CHAPTER SIX
EVAN
I EMBARRASS MYSELF THE FIRST day of my climbing trip with Mateo and Hampton. I’d crammed like a college kid for an exam the past few weeks, pushing to up my climbing game as hard as I could without risking injury. I’m sure I can at least compete, if not beat the guys. But then I get one of the leg loops of my harness twisted, and Mateo points it out.
Asshole.
Fortunately, I have the upper hand in every other way. Climbers are usually cool granola types, many of whom take their earthy stances so far that body odor is normal. Climbers don’t usually measure dicks on the rock, they support their fellows at all levels. But the three of us take turns. One climbs, one belays and one stands back and discusses business.
If we can measure dicks in terms of net worth, I’ve got the biggest hog of all. And both of them know it.
Hampton won’t leave me alone about his latest idea for how his company could work with LiveLyfe. His company is Expendable Chic, famous for disposable clothes and the promise of “one great night, no strings attached.” The problem is, Ashton Moran has already numbed me with an identical pitch.
Hampton is belaying Mateo when he starts back up. He’s barely paying attention. Each time Mateo pulls more rope to clip in on the next anchor, he has to shout down to Hampton to take the brake off and feed him some line. I guess it’s erring on the safe side. Better that Mateo be annoyed by too much braking than fall while Hampton has his hands set to pay line out. He does that, and Mateo will hit the deck and bust his pretty face.
“You aren’t getting me, Evan.” Hampton is seven years older than me but looks my age. Something in his boyish features and swept-back hair. He’s kind of stuck-up but never had trouble scoring. “LiveLyfe gets a commission on all Expendable Chic clothes sold through the ZenDress app.”
“LiveLyfe doesn’t need the revenue,” I say. Then, nodding up toward Mateo: “Watch.”
Hampton glances up. Mateo descended a bit, and his line’s gone slack. Hampton overcorrects, pulling the rope taut. Mateo yells down at Hampton to stop trying to yank his dick off.
“It’s not just a little bit of revenue,” Hampton continues, unconcerned. “How big is your user base right now? Exactly,” he says as if I’ve answered. “You offer ZenDress as a one-click, push out some of those dumb little surveys to promote it, and I’ll bet viral spread gets adoption up to … what? Even twenty percent of all LiveLyfe users?”
“He’s slipping.”
Hampton looks up at Mateo, then returns his attention to me. “He’s fine. So, they’ve got the app on, and they can click through and see what their profile pic would look like in any of Expendable Chic’s outfits. You’ve seen the interface. Slick as fuck. They dress themselves like they are playing paper dolls. You don’t think users will want that? You don’t think they’ll buy? Projected commissions alone conservatively come to—”
Mateo falls. He’s just clipped in, so his anchor point is high, and Hampton had his hand in a nice brake position. But the fall still surprises him. He does a comic little hop as the rope takes Mateo’s weight and Hampton, tied into the same rope at the bottom, is dragged closer to the system’s center of gravity.
“You want down?” Hampton calls.
“No, I don’t want down.” He gropes toward the face, gets his fingers around a nice fat jug, and a few seconds later is climbing again while his safety man below ignores him to fix on me again.
“It’s not the money, Hampton,” I say. “I don’t like the idea of aligning LiveLyfe so completely with one company. Who knows how long development would take, and meanwhile my people are all tied up.”
“What else you going to have them do?” It’s not really a question. It’s loaded, implying that LiveLyfe’s developers sit around and do nothing all day.
“I have projects in mind.”
“FUCK!”
The shout comes from above. Hampton is jarred by Mateo’s fall again. We both look up.
“Lower it,” Mateo mumbles.
Hampton dutifully lowers Mateo to the ground. He seems so peeved that he couldn’t send the route, but I’m not sure why. The route is rated 5.13d and has a wicked overhanging section. Mateo is bigger than Hampton and me, and all of us are more muscular (meaning “heavy”) than the typical climber. The best climbers out here look like they eat sprouts and air for every meal.
“Fucking crimps,” he says.
Hampton seems to think this is funny. He’s the lightest among us. Tiny little crimp holds are his specialty. Mateo is the Hulk by comparison.
Mateo unties his end of the rope, eyeing Hampton as he threads his end back through the ATC. The guys seem to be considering saying something unwise. I hope they don’t start. Mateo is a hot-head. One of the contractors at his Los Angeles PEZA location secretly recorded him dressing down some poor chump who’d only been putting light fixtures where he was told. The recording is awesome. Mateo keeps shouting, demanding to know if the guy is a professional.
“When I buy my mountain,” Mateo says, “I’ll go through all the routes with a chisel, and take out all the crimpy holds.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” Hampton’s sarcasm pairs well with the decline of Mateo’s adrenaline anger. The air settles.
Mateo says, “I’m looking at property, you know.”
Hampton shrugs. “Who isn’t?”
