by Sadie Hayes
She’d tried not to give it any more thought when she woke up; she just got up and went before she could talk herself out of it.
Now the office door was open and Roger was bent over his desk, scribbling something on a notepad.
She knocked gently on the door. “Mr. Fenway?”
Roger looked up, startled, then grinned. “Amelia! Amelia Dory! Hello! What a wonderful surprise!” He stood up and shook her hand, using his other arm to usher her in. “Have a seat. Can I get you coffee or juice or anything?”
She sat down. “Oh no, I’m fine. I just wanted to say I’m in. I mean, I’ll do it. I’ll join your incubator.”
Roger laughed, his eyes bright. “Just like that? Just like that, you’re in?”
“Well, it’s true you’re covering our college expenses, right? And we get a salary?”
“Yes. That’s the deal. But who is ‘we’? Do you have a partner?”
“Yes. My twin brother, Adam. I want him to be my partner.”
“Cool,” Roger said. This was a surprise, but if Adam was anything like her, he’d take it. “Sounds great. I can’t wait to meet him.”
“Okay. That’s great, then.” She stood up to leave.
Roger laughed at her impatience. “Wait, Amelia, this is what you want to do, right? You seemed pretty adamant about refusing me before. Am I allowed to ask what changed? This isn’t something your parents are forcing you into to save tuition money, is it?”
“I don’t have parents. They died before I met them. So, no.”
“I’m sorry,” Roger said.
“It’s not your fault.” Amelia responded unemotionally, as though she’d given that response several times before. She didn’t offer any more explanation.
“Okay, well … Let me show you the space at least? Do you have time for that?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”
Roger walked Amelia back to the front. “Let’s start from the beginning,” he said proudly. There were ten offices: his, plus nine for the incubator’s companies. Each had floor-to-ceiling windows facing the hall, a sofa, two desks with computers, a printer, and a large white monitor on the wall.
“Have you seen these smartboards?” he asked excitedly, picking up a marker and drawing directly onto the monitor. “They’re like whiteboards, but without the chemical markers and the mess. Plus, they take a digital image of everything you write, so you can store all your great ideas.”
She had to admit, it was pretty cool.
Next Roger showed her two large conference rooms. “For investor meetings, when you start having them. Once you’ve got a good working prototype, I’ll make sure you get the right investors. People you can trust, who can add ideas and not just money.”
After that, Roger led her to the kitchen. “The office coordinator is on vacation, but you’ll meet her soon. Anyway, she went ahead and stocked the kitchen, but just let us know what you like and we’ll make sure to have it on hand.” He opened the cabinet, which was fully stocked with Clif Bars, bags of fancy potato chips, Haribo gummies, dried fruit and trail mixes, and six full-size-candy dispensers. The fridge made the Gates drink selection look drab; it was filled with sodas in glass bottles, organic juices, and bottles of Starbucks Frappuccino.
Amelia couldn’t contain her surprise. “Wow,” she said, and smiled at Roger.
He chuckled. “There’s the smile! It’s always the food that gets you engineers.” He patted her playfully on the shoulder.
“And finally,” he said, as he led her to one last room behind the kitchen, “the playroom. I think that’s what we’ll call it. What do you think?”
They stepped into a large, all-glass, enclosed room full of oversized beanbags, a large-screen TV with a Wii hooked up to it, and a low table stacked with puzzles and Rubik’s Cubes. “I really want this to be the room where everyone who is part of the incubator gathers and feels safe to share ideas. You can write on all the walls.” He took out a marker and drew on one of the glass panes. “And you can take a break or help each other with concepts. I want this to be the energy center of the office, you know? I want you to view this as a community.”
Roger’s eyes shone with pride for the space, and, as much as she tried to resist it, his energy was contagious.
He smiled at Amelia. He could see her shell starting to crack. “Listen, Amelia, I know you’re hesitant about all this, and I want you to know that you can trust me. I know it’s going to take time to prove that to you, but I will. You’ve got real talent, Amelia, and helping you cultivate it is the most important thing, okay?”
