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Chapter One

Andrew

You know how there are those moments you’ve over-fantasized about? I’m talking about the ones you’ve scripted to perfection like the writers of Succession , The Crown, and Breaking Bad got together to write an Oscar-winning screenplay.

Somehow, on this rainy Tuesday night in a small London pub called The Posh Pigeon, I’ve stumbled upon the chance to act out one of those fantasies in real life.

I’ve ducked into the pub on my way home from The Natural History Museum and have just ordered a pint from the bartender when my eyes catch on the guy standing on the other side of the bar.

Recognition strikes and my breath whooshes out of me like my lungs have become a giant whoopee cushion. My face immediately starts to tingle.

Justin Morris.

Here.

In London.

Not just in London, but in the same pub as me.

What are the statistical odds of that? It’s like having your horoscope come true while being struck by lightning as a seagull steals your winning lottery ticket. The universe has a sick sense of humor, dropping my high school tormentor into my quiet London evening.

At the sight of him, my carefully constructed adult life—where I’ve been a successful tech CEO who owns a company that employs thousands—crashes like an untested software release. Suddenly, I’m fourteen again, trying to make myself invisible in the hallway as Justin and his friends approach. The speed of my regression is almost comical, like I’ve skipped every stage of adult development and landed squarely back in puberty, complete with imaginary acne and the sudden inability to form full sentences.

I grip my beer glass so tightly my knuckles turn white as ten years of carefully crafted revenge scenarios flash through my mind like a PowerPoint presentation. I’ve spent a lot of time working out the exact details of what I’d say to Justin Morris if I ever saw him again.

In my imagining, he’s always spotted me first, his eyes widening in recognition before he approaches me.

“Hey, didn’t we go to high school together?”

Me, looking at him with disinterest: “Did we?”

Him, getting excited: “That’s right. I read an article about you. You’re the guy who built the NovaCore system. Andrew Yates, right?”

Me, looking down my nose at him: “Yes, that’s me. And I recognize you now. You’re the guy who tormented me in high school for being gay and geeky. Are you proud of yourself? Did it make you feel more of a man to torture someone so far below you on the social hierarchy?”

In my imagining, Justin draws a sharp breath as he realizes someone is actually going to hold him accountable for his past actions.

An earlier version of my fantasy has him stammering a broken, twisted apology as he tries to explain away his past behavior.

But in later versions, I mute him because I’ve heard enough of Justin Morris’s voice for a lifetime.

In the next part, I tell him in a clear, articulate voice exactly what I think of him before throwing a Bloody Mary into his overly handsome face, the splatters of which leave an incriminating stain on his pants, indicating all might not be well with his bladder control.

And yes, I might have researched what cocktail stains the most because I’m a details guy, even regarding fantasy revenge plots.

Then, as Justin stares at me, pants wet, chest heaving, looking utterly humiliated, I deliver an absolute zinger before I turn away from him: “ You’re not even worth my spit .”

This is how it’s supposed to go down.

Unfortunately, the Justin before me now differs from the Justin I had imagined.

Until now, eighteen-year-old Justin was the most superior specimen of masculinity I’d ever seen. Light-brown hair that curled at the end when it got too long. Golden skin. Blue-green eyes.

But it turns out Teenage Justin was a primitive life form compared to the man across the bar from me.

Gone is his baby face, the roundness of his cheeks, and in its place is chisel. The kind of chisel that would make sculptors weep into their marble dust. His cheekbones look like they were designed with mathematical precision and his jawline could cut diamonds.

Time has taken everything that made eighteen-year-old Justin annoyingly attractive and cranked the dial up to maximum.

He’s still the best-looking person I’ve seen in real life.

Dammit. This was not in the revenge algorithm. Premature balding that reveals a head shaped like a misshapen light bulb would have been the perfect cosmic punchline. But no. Apparently, the universe has decided that my emotional closure needs to come with a side of inconvenient attraction.

I look away, trying to compose myself as adrenaline races through me. I can’t let myself get distracted by Justin’s appearance.

This is it. This is my chance to get some small measure of payback for those high school years.

