Never Just Friends (Spotlight New Adult Book 2) by Mina V. Esguerra Read Free Book Online

watching him read a chapter of the Caine Foundation Annual Report, something she wouldn’t even do unless she wrote it (and she did write that chapter), and wondered again what was happening here.
    Knowing that he was absorbed in something else, she picked up her phone and texted Marnie: Can you get me the number of Jake’s manager?
    The meeting room had only three walls and they were clear plastic paneling. Lindsay saw Marnie receive it, read it, and toss her a look. She’d been a professional assistant for over a decade now though, and knew to be discreet. I’ll send you her contact details. Did I leave something out of the contract?
    No, she didn’t. Marnie was thorough.
    “You really sure about this?” she asked Jake again.
    Jake’s eye didn’t even leave the printed page. “Ask that one more time and I’ll start to think you consider me too stupid for this.”
    “That’s not it.”
    “Then you have your answer.”
    Lindsay remembered senior year, and what Jake had been doing before acting threw him into a totally different path. He was being courted to take further studies by the agriculture department; an extra pair of hands was always needed at their ongoing rainforest outreach program. Was it something he really wanted to do? Did Lindsay ever remember him do more than talk about it, or work on it from the library or his laptop? Did he go to nearby national parks, plan trips to the Amazon?
    “Done reading,” Jake said, putting the report down. “Do you want to quiz me now?”
    Fine. Lindsay wanted to help, and not only because her boss essentially told her that Jake could not screw this up.
    “You see what that chapter is getting at?” It was the one on the lessons learned for certain grant projects that were coming to an end.
    “Small achievements, replicable results. Touching personal stories.”
    She nodded. “That’s what it said, but when your donor is giving you money, they don’t want to hear about the one person whose life became marginally better or that small dot of land that you’ve kept green.”
    He nodded. “They want big-picture impact.”
    Lindsay nodded. “Far reaching. Policy level. But that kind of thing costs an obscene amount of money, more than anyone is willing to give. Do you realize what that chapter is trying to do?”
    Jake glanced at it again. “Convince them that their small amount of money is going to matter, when it all adds up. But it’s not true, is it?”
    “It’s not untrue ,” Lindsay said, “We can’t prove it. Sometimes a lot of money with ambitious intentions will be the biggest flop. Manageable intentions, manageable expenses. We can tell them that this served as an inspiration for something bigger. That this was the catalyst for another thing. That this small thing contributed greatly to the grand design.”
    “It’s a dream,” Jake said. “You’re selling the dream that they can make a difference.”
    “But they’re not wide-eyed innocents. They’re old hands at this. They can see through the BS and know that it’s just money moving around the world. Which small thing that probably won’t matter do we put our money into now?”
    “And this is what you need me for then?” It was beginning to sink in now. “To sit in meetings and help argue the case that this insignificant thing is better than that insignificant thing?”
    “Kind of. You thought you were saving the planet?”
    “I know I still am,” Jake said, like a trooper, “but apparently from bureaucracy.”
    “You remember that signal we came up with for when we’re in mortal danger but can’t say anything?” Lindsay said. “If you get asked something crazy, do that. I’ll be there for you in a heartbeat.”

Chapter 12
     
     
    The signal Lindsay was talking about was a closed fist but with a thumb tucked inside, because on one of those times when they drank beer and talked about the details of their life during the zombie apocalypse, Jake said she should never tuck