Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(66)

“Drake…” I breathed, a hand on my chest. I wasn’t even faking it. It was beautiful. The ring and the sentiment.

We let the moment sit for a few seconds.

“Aaand we got it,” Malcolm said, lowering the camera. “One-take wonders, both of you.”

“Phew.” I sat back in my chair. “Drake, I appreciate this more than you know.”

“Enough to entertain a brief sales pitch for a startup I’m interested in?”

I tilted my head. “You need me to invest?”

That was weird. Drake was a gazillionaire or something. He hardly needed my money.

“I think you might want to get in on the ground floor for this one.” He made a come-here motion to someone behind me. I twisted in my seat to see who he was calling over.

Brent was making his way to the table.

“No. Are you fucking serious, Brent? You called Drake?”

Brent sucked air through his teeth. “He’s the only other rich person I know,” he said, arriving at the table with his hands balled in front of his mouth.

I shook my head. “No. You’re not sucking Drake into one of your get-rich-quick schemes—”

“Butterfly, that’s not what this is,” Drake said. “Hear him out. Trust me.”

I looked back and forth between them. Drake was giving me his easy smile, and Brent looked like a puppy dog who wanted to be let back into the house.

I crossed my arms. “Fine. But only because it’s you asking,” I said to Drake.

Brent grinned and did a little happy dance. “Can someone get the lights?” He whirled back in the direction he came from and Laird and Malcolm took their seats next to us at the table.

Joel appeared and started placing professional-looking bound catalogs of some sort in front of us, and Brent turned on a small projector on a tripod.

A PowerPoint presentation popped up on the wall.

Okay…So far this was all a little more than I expected. I had to admit I was already slightly, if not cautiously, impressed.

Brent took his place in front of our table and cleared his throat. “Women’s clothing doesn’t have pockets.” He let this hang in the air for a moment. “I’m here to speak to you about an exclusive, innovative new product that was inspired by my sister Vanessa, and her life hack for the fact that none of her cute clothes have places to put her lip balm.”

Drake looked over his shoulder and smiled at me.

Brent clicked to a picture of us making a snowman circa five years ago. “Growing up in Minnesota, my older sister Vanessa loved spending time outside. And anyone who knows my sister knows that she’s obsessed with Carmex. You know, those little yellow lip balm tubes with the red caps?” He clicked through to a picture of a tube of Carmex. “Great product, tastes like shit. Sorry, Vanessa—but it does.”

The audience gave a little titter and the corner of my mouth twitched.

“In addition to its questionable flavor, Carmex gets hard when it’s cold outside and it won’t squeeze from the bottle. So to combat this problem while wearing her pocketless clothes, my sister would put it in her bra to keep it warm. Unfortunately, you could see the pokey end of the tube through her shirt. Not sexy.” He clicked to a picture of me. Eighteen years old in gloves and a hat smiling in the driveway, with a red arrow pointing to my boob, where the end of my Carmex poked out.

“This gave me an idea,” he went on. “What if we made a lip balm that doesn’t taste like shit? Formulated to soften with the heat from your body. It’s got a soft tube so it lays flat on your skin and you can’t see it through your clothes. All natural, organic, sustainable ingredients with SPF. And the tube is biodegradable with a seed in it, so if you bury it, it breaks down and then grows a flower. Giftable, Earth friendly, edgy, super millennial.” He clicked to a picture of a tube of lip balm. “Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you BoobStick.”

Joel was walking around with a tray, placing prototypes in front of us. I picked one up and turned it around in my fingers.

It was cute. Instagramable cute. Pink with a delicate teal floral filigree on the front.

Everyone started taking off the caps and trying it. I put some on my lips and licked it. It tasted like guava. It tasted good. Really good.

Brent went on. “In front of you are sales forecasts and return projections, a market analysis, and full marketing, manufacturing, and operational plans. As you can see, our production costs are low and we feel due to the novelty nature of the product, we can sell it at a higher price point than comp items. Our website is already up and functional.” He clicked through to a professional-looking website that matched the artwork on the lip balm.

“We offer different flavors. We roll out additional products over the next eighteen months. Hand creams, bath bombs. We offer a gender-neutral DipStick on a rope, perfect for the active customer who doesn’t have pockets or bras.” He winked at Drake. “We target retailers like Anthropologie, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods. We launch the brand at Drake’s next sporting event as welcome gifts in the guest rooms, where we can get the product in front of a VIP list of influencers.”

I opened the professional-looking packet in front of me and flipped through the graphs and numbers. This was not Brent’s MO at all. He was always so instant gratification when it came to his business pursuits, but this? This must have taken him months. Longer. All this work…