Page 47

Determined to overcome any nerves about hanging out with CJ, I drag Carter out of the brownstone so we can order our takeout right at the restaurant and I can hopefully disperse some of the nervous energy with the walk

After Carter’s quick search, he found out they do deliver, but Wolf and CJ are stuck in traffic anyway and it is a nice night.

“I really do believe that the repetition of seeing and talking to them will help in the long run.” I finish my explanation.

“I think it will too,” Carter agrees, and swings our interlocked hands while we walk up the stairs of the brownstone.

We set everything out on the coffee table in the living room after debating where to put it.

Carter’s point that they’ll probably want to lounge around and snack on the food is what decides it, and I’m just making sure we have several beverage options available and within reach when we hear the door swing open and the sound of suitcases being wheeled down the hallway .

“We’re here,” I think CJ shouts.

“Come on.” Carter grabs my hand and pulls me to the entrance where he greets everyone, including a very tall and strong man who looks beyond exhausted.

“Why is Rich barely able to stand on his feet?” Carter asks Wolf and slaps his hands on his hips.

“I couldn’t sleep on the flight,” the man who I assume is Rich grumbles.

“We ordered Greek. You want to eat some?” Carter asks him.

“No thanks. Save me some for later since I’ll probably be up before dawn, but I need to sleep now. Which room can I use?”

“I’ll show you.”

Rich goes to grab a couple of suitcases while he has a duffel bag strapped across his chest, but Wolf waves his hands away.

“You get your shit upstairs and sleep,” he grumbles at him.

“Come on.” Carter nods at the stairs while looking at Rich, then he looks at me. “This is Liam, by the way. He’s my boyfriend.”

“Hey.” Rich only nods, which I copy.

“Hello.”

“You okay if I take him up?” Carter asks, softly enough that I think maybe no one else heard.

“Yes,” I assure him, then turn to CJ and Wolf. “Do you guys want something to drink? We set the food out in the living room.”

I point toward the back of the brownstone with my thumb.

“Water is fine,” CJ says with a smile. “We’ll just set all this up by the elevator so we can take it up when we’re done.”

I walk back with them, feeling dumb for not offering to help, but I do hurry to get them water, and by the time Carter is back downstairs, we’re just settling in on the couches in the living room.

“So, Liam,” CJ asks while he loads up breadsticks with tzatziki. “What happened with Mrs. Blackwell investing in your app?”

“You don’t—” Carter starts to fend CJ’s questions off, but I wave him off.

“It’s fine,” I tell him, then I turn in CJ’s direction. “She decided not to invest.”

“Why?” he asks with a frown and takes another bite.

“I honestly don’t know.” I shrug, feeling the helplessness all over again.

“Wait, explain to me again what your app will do.”

That’s one topic I can always talk about. It is after all how I first became close to Carter. So while the three of them eat, I give him a condensed version of my research and the resulting algorithm, then explain the concept of the app.

When I’m done Wolf is actually smiling, which is a rare sight, but CJ is frowning slightly.

“What is it?” I can’t help but ask, my nerves over building a good rapport with Carter’s friends coming back with a vengeance.

Instead of answering right away, CJ stands and tilts his head in the direction of the front of the brownstone.

“Why don’t you come with me to the front parlor?”

I look at Carter to see if anything in his expression will clue me into what is happening, but he just shrugs and stares at me. He’s leaving it up to me .

I could just say no. The fact that Carter is giving me the option to say whatever I want leads me to believe he thinks nothing bad would happen if I did that. But why would I do that?

CJ is a good person from everything I’ve seen of him, and he’s close to Wolf and Carter, two men who I know well and respect.

“All right,” I murmur and follow him to the stuffy, not-at-all-homey front parlor. It opens right into the entrance hall, so it’s not really private, but I don’t think I could hear Carter from here if he talked at a normal volume.

“Did Carter tell you I’m a doctor?”

It’s only the first question and I’m already very confused.

“Uh, yes, I think he mentioned it back at your birthday party.”

“Good.” He nods and takes a seat in one of the armchairs. I sit in the one next to it and cross my legs then steeple my hands and place them on my lap so they won’t twitch. “I recently quit my surgical residency, because two years ago I gained control of the Clemson trust.”

I feel my frown harden. “I don’t know what the Clemson trust is,” I tell him apologetically.

“It’s simply the trust of the Clemson family.

My mother is a Clemson and her father left her in charge until I reached an acceptable age in his eyes.

That’s not the important part. The important part is that it’s a lot of money that I’m working on making sure goes into the right places.

To charities that help marginalized communities, to schools, scholarship funds, and all kinds of places, really.

Anyway, what I’m getting at is that I want to invest in ESoothe. ”

I... “I don’t understand.” Why is he doing this?

Instead of answering immediately, he looks to the side and breathes deeply before he speaks again.

“Imagine you have unlimited knowledge,” he says when he turns to look at me again, then he leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

I nod at him to show I’m following, even though I have no clue where he’s going with this.

“Knowledge that can help as much as it can hurt or cure.

Enlighten or make people more ignorant. So you have all this information and you want to make sure it helps somehow.

“You’ve done that with this algorithm, with ESoothe. You’re going to make a big change in people’s lives, in their relationships with their mental health. You’re going to give a brand new tool to therapists.”

He pauses there, and I risk a quick glance to see his brown eyes staring up at me with a bright interest.

“That’s also what I want to do. But instead of knowledge and information, I have money. So much money ,” he exaggerates and sighs.

I take a moment to think through everything he’s said and it... actually makes sense.

“Are you only offering because Carter and I are in a relationship? Because Tristan tried to convince me to talk to his husband, but I don’t want anyone investing who doesn’t absolutely believe in ESoothe.”

He lets out a soft chuckle and shakes his head.