Amelia nodded, not sure what to say. As wonderful as all these perks were, they just felt like reminders of her moral sacrifice, of giving up her ideals for money. As much as she appreciated the interest Roger was taking in her, she still felt like a sellout.
But Adam would love it. She knew that. And she needed his happiness, now. She owed that to him.
“Do you mind if I take a photo?” she asked Roger.
“Of course not.”
She took a picture of the room with her iPhone and texted it to Adam. “Welcome 2 our new office. Officially a part of Fenway Ventures.”
Roger took her back to his office, where she signed a contract and a few other legal forms. “I’m guessing you haven’t got a name yet? That can wait.”
“Doreye,” she said. “I want to call it Doreye.”
Roger smiled. “Doreye? Like your name plus the device’s eye? I like it. We should be able to get the URL for that pretty easily, too. Excellent choice.”
19
A Late-night Snack
Patty couldn’t sleep. Finals were next week, and she’d temporarily moved back in with her parents to study and avoid the distractions of campus. She glanced at the clock: 2:37 A.M.
She lay in bed, eyes wide open and head spinning with economics theories. Maybe she’d overdone it on the caffeine and Adderall. Suddenly, she remembered the ice cream Felicia had made. She threw off the covers and padded down the stairs to the freezer, where she found the container of ice cream waiting for her.
She sat at the kitchen counter with a spoon and ate straight from the container. Delicious. The full moon was shining through the French doors that led from the kitchen onto the patio, casting enough light for her reflection to show on the stainless-steel refrigerator door. She studied her figure as she spooned the ice cream into her mouth and couldn’t help but feel very pretty in the moonlight. She felt natural, her hair twisted back in a simple bun, her cleavage showing in the pink Juicy tank top that matched her pink plaid boxer shorts. She cocked her head to one side and puckered her lips a little, squeezing her cheeks in. Yes, that was a good angle for photos. She needed to remember that one.
She almost jumped out of her skin when a shadow crossed behind her reflection in the fridge. She spun quickly in the chair and found herself facing Chad. “Oh!” she said, but he put his finger to her lip, a grin spreading across his face. How long had he been there? Had he been watching her?
He sat on the stool next to her and reached over to pull a spoon from the dish rack. Then he dipped it into the container and took a bite of the ice cream. He closed his eyes and savored the taste. Patty sat there, spoon suspended in midair. Why was he awake?
Chad was wearing pajama pants and no shirt; his toned chest and shoulders looked like something out of a magazine. He scooped out another spoonful of ice cream, looked at it, and smiled as he directed it toward Patty’s open mouth. Their eyes stayed locked as she licked the spoon clean.
Do it again, she thought to herself, her heart racing. And he did, but as he pulled the spoon away, a drop fell onto her bare thigh and began to melt. They both looked down and he let out the tiniest little laugh. He used his forefinger to wipe the spill and place it between her lips. He held his finger against her tongue for a moment, staring deep into her eyes, and then silently withdrew it. And then, without a word, he stood up from the stool and left the room, leaving her, mouth still agape, stu
dying his magnificently chiseled back.
20
The Dorii
It was their first day in the office, and Adam could hardly contain his excitement. Amelia was dreading it but forced a smile as she and Adam pulled their bikes into the Sand Hill Road parking lot, where they met Roger, who was pulling up in his Tesla Roadster.
“The Dorii!” he called out as he walked up to greet them. “You must be Adam,” he said, and stuck out his hand.
“Mr. Fenway! It is so excellent to meet you, sir.” Adam’s face beamed.
“And you as well. Come on in, we’ll get you all set up.”
Roger gave Adam the same tour he’d given Amelia, smiling proudly as Adam practically drooled in reaction.
“Doreye is the first company in the incubator, so it’ll be a little quiet until the other groups join later in the summer. In the meantime, I’ve hired a recent Stanford grad to run the day-to-day operations, to help keep you on track and make sure you’ve got what you need. He’s on his way over, so you can meet him.”