“I mean, for my mountain.”
“You’re still on that?”
“You think I won’t do it?”
“I just don’t understand why you’d bother.”
“Wait,” I say. “What are you guys talking about?”
“What it sounds like,” Hampton says. “Mateo wants to buy a mountain.”
“Why?”
“Climbing resort,” Mateo says. “I want to train a team.”
“Why do you need a mountain to train a team?”
“Exactly,” says Hampton, as if he’s continually made this point.
“Home turf,” Mateo says. “It’ll be like a boot camp or something. And a cool place to hang.”
“You want to start a climbing cult,” I say. “A secret mountain training camp?”
Mateo grunts.
“I keep telling him,” Hampton says, “Where are all the best faces in the US? In parks. There are others out there, even privately owned ones, but how many are worth anything? Overgrown, barely any exposed rock, no surveys for safety.”
“I can have people inspect whatever I think of buying. Set all the bolts, shit like that.”
Hampton goes on as if he didn’t hear. “The government isn’t going to sell him any mountain worth having. So what’s the point?” He looks at Mateo. “Lower your standards, hero. Maybe buy a hill.”
Mateo, seeing himself on the losing end of mockery, swaps the target. His eyes find me. “Like I’m the only ‘restless’ one here.”
You can hear the quotes around “restless.” Hampton picks up on it immediately, clear that someone knows something he doesn’t. Bastard. That’s what I get for drinking with Mateo Saint.
“You’re restless?” Hampton says.
“Yeah. LiveLyfe isn’t enough for him.”
Hampton practically guffaws.
I shake my head. “That’s not what I said.”
“You said you wanted to find something else. Something that’s still new and exciting.” Mateo is grinning, his frustration gone.
“Wait,” Hampton says, pointing a finger at my chest. “Is this what you meant when you said that you had ‘other projects in mind’ for your developers, just a few minutes ago?”
I think fast. “I just don’t want to get complacent. LiveLyfe is—”
“Evan,” Mateo says, slapping a heavy hand on my shoulder, “you’ve created the defining structure of the modern age. People live on LiveLyfe instead of with their families. What gets their attention? Your stupid fucking social network. Why do you think we’re all the way out here?”
I look around as if I have no idea what he means. There isn’t a man-made structure in sight. There’s the crag, the trees, the breeze, and the rocky soil underfoot. If not for the trail coming out of the brush behind us and the bolts in the face, you’d think nobody else even existed.
Mateo pulls out his phone and says, “What’s this?”
“A phone?”
“Out here, it’s a brick. I don’t have to be bothered by my LiveLyfe friends every damn minute.” He gestures at the vista. “But look how far I had to go to kill your creation. That’s how much you’ve changed the world. It’s not enough for you?”
I can’t tell if this is a serious discussion or more mockery, but I decide to play earnest. “You of all people should understand. You want to buy a mountain. Why buy a mountain?”
“‘Because it’s there,’” Mateo quotes.
“It’s because it represents something else. PEZA runs without you, just like LiveLyfe could run without me if I didn’t let people drag me in. The challenge is gone. And I do wonder about how much it’s changed the world.”
Hampton says, “Now you sound like Anthony Ross.”
I’m not sure what’s bad about thinking like Anthony Ross. The Syndicate’s official stance is that Ross is persona-non-grata for squashing the Eros deal to run off with his girlfriend — a project we’ve all been working toward for a half-year now. But secretly, I agree with Ross. The ways that deal might have changed the world could have dwarfed what LiveLyfe has done. I never trusted Alexa Mathis, and I’m glad she didn’t get the Club’s funding.
“I built LiveLyfe to connect people,” I tell them as Hampton and Mateo, in tandem, settle onto boulders around the clearing. “It did its job too well. Now it’s addicted them to that connection — and honestly not even a connection that feels especially genuine. Part of me wants to do something to counteract what I’ve already done. To build something new.”
“Okay,” Hampton says, surprisingly sober. “What?”
Dammit. I knew one of them was bound to ask. The problem is, I don’t know. I’ve learned to trust my seeds and wait until they blossom to see their shape.
“What counteracts fake connection, Evan?”
I could tell them about Project Angel — about my Secret Santa endeavor wherein I find LiveLyfe employees who are struggling and anonymously send funds to ease the strain. Layla Sky, lost after her husband died and her children were left fatherless, at least won’t have to wonder about expenses or bills. But Hampton and Mateo think big, and won’t see one-off charity as worthy of my “next big thing.”
“I don’t know,” I finally say.
“Wait,” Mateo says, eyes squinting with recollection. “On the way in, you were telling me about some person you were interested in ‘acquiring.’ You didn’t say ‘hire.’ You said ‘acquire.’ Is that for this?”
Dammit. “Not sure. Maybe.”
“What person?” Hampton asks.
“Someone he’s all geeked out about because he’s a wizard with the internet or LiveLyfe.”
