Daniel: Hi Pen. I was wondering if you’d thought any more about what we spoke about? (2h ago)
And then, when I hadn’t replied:
Daniel: I know you’re a loyal business partner, but this isn’t about friendship, it’s about business. (3m ago)
Fuck.
35
There was a beat of silence where all five of us just stared at the screen.
‘What is he on about, Penny?’ Rory didn’t sound annoyed. He sounded hurt.
‘Let me see?’ Maeve swivelled my phone around so that she could read it properly. I winced at her expression.
‘I swear’ – I laid my hands on the table, shaking – ‘that I haven’t spoken to him since Wednesday, and I didn’t say anything to him that day in the office to make him think he could still reach out.’
No one spoke. Not even Rory.
‘Come, on Ror, you know I wouldn’t do that.’
He wasn’t looking at me any more, just straddling his chair and rubbing his face with his hands. ‘Do I know that?’
I couldn’t help it; I raised my voice. ‘I’ve given everything to Level, why would I go behind your back and sign it away?’
Isla, who was the only person in this room that knew exactly where I stood when it came to our company, put her hand on Rory’s shoulder. ‘She wouldn’t, and you know that.’
‘I promise, that day in the office I told him where to shove it.’ I played with a hangnail under the table, ripping the skin away from my cuticle. It looked like honesty hour was premature. ‘But before that, he wasn’t Michael Broadhurst, board member of Link. Remember?’
Rory was watching me, apprehensive. ‘Yes, I do remember telling you to avoid him.’
I blew out a breath. ‘And I remember being a grown adult woman who makes her own decisions.’
‘Clearly.’
Okay. This was it. My chance to come clean about my feelings towards Level.
‘I had started to have doubts about what we were doing. About whether we were actually achieving what we set out to accomplish.’ I repeated my spiel from earlier today, and from across the table, Isla nodded at me, encouraging me to continue.
‘The thing is’ – I was pretty sure that my cuticle was bleeding profusely under the table now – ‘people want love so badly, and I wanted to be able to give that to them. But I’m not sure any more that an algorithm can do that. And after my most recent experiences, I’m not even sure I know what love is.’
They’d all been listening – Joe and Isla intently, Rory sceptically, and Maeve somewhere in the middle. It must have been painful for the rest of them, being stuck in the centre of this.
‘Wow, you really don’t know what love is?’ Rory recoiled. ‘You’re telling me that you doubted six years of hard work, because a poor excuse for a man ghosted you? Come on, Penny. Come on.’
Joe raised a little bit in his seat. ‘Rory, mate, don’t.’
My brother hated conflict, but he’d pushed a boy off his bike when we were in school, just for calling me names. I intervened.
‘It’s not just because a boy ghosted me.’ I tried to maintain a level of calm. ‘And I tried to tell you Rory, that day in your kitchen, but you wouldn’t listen.’
He shook his head, furious. ‘Don’t put this on me.’
‘But it’s true.’ I felt tears prickling behind my eyelids. ‘We had the security breach, and it suddenly became really clear to me that this isn’t a game. It’s people’s lives. And I don’t want to play with lives if the app doesn’t work.’
I stared down at my pyjama shorts, pulling at the blue and lemon striped drawstring.
‘I thought I was seeing a guy who I could speak to about that sort of thing. I had no idea who he was, Rory.’
My voice cracked a little bit, the humiliation of what had happened that day in the office still fresh. Underneath the table, Joe nudged my foot. The unspoken sibling understanding kicked in. If you want me to put a stop to this, I will.
‘She’s telling the truth.’ Isla poured everyone a glass of water. ‘Let’s all just take a minute.’
But Rory looked panicked. ‘You must have had some serious doubts to spill all of that to a stranger. Where do you stand right now?’
I froze. I hadn’t thought past explaining Daniel’s text away. But now that I was in the hot seat, I had to continue with honesty. It was the only way out of this with our friendship still intact.
‘I’m not sure what I think.’
Maeve got up. ‘I think maybe we need to take a breath, and –’
‘How can you say that you don’t know what you think? They want to merge apps, Pen, and I know you know what that means.’
He was still using my nickname, which was something.
‘If Link takes us over, then it won’t be a fair split. I can promise you that. They’d steal our algorithm, take the glory for themselves, and we’ve not been around long enough for people to remember the work we did.’
Isla nudged a glass of water in my direction and I took a sip, my hands shaking. I did feel a bit like I was in an interview.
