He hit the screen with a sharp tap of his thumb.

“It is done,” he said.

I stared at him, my heart pressing hard against my ribs.

“Derek, you had a signing bonus that would have cleared your student loans in one year,” I said.

“And I would have spent that year advising retail chains on how to lay off their cashiers,” he said.

He set his phone on the desk, the light shining upward and casting long shadows across his face.

“I studied operations to build supply chains, Sarah,” he said. “Not to trim corporate fat.”

He reached out and picked up the paper printout of our monthly ledger from my desk organizer.

“We have twelve batteries in the assembly room, right?” he asked.

“Ten,” I said. “Two of them have faulty cells we need to replace.”

“Who is our supplier for the lithium-iron-phosphate cells?” he asked.

“A distributor in Oakland,” I said. “But they won’t ship without cash on delivery.”

“I will call them tomorrow morning,” Derek said. “We will renegotiate the payment terms.”

“They won’t talk to a startup with zero cash,” I said.