Page 175 of Dial F for Finance

Layla stands up at the head table, her jewel-toned dress shimmering under the fairy lights. She is already clutching a fistful of tissues, her chest heaving with suppressed emotion.

“OK, hi,” Layla says into the microphone. “I promised myself I wouldn’t ugly cry until the cake, but apparently looking at Audrey and Logan has destroyed that plan.”

The boathouse laughs.

“Audrey has been my best friend since day one of Northwestern, which means she has been putting up with me for half my life. When Carmichael Innovations nearly went under, a lot of people sent sympathy. Audrey sent engineering. The device reaching children in hospitals tonight exists because she refused to stop believing in it through every setback, every rejection, and every boardroom that underestimated her. She changed actual lives with that beautiful brain. Mine first.”

Audrey’s eyes shine behind her glasses.

“And through every catastrophe this group has ever produced, Audrey showed up. Every time. With data, snacks, and love disguised as statistics. She taught us that being loved and being understood don’t have to be different things.”

Layla turns toward Logan.

“Then she met you and fled the country.”

The boathouse erupts. Audrey covers her face while Logan nods solemnly.

“But she came home, and you looked at her and saw her at full resolution on the first try. You love her mind the way I do and the rest of her the way she deserves. Watching her be seen like that has been one of the great joys of my life.”

Layla lifts her glass.

“To Audrey—the brains of this entire found family—and to Logan, who did his research. Take care of her forever, or Bennett and I will fold you into a napkin.”

Logan nods solemnly, entirely unfazed by the threat. Audrey reaches up to squeeze Layla’s hand, her own eyes shining behind her glasses. It’s a logistical nightmare of an emotional display, but looking at the radiant bride, it’s undeniably perfect. Layla finishes to thunderous applause, practically collapsing into Bennett’s arms as Dominic takes the microphone for his best-man speech.

“Most of you know the story. Logan’s been telling it fifteen years. In his version, I’m the hero. Normally I’d nod along because I’m vain and it’s flattering.

“For those who haven’t heard it, this all started with Harvard. A skinny twenty-year-old genius on his second PhD was running a grade-repair racket out of his dorm room. Big-hearted Dominic Cruz swooped in, saved him from being found out, introduced him to sunlight and group dinners. The rescue of Logan Whitman.”

Laughter rolls through the boathouse.

“Tonight, he’s trapped at that table while I have the microphone. So, as his best man, I’d like to correct the record.”

Dominic sets down his notecards and turns to Logan.

“I caught him, yes. But I made him a deal because I was twenty-four, greedy, and already insufferable. I said I’d keep his secret if he let me invest the money and split the profits with me. It was a handshake deal over an empty ramen packet.”

He pauses for the laughter.

“Logan had every reason to tell me to go to hell. Instead, he studied me for all of ten seconds and then handed me every dollar he had, because ‘It’s just money. I can make more.’”

The room laughs again.

“Then the returns came in, and he doubled down on me—gave me his trust fund and said, ‘The model works. Scale it.’

“Every dollar I have ever made traces back to that first deal. Logan believed in me before there was enough evidence to make belief sensible. People love to say I made him rich—that I made all of us rich. Get the direction of the arrow right, Chicago. It ran the other way.”

The room goes silent.

“But the money is the smallest thing he gave us.

“I grew up believing every room was a game you could win if you were loud enough and fast enough. Logan asks why until your own logic collapses. He taught me to check my math. He taught me humility, which required several explanations and at least one diagram. He taught me that kindness doesn’t need an audience—that you can quietly fix something for a person and never invoice them for it, even emotionally.”

His eyes find mine across the room. I raise one eyebrow. He inclines his head a fraction.

“I read rooms. Logan reads the world. For fifteen years, he has lent me his eyes whenever mine failed—look at both sides. Do it slow. Check twice. Then decide.

“This summer, when my life went off a cliff, he stood in my office and fought me for my own future. Then he stayed for the worst afternoon of it, because that is what Logan does.