My mind races through my scripted scenario, highlighting the differences between the way I’ve imagined this happening and my current reality.

First, I’m in an old-school English pub, so they don’t actually serve cocktails. Which means red wine is probably my best option. But the curvature of a red wine glass might not allow for optimal splatter.

Second, I’m here alone. I’ve always imagined facing Justin Morris down with a posse of cool, hip friends standing at my shoulder, giving derisive smirks at his jock genericness.

Because that’s all he is, I’ve realized over the years. A generic jock. Nothing special. He isn’t the savior of his planet like Superman. He isn’t Luke Skywalker, Neo, Frodo, or even Captain America.

He is just a jock.

It was like an ecological niche thing. He slotted into place in my life as my tormentor because that was what was expected. Captain of the football team and class president bullies the captain of the chess club about his sexuality. It was basically written somewhere in stone, part of the commandments laid down by the gods of American high schools.

But it’s hard to dismiss Justin for his genericness now, seeing him surrounded by a laughing crowd of friends when I’m standing here alone because I’ve been too busy building a tech empire to develop a revenge entourage.

That’s the problem with reality. It very seldom matches the perfection of fantasy. My revenge scenarios never accounted for the possibility that he might have a life that doesn’t revolve around waiting for me to confront him or that I might feel this odd pang of something suspiciously like envy mixed with my righteous anger.

But if I’ve learned anything in my career as a tech entrepreneur, sometimes you’ve got to make do with the resources available.

So, I order a red wine with a shaky voice.

When the bartender hands me the glass, doubt surges inside me. Do I really want to throw this at Justin?

I should be a bigger person than someone who resorts to violence via fermented grapes, right? Besides, the bartender seems nice. She doesn’t deserve to clean up the aftermath of my unresolved high school trauma. And knowing my terrible aim, I’d miss Justin entirely and hit some innocent bystander with a lawyer on speed dial.

Okay, maybe I’ll just go for confronting him verbally.

I wrap my fingers around the glass stem because it’s always good to have a backup.

When I turn to look at Justin, I discover he’s moved away from his group of friends and is cutting through the crowd, heading in my direction.

My heart leaps to my throat.

I only have to move a few steps to put myself directly on his path to the restroom. I force my trembling legs to cooperate, my pulse thundering in my ears so loudly I’m surprised the whole pub can’t hear it.

I can’t believe how much Justin’s presence affects me. Even after ten years, a tech empire, and three commas in my bank balance, my body still reacts to Justin Morris like I’m that scared kid hiding in the computer lab during lunch period.

I exhale a ragged breath and square my shoulders. I can do this. I’m doing this for sixteen-year-old Andrew, who used to practice comebacks in front of my mirror every night, rehearsing words I never found the courage to say aloud. For the Andrew who spent prom night coding alone in my bedroom, telling myself that one day, things would be different.

As Justin approaches, his eyes meet mine.

He looks at me, and it’s a proper look, not a glance that moves past quickly but an actual, verified look.

Stomach churning, my hand shaking slightly as I clutch my wine glass, I wait for it. Maybe a bit of confusion at first because we’re a long way from home, and I’m out of context.

But then I imagine the confusion will morph into shock when he slots me into the correct place in the jigsaw of his life, and then maybe some shame when he recalls some of our past interactions.

Surely, surely, there will be some shame.

Please let there be shame.

But when I look into his ocean-colored eyes, they hold indifference, nothing more.

Our eyes remain locked for one heartbeat. Two. Three.

And there’s nothing. Not even a vague flicker of recognition or a slight squinting of the eyes, a you look slightly familiar tilt of his head.

Instead, his eyes remain as empty as a stranger’s.

Then his gaze brushes past me with the same attention you’d give to brushing off dandruff.

He weaves around me with the fluid grace he’s always possessed, treating me with the same consideration as the bar stools and tables he has to maneuver past.

He disappears into the restroom, the door closing behind him with a definitive click.

The implications of our encounter sink in, hitting me like the Titanic colliding with the iceberg.

My knees go weak.

He didn’t even recognize me.