“It’s not just that,” I say.
“Oh,” Mateo goes on, raising an eyebrow in satirical acknowledgement. “He’s also a really good copywriter. And has some funny website.”
Hampton asks me, “What the hell is he talking about?”
“Evan wants to work with him because ‘He’s an amazing communicator’—”
“She,” I correct. “She is an amazing communicator.”
Hampton and Mateo look at each other. In that second all thoughts about changing the world, my idea, business, and logic fly right out the window. They’re grinning like sunburned assholes, all white teeth and GQ faces.
“Oh,” Mateo says. “Now I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
Hampton turns to Mateo. “I’ll bet her pussy can change the world.”
Mateo nods. “No wonder he wants to move on to the next new thing.”
“It’s not like that,” I say. “Not even a little bit.”
“Who is she, Evan?” Hampton asks.
Mateo answers. He’s pulled my phone from the pack now, and I guess from his response that he’s opened LiveLyfe chat. When I mentioned this to Mateo on the drive, I made the mistake of telling him that my prospect and I chatted on LiveLyfe before we met.
“‘Rebecca Presley,’” Mateo reads. “And her website is called …”
Instead of finishing, he spits laughter. When Hampton looks curious, Mateo shows him the phone.
“She’s an intuitive marketer. From what I read, her mind is amazing.”
“Right,” Hampton says. “Her mind.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I know almost nothing about her.”
“Except for her firm, ripe tits, you mean.”
“I don’t even know what she looks like.”
“Uh-huh. I think you’re looking for the next big piece of ass.”
“Right. Because that sounds like me.”
“Oh, come on, Evan,” Mateo says. “Don’t act like you don’t have a dick.”
“My dick is fine. Proud. Tall and upstanding. I just can’t believe you’re so shallow that you assume that’s all I could want.”
“You’re not trying to nail her.”
“No!”
Pause. They look at each other. Mateo says, “Riiight.”
“Look. I’ve got enough on my plate. I’m still hands-on with LiveLyfe. You should see what my days look like. I don’t have time for shit like that even if I wanted it, and I for damn sure don’t have time for someone like that.”
“What do you mean, ‘like that’?”
“She’s a loudmouth. A smart one, but way too out there. She has no personal boundaries, and she’s carrying a metric ton of baggage. You should see her stuff. It’s funny, and she’s stupidly intelligent and great at what she does, but I feel bad for everyone in her personal life. You know how private I am, and you know how uncomfortable I am even with the attention the press gives me today. I couldn’t afford to be with someone like that.”
But there’s something else going on as I say these things — as I come to the defense of my idea, and somehow to Rebecca’s even as I malign her. It’s strange; this all feels closer to the bone than I’d expected. My days leading up to this trip were hectic, and for the most part I forgot about the lunch meeting I asked Sam to arrange with Rebecca. But in another of my two-minute, fruitless searches, I did uncover a number, and on a whim, while Curtis was driving me to the airport, I called her. We spoke for five minutes, two of them spent convincing her that I was me. I was surprised to find that I liked Rebecca’s vibe on the phone as much as I had online. She has an undeniable energy. Mateo and Hampton’s poking around feels like an intrusion on that energy.
But it’s true. I don’t know what she looks like. Their jokes that I’m interested in parts of her I’ve yet to see aren’t just annoying. They’re insulting.
Hampton is staring at his phone: “‘… has a tiny dick …’” He’s typing with his thumbs. “… dot-com,” he finishes.
Mateo leans over, and the way they’re both looking at Hampton’s phone, it’s clear that Hampton has a signal. I look again at the device and realize that despite what Mateo said about our phones being bricks, Hampton carries a satellite hub. Fucking billionaires and their toys.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking her up.” He mouths the words, Rebecca Presley.
“She doesn’t have any photos on her site.” Mateo snickers, presumably at the photos of Steve’s tiny dick, so I correct with, “At least not of her.”
“Try LinkedIn,” Mateo says.
“Knock it off, you assholes.”
“Wait. Look.” Hampton points, presumably at some breadcrumb telling him where to go next.
“Guys,” I say. “Have you given up on this route?”
But then Hampton and Mateo must hit pay dirt because they explode at the same time.
“What?” I say.
“Oh man,” Mateo says.
“What?”
“I’m just saying, have fun changing the world with your ‘next big thing.’”
“Fucking asshole …” I creep forward, meaning to lunge for the phone, but Hampton snatches it back and tucks it away. For a few seconds, we’re engaged in a playground game of keep-away, as I pin Hampton and reach for the phone while he holds it at arm’s length. Mateo takes it, and I rise to go after him, but before I get far he’s turned the phone off and is folding up the satellite transmitter.
I glare. “Show me what was so fucking funny.”
Mateo shrugs, then jiggles Hampton’s now-dead cell in front of my face. “Can’t help you, buddy. These things are just bricks out here.”