Chapter 68: Goodnight, Diana.
Two days had passed — each one full enough that by the time Ryan got to the end of it there wasn’t much space left to think about what was coming.
The product was moving. Danny and Iralis had locked the core architecture after a four hour call that Ryan had been on for the first hour and dropped off when it became clear they didn’t need him and were better without the interruption.
Liam had delivered the competitor breakdown two days early, which was exactly the kind of thing Liam did.
Mike had a list of twenty-two target companies for the beta outreach, two more than asked, with notes on each contact that were more detailed than Ryan had expected.
The investment paperwork had been signed.
Nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars from Lockridge Capital, documented as a seed investment with a consultation period beginning six weeks prior. The paper trail was clean. Patricia the accountant had filed everything correctly. The amended company records existed in the places they needed to exist.
Tomorrow at ten AM Ryan had an appointment with the IRS at their Midtown office.
He’d spent the three days doing what he’d said he’d do — knowing the investment terms well enough to answer questions about them without sounding like he was recalling information he’d been given rather than information he’d lived.
The date the term sheet was discussed. The valuation methodology. The equity split and why. The disbursement schedule that explained the deposit pattern.
He knew it.
He sat at his kitchen table Tuesday evening with a glass of water and the printed investment summary and read through it one more time, not because he needed to but because the act of reading it was useful for his nerves like certain repetitive things were.
His phone buzzed.
*Diana Lockridge.*
He looked at the screen for a second, then answered.
"Diana."
"Ryan." Her voice had the same quality it always had — clear, no preamble. "I wanted to check in before tomorrow."
"I’m prepared."
"I know you are. That’s not why I’m calling." A pause. "I spoke to my attorney this afternoon. Everything on our end is in order. The documentation is filed correctly and consistently across all records."
"Patricia confirmed the same from our side."
"Good." Another pause, slightly longer than the ones before it. "How are you feeling about it."
Ryan looked at the printed summary on the table. "Calm."
"Calm or performing calm."
He almost smiled. "Does it matter."
"It matters in the room tomorrow," she said. "Performing calm reads differently from actual calm and experienced interviewers know the difference."
"Then genuinely calm," he said. "The work is done. The documentation exists. I know the answers. The only variable is how they conduct the interview and I can’t control that, so spending energy on it is a waste."
A beat on her end.
"That’s a reasonable approach," she said.
"You sound surprised."
"I’m not surprised. I’m noting it." She paused. "Founders in your position would be considerably more anxious."
"Founders in my position don’t have your attorney on their paperwork."
A sound on her end that was the closest thing to a laugh he’d heard from Diana Lockridge in their entire acquaintance — brief, genuine, gone quickly.
"Answer only what you’re asked," she said, back to the direct register. "Don’t volunteer. Don’t explain more than the question requires. And if you don’t know something, say you’ll follow up in writing rather than guessing."
"I know."
"I’m aware you know. I’m saying it anyway."
Ryan leaned back in his chair. "Diana."
"Yes."
"Why are you calling."
A pause.
"I told you. To check in before tomorrow."
"You’d have sent an email or a text, like you always do."
She was quiet for a moment. Allowing Ryan to hear the distant sound of traffic, someone’s music from a floor above, the elevator making its grinding journey.
"The dinner," she said. "I’ve been thinking about it."
Ryan waited.
"You handled Richard well," she said. "Most people don’t. He’s very good at finding the pressure point in a conversation and applying steady force until something gives." A pause. "You didn’t give."
"He wasn’t saying anything worth giving to."
"No," she said. "He wasn’t." A beat. "He rarely does."
Ryan heard what was underneath that and let it sit without touching it.
"The bathroom," she said.
"Diana—"
"I’m not addressing it the way you think I am," she said. "I handled that poorly. I told you not to think too much of it and then spent the rest of the dinner making it difficult to think of anything else by doing something inappropriate." She said it with the composure of someone who had decided to be precise about something and was being precise. "That wasn’t fair to you."
Ryan looked at the table. "You don’t owe me an apology for that."
"I’m not apologizing. I’m acknowledging that I was inconsistent." A pause. "I don’t like being inconsistent."
"I know."
"You don’t know me well enough to say that."
"But I know that about you," Ryan said. "I’ve watched you in two professional settings and one golf course and one dinner. You’re consistent. The bathroom situation made you inconsistent and it bothered you."
The line was quiet.
"You’re observant," she said.
"You’ve said that before."
"It keeps being true." Another pause. "How is the company."
"Good. The product is moving. Team is locked in."
"The systems architect."
"Iralis. Yes. She and Danny have been building for three days straight. I think Danny sleeps four hours and considers it adequate. Iralis I’m not sure sleeps at all."
"Introduce me to her separately from the team setting," Diana said. "One on one. I want to understand how she thinks without the group dynamic around it."
"I’ll arrange it."
Another pause. These pauses were different from the ones in the boardroom — less structural, more like space being considered rather than information being processed.
Ryan sat with that for a moment.
"Diana," he said.
"Yes."
"What are we doing, this is the longest call we’ve ever had."
The question landed and sat in the air between them across whatever distance the phone call represented — her office, her home, wherever she was when she called him at eight-thirty on a Thursday evening the night before his IRS interview.
A long pause.
"I’m checking in on my investment," she said. "Before a significant legal event tomorrow."
"That’s what this is."
"That’s what this is," she said. The repetition had a quality to it that didn’t fully match the words.
Ryan looked at the investment summary on the table. The clean paperwork. The story that existed because she’d chosen to make it exist.
"Thank you," he said. "For the documentation. For tonight. For picking up the phone when I called three weeks ago."
A pause.
"Don’t thank me in advance of results," she said. "Wait until there’s something to thank me for."
"There already is."
She didn’t respond to that directly.
"Get some sleep, Ryan," she said. "You have somewhere to be at ten."
"I know."
"And Ryan."
"Yeah."
"You’ll be fine tomorrow."
He looked at the paperwork. "I know that too."
"Good." A beat. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Diana."
The call ended.
He sat at the kitchen table for a while after, the printed summary in front of him, New York outside doing its indifferent thing.
He stared for minutes.
He picked up the investment summary, folded it once, and put it in the folder with everything else.
He washed his glass.
Set his alarm for seven.
Stood at the window for a while looking at the city — the lights, the grid, a place that didn’t stop regardless of what any individual inside it needed to do the next morning.
He went to bed.
He slept.