“What about your work now?”
“I haven’t told anyone what I’m working on.”
“Not even Finn?”
“He knows it’s another app, but beyond that?” He paused and shook his head. “If it’s not a girl or one of his nano projects, he doesn’t care.”
For the first time, Geoffrey wanted to tell someone what he was working on. He never shared until he was done. He didn’t want to deal with the criticism and doubts when he was still working through the code and problem solving. There were enough doubts and worries running through his head. He didn’t need anyone else’s.
But he kept his mouth shut and Sven didn’t ask, which hurt more than he’d expected.
He looked up to find Sven quickly thumbing through messages on his phone, his glare returning so that his eyebrows were gathered over his eyes. His full lips pressed into a hard, thin line before he carefully placed his phone facedown on the table and looked at Geoffrey again.
“Quinn is working on pulling together all your social media followers. He says that you have somewhere between 650,000 and two million followers combined on all your accounts.”
“Really?” Geoffrey reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “I’m pretty sure that I’ve got more than that.”
“He’s trying to take into account duplicates.”
Geoffrey put his phone down and looked at Sven. It sounded like the man was talking through clenched teeth. “So?”
“So that means we have between 650,000 and two million potential suspects until he can rule out those not in the immediate area.”
Geoffrey shrugged. “It could also be someone who watches one of my accounts for updates but isn’t actually a follower.”
“But you said that the person who helped you out of the club was someone you knew. A friend. All your friends are also followers, right?”
Geoffrey swore under his breath. That was right. He’d been confident that he knew him…or her…when the person asked if he needed help. He’d felt it in his gut, but now he couldn’t pull together even the barest hint of an image in his head of the person or the sound of their voice. It was driving him crazy.
Pushing out of his chair, he paced over to the back windows looking out over the sparkling pool. “I don’t know! Yeah, I thought it was a friend that night, but a friend wouldn’t do this shit. A friend doesn’t give veiled threats or drug you.” He swung back around, waving one hand at the ugly legal pad on the table. “The people I meet up with, hang out with, party with…they wouldn’t do that.”
“But the people on that list, most of them you can’t give me a real last name or a phone number. You know where less than half of them live. You talk to them through social media, where most things have the feeling of being completely anonymous. I—”
Sven quickly cut himself off and stared down at the legal pad.
“What? What were you about to say?” Geoffrey stalked back to the table. He put both hands on the cool top and leaned forward. “Tell me. What were you going to say?”
Sven shook his head, his hand tightening around his phone.
“Fuck it,” Geoffrey snarled and stalked back over to the windows. He hated that Sven censored so much of what he said around him. Did he really think he was going to get fired?
Sven’s voice was low and soft when it drifted across the room. “I don’t understand your definition of friend.”
“What do you mean?” he replied. He glanced over his shoulder to find that Sven was still tense, sitting at the table.
“A friend—for me—is someone that I know well, that I trust. If something were to happen to me, a friend is someone I would trust to look out for my sister or any member of my family. How many of these people you call ‘friend’ would you trust with Finn?”
Nausea washed through Geoffrey’s stomach, making him sick. How many of them would he honestly trust with Finn? One, two…maybe. Fuck, the people he would trust with Finn’s well-being would probably laugh in his face if he referred to any of them as a friend. But he knew deep in his gut that those men were completely trustworthy and loyal. Lucas Vallois and friends were also, unfortunately, out of his league.
The people he hung out with weren’t intended to be the close, do-or-die, trust-with-the-family-fortunes friends. They were drinking buddies. They were there to make him laugh and have a good time and just take a break from the emptiness and the boredom. So he didn’t have a close group of friends that he told all his secrets and fears to. Or even one. Not everyone did. He had Finn. And he had his work. There was nothing wrong with the way he lived.