Unmatched

The guy spat at me.

I was so stunned.

You asked when everything changed, you know, but the thing is, there wasn’t this one, lightning bolt moment with a blatant before and after. No, it was more a gradual unraveling. Still, if I had to pick a moment—the straw that broke the camel’s back? It was that moment. At Red’s party.

You know Red. Redford Ansa, the idea guy behind Spark.

Red was like a lot of the bros in the tech industry then and now. You worked hard but you partied harder, unless you wanted to get left out the next time he was handing out new assignments. New roles.

Partying was as much a part of the life as working. All-nighters to hit deadlines. All-nighters at the club. It was exhausting. But that was the life. 24/7.

I don’t think I’d ever have had a problem with alcohol outside of the culture of start ups like Spark—and Spark wasn’t my first. I’m not trying to say Red made me an alcoholic. I was in that 24/7 mentality long before Red brought me on.

It’s just that you had to drink. You had to party. It was an expectation.

People who didn’t, got left behind, and I wasn’t going to be left behind. No way.

So yeah, Red’s party. Probably the fifth one of his I’d been to that year and it was March. I had on a new dress, a Michael Kors, I remember because later that year Blake Lively wore it at some award show and people tell me I look like her, probably because we’re both blondes. She wore it better—amazing shoes, for one thing—but I was pretty happy with it because it was one of the first dresses of that caliber I could afford, you know. I mean I didn’t grow up poor but I was starting to exist in a higher income bracket.

When I got to the party I could already tell there was going to be some nastiness. Tim and I had broken up two weeks before and he wasn’t taking it well, and people were really starting to get polarized about it. If you can call it that—most of them were polarized on his side, I guess, but Gemma was there, at least.

Gemma Larken, you know—I brought her along with me to Queenie.

I went up to her right away because I could tell there were going to be a lot of cold shoulders. We went to the ladies’ together for a break from the atmosphere.

“Don’t sweat it,” Gemma told me, reapplying her lipstick in mirror, which glowed with bright light in a frame around it.

“You haven’t seen his texts,” I said, looking at my phone and feeling my heart sink.

UR heartless

I can’t believe I thought Ud be a good wife and mother. Ur a cheating bitch and he can have my leftovers

UR going to regret this

“Close those texts,” Gemma said. “Show me something good.”

I just kind of stared at her reflection in the mirror. Gemma’s got the best skin, creamy and blemishless, and thick, wavy brown hair. She looked back at me expectantly.

I tried to think of something good. Something I could show her.

When was the last time I even experienced “something good”?

“Well, I could show you the guy I met in January,” I said.

Gemma’s eyes widened and she nodded with enthusiasm.

I cracked a grin as I opened Spark and scrolled to the profile I’d saved. Cam Elder. He grinned and his blue eyes popped in his profile pic.

“Ooh, he is cute! This is the guy you taught how to ski?”

I laughed. “Sort of. But yeah.”

“Didn’t you say you noticed his profile before you ended up running into him?”

“Yeah.”

Looking at the picture was soothing, I had to admit.

I hadn’t seen him since Aspen, of course. Tim had all kinds of ideas that were pure fiction. But I wished I had seen him.

I’m single. I’m a free woman. There’d be nothing wrong if I did start seeing someone.

Feeling more centered, I went back out into the party, Gemma at my side.

We got drinks and I tried chatting with someone, and they literally turned their shoulder to me.

With a sigh I moved on. I overheard a couple of other people talking.

“...new projects meeting. And he said he wants a new direction in marketing,” one of them, a lower level programmer, Ricky, said.

He was talking to Aiden, middle manager, who answered, “Oh, yeah, I heard that. Tim told me about it when he got out of the meeting.”

Tim? I frowned. What meeting were they talking about?

When had it happened?

I hadn’t been notified of any meeting today.

“Guess it took an hour for Red to even get to the meat of it,” Aiden continued. “Tim was pissed. Though you know how he’s been.”

“Sure, but anybody’d be annoyed if their whole afternoon got swallowed up because Red couldn’t send a few emails instead,” Ricky said. “And a Friday afternoon. There’s always a bigger pile of bullshit to get through on Fridays.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Aiden said.

I couldn’t stand it. “There was a meeting today? With senior leadership?” I asked.

Ricky’s face blanked and Aiden bit his lip.

Neither of them replied, but that was enough to give me my answer.

“Unbelievable.”

This wasn’t out of the blue. Ever since I’d broken up with Tim Jensen, one of my fellow co-founders at Spark, there’d been several emails people forgot to cc me on, several informal meetings no one thought to invite me to, and now this.

I spotted Tim across the room. He was holding a beer and talking to a couple of his sycophants, Doug and Quinton.

I stormed over there, seriously considering throwing my drink in his face.

I restrained myself.

I even took a couple of deep breaths before I stepped into his little circle.

“Tim,” I said, tilting my head to the side with a cold smile. “I hear there was a meeting today. With senior leadership. Why wasn’t I included?”

Tim scoffed. “You’re not senior leadership, Finley.”

“The hell I’m not! I’m a co-founder and the director of marketing!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Spark can’t have a girl like you as a co-founder. No one would take us seriously.”

I stared at him as his buddies chortled with him.

“Tim, I fucking named the app.”

Tim shrugged. “You’ve got delusions of grandeur, Finley. You always have. You hooked up with me and you thought you had it made, didn’t you? Cause I’m going places. Not like your little boyfriend from Aspen.”

I sucked in air and tried to put a coherent sentence together, but I was seeing red. “I’ve told you, I don’t have a boyfriend—and you can’t retaliate against me for breaking up with you like this!”

“You, break up with me? Oh, Fin. You’re really delusional. I’m losing patience,” he said, baring his teeth in a fake grin. “Fact is, you’re a nobody. You’re nothing. Nothing but a fucking whore!”

It was like getting struck in the face. I gasped and took a step back.

“Yeah,” Doug said with gusto, and he spat at me.

He fucking spat at me.

That’s it, I thought, my mind in chaos and my breathing hitching as I stumbled back, wiping my face. That’s fucking it!

I need to find Red.

I’m going to tell him I’m out.