The Startup Wife(49)

“You’re moving in together?”

“Stop repeating everything,” Jules laughs.

“Let’s go out and celebrate,” I say. Then I wonder aloud, “But does Gaby have to come?”

“Seriously, you guys cannot be assholes about this. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

Cyrus walks over to Jules and hugs him. “This is really great, my friend. Don’t mind us. We’re just—you know, Three Musketeers and all that.”

“First of all, we never called ourselves that. And second, as you constantly remind us, Asha, there were four musketeers.”

“Why do they always call them the Three Musketeers, then?” Cyrus asks.

“Because D’Artagnan was the narrator, and he joined last.”

We think about finding a restaurant, but by the time we clock out for the night, it’s late and we end up at the diner. Gaby and Jules sit together on one side of the booth and Cyrus and I sit on the other side. I go between feelings of tender warmth toward Gaby, the way he pours water into Jules’s glass and asks if he wants to share the Cobb salad, to something I guess must be jealousy, because Cyrus is right, even if we didn’t call ourselves the Musketeers, we were a gang, and it’s possible the gang will never be the same. I’m a terrible person for thinking this, not least because I was the one who got between Jules and Cyrus in the first place. How annoying that must have been for Jules. And I can’t believe we didn’t see it, Cyrus and I, our best friend falling in love right before our eyes. Anyway, I tell myself, Jules deserves someone of his own, someone who will go to every Hamptons weekend with him and tell his brother to go fuck himself. Cyrus has his hand on my knee, and from the way he’s going around in circles, I can tell he’s thinking all the same things I am.

Gaby is perfectly lovely. He has a soft voice and he smells like limes. “Here’s to you both,” I say, and we clink plastic cups. “I thought I knew everything that went on around here.”

“We’re very happy for you,” Cyrus says.

“How did you two meet?” Gaby asks Cyrus and me. I realize we’ve never really sat down and talked to Gaby. I’d just put him in the Rupert category—someone to count our money and tell us what to do.

“We’ve been in love the whole time,” Cyrus says.

“It’s true,” Jules tells him, “they have. They met in high school and that was it.”

“Well, not really. I was into Cyrus, but his head was in the clouds.”

Gaby smiles. “That sounds about right.”

“It took me ages to ask Gaby out,” Jules says.

“Yeah, because you hired me.”

“I was sitting there in the interview wondering if it would be better if you worked here or not, but then the thought of seeing you every day was too tempting.”

“Wow, I had no idea,” Cyrus says. Jules must have been lonely, and we’ve been so caught up in each other that we never noticed. Cyrus puts his arm around me and I nudge closer, and I realize it’s been weeks since we’ve had a moment together. We’re always too tired when we get home from work, or we get home and spend the last bits of our energy talking about WAI. I haven’t minded until now, but seeing Jules and Gaby holding hands, I feel a twinge of longing. Cyrus and Gaby are talking about someone on the team, and I just want to wrap up and go home. I yawn. “Shall we get going?”

“Why don’t you come over?” Cyrus says. “We have—what do we have, Asha?”

“Nothing. But you’re totally welcome,” I add, thinking of the trail of dirty dishes I ignored on my way out the door this morning.

In the end we decide to go to Jules’s. He instructs us to take off our shoes at the door, and I’m about to make a joke about Crazy Craig, but I stop myself. I’ve been here dozens of times, but it’s different now: Gaby takes our coats and asks if we want anything to drink, and then he glides easily around the kitchen, opening drawers and taking out glasses. “We should invite people over more,” I say to Cyrus.

“I love you,” Cyrus replies.

We sit by the window with all the New York lights before us. Jules lives by the High Line now, just a few blocks south of Utopia, with bouquet after bouquet of buildings on either side. Gaby hands me a glass, and the wine goes down slow and warm. Again I feel a surge of desire for Cyrus; I study his face to see if he’s with me, but he’s looking at something on the other side of the room.

“I have some ideas about the funding situation,” Gaby says. “I was going to bring it up tomorrow, at our exec meeting, but we could talk about it tonight if you’re up for it.”

“You’re in the family now,” Cyrus says.

“Well, Jules and I have been brainstorming.” Gaby finds his laptop, turns the screen toward us. “I’ve modeled it. With our current runway, we hit a wall in three months.”

We all know this—Jules has said it a hundred times. I even have an hourglass programmed into my screen at work.

“But we could stretch the runway, if we make a few cuts, and launch subscriptions in December.”

Cyrus leans forward and examines the screen. “Subscriptions?”

“We ask the community to pay a small amount every month.”

Cyrus turns to look at Jules and me. “You’ve heard about this plan?”