“Smartass.” Alex laughed. “Yes, I’m glad that’s done. Now it’s hurry-up-and-wait time. We can’t move forward until it’s approved, but at least I’ve completed the proposal. Anyway, I’m calling to tell you a cold front is coming in this afternoon, so it will be nippy at volleyball tonight. Do you have warmer workout clothes to wear? And a thick pair of socks you don’t mind ruining? The sand gets chilly this time of year. I have special shoes I use. When I pick you up, I’ll grab my shoes then.”
“Hmm, I need to see what I packed. I didn’t bring many athletic socks with me this trip. What type of shoes do you have?”
“I’ll send you a link,” she said.
“Sounds good. What time do I need to be ready?”
“We have the early game tonight, so we should leave my house by five-thirty. I’ll text you when I’m on my way.”
“That works. Okay, I got your link. I’ll do some shopping this afternoon and see if I can find a pair of these shoes.”
Fin waited when Alex paused.
“You’d go buy new shoes for just one night?”
“Aye, since I plan on playing with you again, they will be an investment I’ll use repeatedly.”
“Oh, okay. I didn’t think that far ahead.” She changed gears. “What did you think about the shared travel calendar?”
“I like the idea. I need to vet it first because I don’t want my schedule to wind up in the public’s eye. Hackers love exposing celebrity private data. I’m having Addie review the application before I add anything.”
“Oh, sorry, that never occurred to me. I’m still getting used to having the public-at-large interested in our activities.”
“Nae bother. It looks like a perfect way to coordinate. Once she approves, I’ll upload my itinerary so we can suss out when we can see each other again.”
A voice in the background asked Alex if she were ready and she muffled the phone for a moment. Then she was back. “Okay, I’ve gotta run. See you later.”
“Later, love.” She giggled before disconnecting and he smiled to himself. He texted Blake and asked if he wanted to grab a bite to eat. While Fin waited for his reply, he looked up the link Alex had sent on the sand shoes. He located a place in town that carried them and decided he would pick up a pair after lunch.
While Fin was out, Addie had answered his inquiry about the shared calendar, suggesting he use an alias when he set up his profile. Blake dropped him off afterwards, confirming the early-morning pickup to the airport, and Fin settled in on Alex’s couch to enter his upcoming travel events to their shared calendar.
Thirty minutes later, he sat glowering at his screen. He accepted that Alex had to work during the week, but he thought they’d be able to sneak in a weekend here and there. However, all her free weekends matched up to when he was out of the country. The ten-hour flights to meet up would use a sizable chunk of their limited time together for a weekend rendezvous. And—based on her schedule the last couple of days—even if he flew in for the week, they would have little time together.
Fin leaned back and exhaled in frustration, staring off into space. After two weeks of nonstop togetherness, it seemed the next leg in this journey would be from a distance. Based on their mutual calendars, phone calls and virtual meetings were on the menu for the next three months. Even their holiday schedules were at odds with each other.
He closed the app and pushed his frustrations aside as an email from Mac arrived. Mac had called him yesterday, excited about the script. He’d told Fin his team would draw up the papers ahead of time using a fill-in-the-blank format so they wouldn’t have to waste time with a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo next week and could get to work straight away. The email contained the legal papers needed to set up their joint venture. He spent the afternoon reviewing and communicating with Addie and Mac on their new company, MPM Productions.
Mac had surprised him by wanting a minority share. His argument was he had fingers in too many pies and didn’t want that much responsibility. While there was probably some truth to that, Fin believed Mac enjoyed playing support roles both off the screen and on. As it stood, he and Addie would each own forty percent, with Mac holding the last twenty percent of ownership. By the time they met next week in Los Angeles, attorneys from both sides will have reviewed everything and they would sign the final papers, making it official.
When his phone pinged with a text from Alex saying she was on her way home, he put everything away in his satchel and got dressed for the evening.
When Alex arrived home,she found Fin dressed and ready to go. She slipped off her work clothes and donned her workout gear for cold weather. She stuffed her sand shoes in her workout bag and met Fin back in the living room.
“It’s getting cold outside, and the temperature is supposed to drop even further in a few hours. Do you have a jacket you could bring?”
“Aye, I threw a jumper in my bag earlier.”
Alex tilted her head to the right. “A jumper is a sweater, right?”
“You know your proper English, even if you dinnae use it.”
“Ha! I once told someone that even though we speak the same language, I still need a translator when I travel to Great Britain. We use the same words, just differently. Funny story,” she said as she fed Felix, “we once came into work on a Saturday at our London office. The local controller typically wore suits to the office, so when he showed up in casual clothes, he looked completely alien to me. I told him I liked his pants. Later over lunch, he told me I had startled him into checking to make sure his zipper was closed. That’s when I learned that pants meant underwear over there and I should have said I liked his trousers.”
Fin burst into laughter at her story. “I can imagine. I’ve had to navigate those differences before and had similar awkward moments. Not only with American versus British English, but with the additional Scottish and Gaelic sayings.”
She grinned in appreciation. “Let’s go.”
The drive to Rally Up didn’t take long, and soon they pulled into the parking lot.
