If I end up having to do both my job and the temp’s, things will not end well. And I refuse to ask Tessa for help. She’d take any chance to keep working if I gave it to her.

“I’ve got one more thing, then we can be done,” Tessa says, after going through the rest of her updates.

“The forewarning tells me I’m not going to like it.”

“You’re not. Clifford Byrne has reached out again to talk about a partnership.”

Groaning, I run my hands through my hair. “Why? We’ve discussed at length that partnering with them wouldn’t benefit Sidelines at all. It makes zero business sense.”

---