Adam nodded eagerly. Everything Roger said sounded great to him. Amelia had moved to her desk and logged into the computer. Roger glanced over at her. “Open your browser,” he instructed.
Amelia clicked the Google Chrome icon and smiled as the home page popped up: www.doreye.com. A simple logo had been constructed, with the text “Adam and Amelia Dory, Cofounders” in bold typeface underneath, plus the address on Sand Hill Road and a phone number.
“I ordered your business cards, too. They’re in the desk.” Just then he heard someone at the door and shouted, “T.J.? We’re in here.”
T.J.? Adam glanced nervously at Roger. It couldn’t be. But before he had time to absorb what was happening, T.J. Bristol was at Roger’s side, tilting his head in confusion at the sight of Adam.
Roger didn’t notice. “T.J., meet Adam and Amelia Dory, cofounders of our first company. Adam and Amelia, T.J. is going to be your supervisor and right-hand man.”
T.J. almost choked. Did he say Amelia Dory? Was that a joke? T.J. thought quickly. No, Roger didn’t know. Obviously he knew about Gibly—it had been headline news for the past week—but Amelia’s name had never been released outside the Bristol household.
Oh my fucking God, thought T.J. I’m their boss. Despite how much he’d used her name in the past three weeks, he’d never actually seen Amelia. But he knew this girl. Yes! She was that dweeb from University Café that Roger couldn’t get enough of. That girl was Amelia Dory, the girl who was bringing down Gibly? No fucking way.
“Hey, Adam.” T.J. composed himself and gave Adam a half high-five, half-handshake. “Long time,” he said. T.J. hadn’t talked to Adam since the night of the graduation party. Adam took his hand, trying to compose himself. T.J. Bristol was his supervisor? Did Roger not know?
T.J. then moved to Amelia. “Amelia Dory,” he said slowly. “It is lovely to meet you. I’ve heard you are quite the computer mastermind.”
Roger hadn’t mentioned T.J.’s last name, and Amelia hadn’t yet pieced together the connection between this guy and Ted. All she knew was he looked like exactly the kind of business jerk she’d been afraid of when this whole thing started, and she sighed disappointedly.
“T.J.,” Roger said, “I’ve got a few other things I want to walk through with you. Why don’t you come to my office and leave these two to get acquainted with the new space.”
“Sure thing,” T.J. said, and the two left the room. T.J. had already adjusted to the situation and was strategizing how he could use this new connection to his advantage.
Adam watched anxiously and, as soon as they were gone, shut the office door. “Amelia, that’s T.J.! That’s T.J. Bristol! Ted’s son!”
“What? No!”
“Yes! Jesus, Amelia, Ted Bristol’s son is our new boss.”
“What are we going to do?”
Before Adam could answer, the phone rang. Impatiently, he snatched up the receiver. “Listen, whatever you’re selling, we’re not interested. Just take our name off your list and—”
Amelia watched as Adam’s face went pale. He stopped speaking. After a moment, he placed the receiver back in the cradle.
“Adam, what’s wrong? You look sick.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Adam said. “I never thought I’d hear that voice again.”
“Don’t tell me—”
Adam stared at the phone as his mouth went dry.
“Amelia, we’ve got much bigger problems than T.J. and Ted Bristol.”
Part II
21
The Secrets We Keep
Three months had passed since that first phone call, and the threats were still coming. They weren’t constant or predictable, which made them even more disturbing: Two weeks would go by without a word, just long enough for Adam to think they had given up, and then he’d get a call at two o’clock in the morning. “Get Amelia back on board or we’re telling Stanford and your fancy little boss what you did,” the all-too-familiar voice would say. In a rage, Adam would yell, “You can’t prove anything!” and hang up.
After the first one, Adam told Amelia that The Family had stopped calling. “They wanted to torment us when they found us, but I guess they lost interest,” he lied. The calls and e-mails continued, and Adam tried to get his mind off of things.
