The house party in Menlo Park was quite different from the raging Halloween party where Desmond had met Peyton.
He was a little nervous walking up to the Mediterranean-style home, but that disappeared when Peyton opened the door and smiled at him. She wore a black dress, diamond earrings, and a light gray cardigan to ward off the chill in the November air.
She had been right about the partygoers. Desmond found the conversations incredibly interesting. It wasn’t idle chat. No gossip. No talk of what was on TV. They discussed big issues—everything from technology to science to politics to world history. Most of the attendees were Stanford students like Peyton, or recent graduates. About half had the next big idea for a startup that would change the world. Their certainty grew with each beer can opened, every bowl smoked. On the whole, it was an inside look at how founders thought about their startup ideas and shaped their vision. Some of the people there were just dreamers, big talkers; but he thought, maybe, some would actually start a company—and succeed. He just had no idea which ones they were.
Outside, on the porch, he found Peyton standing alone.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
She turned, a smile forming on her slender face. “Only so much hyperbole I can stand in one night.”
He let out a laugh.
“You’re loving it though, aren’t you?” she said.
“I am.”
“I knew you would.”
He studied her a moment.
“This is what you’re after, isn’t it?” she said. “Starting your own company or being part of a hit startup.”
“It’s not the only thing I’m after.”
They stared at each other.
“What about you, Peyton? What do you want?”
“Right now, all I want is to get out of here.”
Desmond stood there, watching her walk closer to him.
“This is the point where any normal guy would offer to take me home, Desmond.”
“I’m not exactly a normal guy.”
“I know.”
She took his hand and walked off the porch, leading him.
“My truck…”
“Is beyond scary. I saw you pull up in it.”
She reached in her bag, tossed her keys in the air, and he caught them.
“We’ll take my car.”
In her dorm’s parking lot, he leaned over and kissed her. Her hand moved to his face, pulling him closer.
At the outer door, she swiped her card.
They were kissing again, her walking backwards as they stumbled into her dorm room. Desmond saw everything in flashes as his shirt came up and they resumed kissing before her shirt came off. Biology and chemistry books littered the floor. She tossed an IBM Thinkpad off her bed. He winced, hoping it would survive the fall. The place smelled of candles and something sweet he couldn’t place.
He glanced back at the door. “Your roommate—”
“Is home in Seattle.”
That night was like the first computer program he ever wrote: a series of run-time errors followed by a quick compilation.
He was thankful that it was too dark for her to see his scars.
In the morning, however, sunlight blazed through the window. He saw her eyeing the burns on his feet and legs, the knife wounds on his chest and abdomen, and a dozen other small scars.
She said nothing, only went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and threw on some clothes. She was a lot less chatty than last night. Desmond wondered if she regretted it. Wondered if he should say something.
“I’m late,” she said.
He sat up.
“I have lunch with my mom and sister every Sunday.”
“I…”
“Relax, cowboy. Just pull the door shut when you leave.”
She handed him a small slip of paper.
“What’s this?”
“The last part of the case you’re working.”
He unfolded it. It was her phone number.
Chapter 66
After the night he spent with Peyton, Desmond’s life settled into a pattern. He worked his heart out at xTV, saw Peyton in his off-hours, and read when he wasn’t spending time with her. He found a new library and began requesting books on finance and investing. He read Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis and everything he could find on the subject. His inheritance, roughly three hundred and twenty thousand dollars, was still hidden in a sack in the Airstream trailer. His only real expenses had been the trailer, the suit, and the legal costs of settling Orville’s estate. He became obsessed with how to invest the remaining money.
At lunch one day in the company break room, a solution of sorts presented itself. He overheard two of the company’s early employees, a programmer and a database developer, discussing skyrocketing home prices and the outrageous cost of daycare. Their startup salaries were meager, and their wives were pressuring them to bail and get a job at a larger company like Oracle or Sun.
Desmond took a seat at the table.
“Gentlemen, I think I might have a solution for you.”
That night, he told Peyton his plan.
“It’s a bad idea, Des.”
“Think about it: with the money I have, I could buy a huge chunk of options. They get the cash they need, I get more options. It’s a great idea,” he insisted.
“Okay. It’s a good idea—”
“Exactly.”
“But it’s the wrong approach.”
“What do you mean?”
“You need to diversify.”
“No. xTV will be huge. I need to concentrate.”
“And if xTV goes under?”
“It won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
He sat there, wondering why she wasn’t more supportive.
“Be prepared.”
“What?”
“The Boy Scout motto. Surely that was big in Oklahoma.”
He exhaled heavily through his nose. “My uncle wasn’t keen on extracurriculars.”
She looked away, sensing he didn’t want to talk about it.