“I like that about you, Liam, but no. I’m definitely not planning on giving you an absurd amount of money just because my best friend was lucky enough to meet you and you were crazy enough to like him.”

I can’t help but snort, and then it’s me shaking my head.

“Carter is amazing,” I correct him softly.

“So are you,” he says earnestly. “I can give you all the money you want to ensure you retain access to the streaming services.” I feel my eyes open wide at that statement since that’s.

.. a lot of money. “But,” he continues before I can ask about that.

“This deal you’re trying to make with them isn’t the right path, I don’t think. ”

My frown is back in a millisecond.

“I don’t think the end goal is wrong,” he speaks more quickly now.

“I think having it connected to people’s accounts on those streaming services will lead to the most streamlined process possible, but you have to realize that they’re the ones who should be banging on your door and offering you money for the access to ESoothe.

You need to get those people in a room and show them the facts. ”

“And what are the facts?” I ask quietly.

“The most important one is that they need you , not the other way around.”

“But you just said the end goal?—”

“I know, I know,” he holds up a hand. “But you could work around them at first. Offer your app to the public, and instead of actually creating a playlist, you create a list of songs. The list isn’t linked to any streaming service, it’s just words.

The process the user would go through to set up their profile is the same.

They indicate their musical preferences, even favorite artists and whatever other information your algorithm needs, and then the users have to go into their apps and create the playlists themselves. ”

“This would take more time for the users,” I counter.

“That’s true, but that wouldn’t matter in the long run.”

Now I’m not following anymore.

“Why not?”

“Because people will pay for your app at first simply because you have some very famous people who believe in you and who would absolutely film small videos and do advertisements for the app before it even launches. Hell, they’d hype it up on social media and not ask for a dime. ” I let that sink in for a moment.

“That would mean having users without having ESoothe linked to any music streaming services?”

“Exactly. You twist their arms,” he cries out.

“You launch without the connection to them so people know it’s separate, and when they see the incredible success you can have without them, they’ll be begging you to let them connect your users to their platforms. You don’t even need my money, which I’m still more than willing to give to you.

If you want to be nice to these big companies, what you do is to go to them and say, ‘Listen, I’m launching this app.

You give me one week to advertise with the plug-in to your apps and you’ll see the benefit.

’ If they don’t, then no deal. If they do, then they have to pay for the connection to your app. ”

I mull it over in my head and wonder if he really thinks this would work.

“But no one’s ever really heard of ESoothe,” I argue. “The idea is that the streaming companies help us get users in the first place. ”

“Bro,” he says the word like it’s a groan.

“If you make ads with your parents, Hawk and Wolf, Sterling, our damn therapists, all our football-playing friends, or even a few doctor friends I have, you’ll have a lot of users quickly, believe me.

In fact, you’ll have so many users you’ll be glad you took my money, because I bet you anything most of it is going to go into paying for servers and programmers for the app and not for the connection with the streaming services.

And I bet you need someone who’s good at sales and not just advertising. We’d have to look for someone soon.”

I take in the possibility, the excitement, the confidence, and can’t help but believe every word coming out of CJ’s mouth.

But then the doubt and frustration of the past two weeks creeps back in.

“I wouldn’t feel right not paying anyone for their time,” I mumble. “And what if that’s not enough. I’d be betting the success of my life’s work on advertisements when I don’t know anything about marketing anything.”

“Yes you do,” CJ says loudly and scoots to the very edge of his seat. “You’ve sold every one of us on the idea, and I don’t have to tell you about the theories that repressed emotion and lack of emotional education are the underlying causes for a lot of non-mental diseases.”

“Those theories aren’t proven, though.”

“That’s true, but it is a fact that people with better self esteem have better immune systems.”

“Yes, that’s true,” I mumble.

“And validation of your feelings increases self esteem. I remember very clearly hearing songs as a teenager that talked about exactly what I was feeling, and that was very validating. Hell, it still is. And if you’re worried about paying everyone, then we can make that happen. I can give you a billion dollars.”

He says it so casually, while I well... I don’t feel casual about nine zeroes at all .

“A BILLION?” I scream.

CJ waves that away as if it were just another detail. “I have like twenty more of those, and I think this is a worthy cause.”

“I don’t need a billion dollars,” I insist.

“Fine,” he sighs and rolls his eyes. “Then I’ll give you less than that, but the point remains. You can make this happen. You have my money and my support, and you can bet I’m gonna get Wolf to make fifty ads for you if that’s what it takes.”

“I...” I don’t know what to say. I’m pretty sure I have whiplash, but still, going with instinct is the only thing my body can process at the moment.

I launch myself at him and hug him.

For about three seconds he doesn’t hug me back, and then he does, but I can tell his touch is hesitant, and realize I have no idea if CJ likes hugs or not, so I pull away and smile at him.

“Thank you for believing in me.”

“We all do,” Carter’s voice comes from behind me and he shrugs at what must be my very surprised face. “I heard you scream, of course I’m going to come see if you’re all right.”

“Thank you,” I whisper at him, knowing those words will never be enough.

Maybe someday I’ll find those right words. Maybe someday I’ll be able to describe exactly how he makes me feel .

For now I stand and walk to him, hug him a lot longer than three seconds, and just breathe him in.

All I wanted was to make ESoothe a success. That was all I could focus on until I saw him appear on that escalator with London at the airport.

Even though I was worried for my sister, I still know that from that moment on I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him.

Most aspects of my daily life have changed thanks to Carter, and though in the past I think I would’ve resented them, I know he’s going to always take care of me. I know I can trust him to respect my needs, and I know he’s the man I want to hold onto for the rest of my life.

And most importantly, I finally understand that sometimes what you want is not what you need, but when your wants and needs are the same, life becomes a dream come true.