Students had begun moving back to campus for the new school year. To keep their status on campus as a student residence, the Phi Delta fraternity had to reserve two rooms for nonmembers, and T.J.—now an alumnus—had pulled some strings to get Adam a room there. “Basically, the fraternity picks two cool dudes who they like and want to live with, but who for whatever reason decided not to pledge last spring,” T.J. had explained to Adam.
T.J. had also explained that it would be a “great networking opportunity” for Adam. “The relationships you build in the fraternity—and these are influential guys from influential families, Adam—will take you far beyond sorority mixers. It may seem like a get-wasted-and-do-stupid-things party from the outside, but the bonds you form playing beer pong at three A.M. are indestructible, and you’d be surprised how they’ll come into play twenty years from now when you’re trying to close some deal.”
Adam liked that logic and repeated it verbatim when he told Amelia. He didn’t need T.J. to convince him to take the room, though. He tried to hide it, but he was excited about moving into a fraternity house. And this wasn’t just any fraternity house; Phi Delta was the frat—the one Patty and all her friends flocked to—and everyone knew it. In one quarter, Adam had gone from dweeb in the dorm to young entrepreneur in the Phi Delta house. Sophomore year was looking great.
He was in his new room, transferring books from a moving box to the floating bookshelf above the bed, when he heard an e-mail come through on his phone. Ever since he and Amelia had started their company, Adam and his iPhone had been inseparable. Any time he heard an e-mail notification, he dropped everything, interrupted any conversation, to get to it. It could be Amelia with a new development or T.J. with an urgent question, or maybe someone from the press (okay, that hadn’t happened yet, but Roger said it would), and Adam had to be prepared to jump into action at any moment.
He opened the e-mail and, as he read, he felt the blood drain from his face.
Adam,
We thought you might not think we were serious, so we figured we’d share a little something we found in the study after you left The Family. See attached screenshot. You and Amelia aren’t the only clever ones around here. We need Amelia to do something for us. You have two weeks to convince her or we’re sending this out. Your company has a blog, right? Maybe we can post the picture there.
Your Brothers
“Hey stranger.”
Adam turned to find Lisa walking through the door. She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned down to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Everything okay? You look upset.” She furrowed her pretty brow in concern.
Adam quickly closed the e-mail and s
wallowed. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Just—it’s nothing. How are you? How is the move going?”
Lisa had been assigned to a dorm across campus with a roommate from Nigeria. She was on a coed floor, and Adam had not been pleased to discover that her neighbor was a starting player on the men’s water polo team.
“Oh, it’s great! You know Mom; she had everything unpacked and in perfect order by lunchtime, but she chipped her nail when she was putting together an IKEA shoe rack, so we just went to get manicures.” Lisa flashed her hands to show freshly pink-painted tips.
Adam grabbed them and pulled her close, resting his hands on her hips. “And your roommate?”
“Seyi? She is soooo sweet. Apparently her family owns a diamond mine. Can you believe that? She went to school in Switzerland and speaks, like, nine languages. It’s crazy.”
Great, Adam thought. Another highly intimidating rich girl. “I can’t wait to meet her,” he said.
Lisa scrunched her nose. “You know you can’t. I mean, I guess you can meet her, but not as my … I mean, you know no one can know that we see each other like this.”
Adam let his hands fall from her hips, swiveling back around in his chair to face his laptop. “Yeah, I know.” He didn’t understand why Lisa still refused to tell anyone they were together or call him her boyfriend. He’d started a company, he’d gotten into a fraternity—kind of—and he had even let her take him shopping with some of the money from Doreye so he could buy a more respectable wardrobe.
“Adam, we’ve talked about this. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.” She tilted her head to the side and eyed him carefully. “Is that what’s behind all this?”
“Behind what?”
“I feel like you’ve been distant lately, like there’s something happening that you’re not telling me about.”
He turned to face her. She was wearing short white shorts and a tight pink tank top that accentuated her full breasts and small waist. God, she was pretty. He smiled reassuringly. “It’s nothing,” he lied. “I’m just a little stressed over how busy things are getting with the start-up.”
