A Little Too Late (Madigan Mountain #1)(64)

“Why strippers?” I have to ask.

“I can’t think of anyone else who’d be willing to show up at odd hours. Except me, of course.”

“Fine,” I grunt. “Go ski. Enjoy yourself.” Sheila never asks me for anything, and I shudder to think how few vacation days she’s taken this year.

I would have noticed, because I took very few myself.

“You are my favorite,” she gushes.

“I’ll bet.” I hear noises in the background. “Where are you, anyway?”

“In the employee canteen with the girls. I’m about to head up to the peak, though.”

The girls. “How’s Ava?” I hear myself ask.

“Ask her yourself,” Sheila says. “Got to run. Tonight I’ll read your email and look over your week, okay? We’ll talk.”

“Fine. Don’t break or sprain anything up there. If you’re going to blow off work, I insist you have fun.”

“Aw, boss! It’s almost like you care. Bye for now!” She hangs up.





As I’d promised my boss, Monday morning finds me in the conference room of a start-up virtual reality technology company in San Jose. Aaron Deevers walks in right on time, because he’s not an asshole. He doesn’t have any interest in making me wait to show me who’s boss.

He’s wearing a scruffy green polo shirt and cargo pants. He offers me a wave and a sheepish smile instead of a testosterone-fueled handshake.

I like Deevers. Even at twenty-five, he’s twice the man that I usually have to deal with. He’s also my most important client. But I didn’t come with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue or front row seats to a Sharks game to try to woo him back to me. Nope. I brought a bag of his favorite oatmeal-raisin cookies and two cups of coffee from Starbucks.

“Look, I appreciate that you drove all the way out here,” Deevers says, reaching into the bag and grabbing a cookie. “It sends a message. I swear I’m not trying to be a diva, Reed. I just needed some time to think about what it means to do an internal round of funding. It’s not personal. It’s an optics thing. I don’t want to look like we don’t have any other supporters in the valley.”

“I’m not here to send a message either,” I tell him, helping myself to a cookie. “I’m here because I am your biggest supporter in the valley. And if you have more questions, I want to answer them.”

He winces. He’s a prodigy who went to college at sixteen and started two engineering degrees at nineteen. Then he invented a chip that’s going to change the way virtual reality works within two to three years.

I was the first VC who would listen to him. I could tell he was special, even if he’s not great at eye contact and not the best communicator.

“Okay, does it hurt me if I work only with you?” he asks. “I know Prashant runs a great firm. Everyone speaks well of you guys. But my dad thinks I should have more than one investor.”

Yup, he’s still young enough to listen to his dad, who runs a small insurance company in Minneapolis.

“Look.” I sit back in my chair. “I don’t think the optics work against you at all. But you have to go with your gut. Who do you want to do business with? Whose face do you want to see on every earnings call for the next decade? I will respect the hell out of you no matter what you choose to do. But I hope you pick us, because we know the most about your business. We know you. I’m really excited about your next couple of years.”

He sets down his coffee cup and smiles. “You were the first guy who got me. Like, ever in my life.”

I shrug, trying to look modest. “Prashant and I know your company inside and out, and we know what you’re trying to do here. You’re not just a hot commodity to us, Aaron. You’re building a big future for yourself, and we want to make it happen.”

“All right.” He reaches across the table for my pen. “I’m ready. I’ll sign.”





“He just needed the space to make his own decision,” I tell Sheila later that night as I’m driving home from an early dinner with other VCs. Networking, of course. That’s what my social life is like in California.

“You made Deevers feel seen. Good work in there. Now you can go home to your empty apartment and celebrate by spending the evening on the treadmill, catching up on your email.”

“Jesus.” I let out a snort. “That’s not very flattering, is it?”

Although it is frighteningly accurate.

“Was Prashant satisfied?” she asks.

“More than. He sent me a bottle of scotch so rare that I had to google it to know what it is.”

“Righteous,” she says. “Good thing you’re fine with drinking alone.”

I snort.

“Let me ask you something,” Sheila presses on, and I can feel her wide-eyed stare even from hundreds of miles away. “Is this a better job than running a ski resort?”

“Well, yeah.” I don’t even understand the question. “This is a much bigger job. I just won a big stake in one of the most creative engineering projects in California. Deevers could be bought out by Meta in a year. For a billion dollars.”

“Bigger job is an interesting way to describe it. You wear nice clothes, and you work in a shiny building. But there’s no torch-lit ski parade, am I right?”