Steve looks up at me, one eyebrow raised, his glasses perched on his nose. I can tell from his expression that he has no fucking clue what he’s looking at.

“Explain,” he says simply.

I just turn to Riley. “You got this?”

She nods, taking a breath and giving Steve her best, most confident smile. She launches into her pitch, although she sticks to the technical abilities of her design instead of trying to sell it to him. I can tell she’s getting through from the look on his face as he glances between the drawings and her explanation.

It’s early Saturday morning, the first appointment I could get. Apparently Steve works every single day, only taking off Sunday afternoons to go home and see his family. He sounds like a really shit dad, but who am I to judge? I’m not a father, not yet at least.

I glance at Riley again. She’s so fucking sexy and confident when she does this. I wonder when she’ll show, and I feel strangely excited about the prospect. I never knew I was into pregnant chicks, or maybe it’s just one chick pregnant with my baby that I’m into. I’ll make sure I’m extra nice to Riley in bed when she gets into her third trimester, taking my time, making sure she gets what she wants.

Assuming we can even get that far.

Riley finishes her explanation and Steve mumbles to himself, nodding and looking over the diagrams again. They’re simplified, missing a few key details, but they’re enough to give him the gist of what Riley’s getting after. I watch him run his fingers over the blue paper, smoothing out a crease as he reaches for his mug of coffee.

“This is interesting,” he says finally. “Are you sure about these numbers, though?”

“I’m sure,” Riley says with a hint of pride. I want to caution her but Steve doesn’t seem to notice.

“You’re suggesting something like a thirty percent efficiency boost in the panels alone, plus more than doubling their storage capabilities. This is absolutely huge, you do realize that?”

“I know,” Riley says, smiling proudly. “It’s what I’ve been telling people.”

“But is it real?” He looks at her over his glasses, face tense. “Do you have a working prototype?”

Riley falters a bit. “Not yet,” she admits.

“This is all theory.” Steve looks at me. “You want me to invest in theory.”

“It’s more than theory,” I say. “Sunrise is taking some of these ideas right now and getting really great results.”

“Why aren’t they taking it all then?”

“They don’t want to retool their factories in order to accommodate these unusual design characteristics.”

Steve hesitates. “They’re going fucking broke, huh?”

I shrug. “Pretty much. The board wants a cash flow and they want it now, so Mitchell decided to go with an incremental upgrade over a huge leap.”

“Huh,” Steve grunts. Riley looks at me, clearly stressing about this, but I’m not worried. Not even a little bit. I know Steve’s going to bite, it’s just a matter of when and how fucking much.

He looks back up at me finally and narrows his eyes. “What else can you bring to the table?”

“I thought you just needed to see the tech,” Riley says.

I lean toward Steve, not looking at Riley. She doesn’t know how this works, so she thinks that’s a bad question. But I know he just needs a little nudge, and I can give it to him.

“More engineers,” I say. “I’m guessing I can bring at least six guys from Sunrise with me, maybe more, if Riley here can go on a charm offensive.”

Steve glances at her. “Six then.”

I laugh at that and Riley looks indignant. “I can be charming,” she says.

Steve grins at her. “Of course you can, but I’m not banking on it.” He looks back at me and crosses his arms. “You have a workforce skeleton crew, you have office space, and you even say you have a furniture hookup. What the fuck do you need with me then?”

“Money,” I say. “You know that.”

“I don’t just do money,” he answers. “You know that.”

“Thirty percent.”

Riley gapes at me. I shift in the uncomfortable pod of a seat Steve calls a fucking chair and I watch him closely. His whole office is a mid-century modern shrine to the good old days, but it’s all just uncomfortable matchstick garbage as far as I’m concerned.

Steve purses his lips for a second. “Thirty percent, huh,” he says.

“Wait just a second,” Riley cuts in. “We didn’t discuss this.”

Steve raises an eyebrow at me. “You didn’t discuss this with your partner?”

I wince a little bit. “Things are moving fast,” I admit.

“Thirty percent is a lot,” Riley says.

“You don’t think I’m worth it?” Steve responds quickly.

“I’m sure you are,” she says, turning to him. “Aaron tells me you’ll be very hands-on, and I bet that’ll be helpful. And excuse me if this is rude, but I don’t know you from anyone else and I don’t want to give you thirty percent of my company.”

Steve listens to that with a straight face and I want to die inside. It’s typical Riley, shoot first and ask questions later.

“You don’t have a company,” Steve finally points out. “Without me, you have absolutely dick all.” He stares at her for another second. “Now I want thirty-five percent plus a fancy title.”

“What the shit,” Riley says.

“And I’m offering eight million, half up front, half in four months if things looks promising.” Steve nods at her, relaxing into his seat. “We have a deal?”

Riley stares at him wordlessly for a minute. I think she’s trying to say something, express some thought, but she’s having trouble.

“I think you broke her,” I say softly. “But I’m pretty sure she’s trying to say yes.”

“Yes,” she grunts out. “Eight million? Holy shit, yes.”

Steve laughs and claps his hands. “Fuck, yes. Great. Now, what are you calling this shit heap?”

I look at Riley and shrug. “I have some ideas, but I think you should do the honors.”

“It’s called Solarhenge.”

My fingers scrape against the scratchy cloth over the arms of my chair as my body tenses. Steve makes a grunting noise and sips his coffee.

“A little weird, but I like it,” he says. “Solarhenge. I can already see the logo. Half of Stonehenge, but instead of stones, we’ll use solar panels.”

“Exactly,” Riley says, her eyes locked on mine.

“Sounds good,” I manage to say, although on the inside I’m a mess of emotions, not sure which one is more important than the next.

I know why she chose that name. It’s not subtle, not fucking subtle at all, at least not to me. I want to grab her right here and kiss her, tell her how I feel about her, make her understand that it isn’t just this baby or this business. She’s carrying my miracle inside of her, I know that, but that’s not the important thing.

The important thing is her. She’s what I’ve wanted from the start, from the very first moment I saw her again after all those years. I knew she was special, even back when she was just a dorky little girl. I knew she was smart and pretty and that she belonged above everything else, and that became so clear when I finally met her again, like it was meant to be. I don’t believe in fate, but fuck, maybe I do. Maybe I do believe in fate.

“I’ll have my assistant draw up the papers,” Steve is saying, although I can barely listen. “You’ll have them by this afternoon. Sign them and I’ll send over the first cash installment. It’ll be enough to rent that space and start buying furniture. And you guys better get those engineers.”

“We will,” Riley says. “Aaron will make sure of it,”

I nod along, finally coming back to myself. “Definitely,” I say.

“Good.” Steve grins and raises his mug. “To making a lot of money.”

“And to changing the world,” Riley says softly.

Steve laughs and drinks his coffee. I can’t tear my eyes from Riley, and I know she’s thinking the same thing. We’re really doing this, we’re really building a company together.

And maybe, just maybe, I think we could build something else together as well, something just as important, if not more so.