Chapter 44
44
Preston
“ A nnabel Sweet wants a face-to-face with you,” Franklin says into my ear three days later when I pick up the phone.
Dread coils in the pit of my stomach. Annabel Sweet represents PowerFun’s CEO, Julie Ambrose, as the banker on the seller’s side. She works for a different I-banking firm. An out-of-the-blue call is not a good sign.
I’ve worked fifty-six of the last seventy-two hours. Slept eleven.
It’s just as well. I don’t want to spend any time in my apartment. It’s too big and empty.
There’s a huge living room that could probably seat twenty, easily, if there were any furniture left in it besides an ugly, hard gray couch and a matching gray armchair. Kali took the rest.
The walls are white, and the decor is bachelor chic. The kind of art you buy from a decorator, that’s made to fill space and add color and maybe even provoke discussion. Kali took all the art that was really art, because she’d chosen it all to begin with. Sculptures and paintings, vivid and imaginative. What’s left is a mockery of art.
The kitchen is huge, black and white, stark lines and cold surfaces. No one has cooked in it since Kali left.
She took the pottery that her artist friends had thrown. The glass bowls they’d blown. The dish towels they’d woven and screen printed.
What’s left is open and cold and arid.
I’d rather be here, where at least Franklin gets paid to keep me company.
“Can I set up a Zoom for you and Annabel?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say.
I click into the Zoom Franklin has set up. Annabel’s in there, looking grim in a way that does nothing for my stomach.
“What’s up?” I ask her.
“My seller has cold feet.”
“Warm them up for her.”
“Preston, this isn’t a joke. You know she’s had serious reservations about culture clash all along, but the due diligence dragging on so long has given her even more time to worry about it. She’s saying it’s a little like AT he’s got more armor. He doesn’t have time to second-guess himself or think about how much he misses Natalie. He only has the bandwidth for what’s happening here and now in this office.
“I think that’s her whole point,” Annabel says darkly. “She didn’t love the way MegaStar handled themselves during due diligence. She hasn’t liked what she’s seen during site visits. She thinks MegaStar will crush PowerFun’s soul. And every time she’s tried to approach Thompson to raise concerns, he’s said the equivalent of ‘What culture?’”
I groan. “Thompson.”
“I know,” Annabel grumbles. She doesn’t want this thing to fall apart any more than I do. She’s invested just as much for just as long in its success.
Now she sighs. “You told me when we started this process that you believe the most important thing in a good acquisition was fit.”
I fidget with a pile of folders on my desk, adjusting the corners so they line up perfectly. “I still believe that. And I still believe this is the right fit. I think Thompson, for all his faults, sees clearly what’s good in PowerFun.”
“Then he’s going to have to find some way to show that to Julie,” Annabel says. “Because otherwise she’s going to walk away from this deal.”
Annabel, having delivered that zinger, brings the meeting to a close, leaving me feeling sick to my stomach.
Franklin comes in. “Annabel wanting a meeting out of the blue can’t be good, can it?”
“Nope,” I say. “PowerFun is worried about culture match. Julie Ambrose has, in Annabel’s words, cold feet.”
“Shit,” he says.
“I need something. Something big. Something that will convince PowerFun that Thompson Merraker and MegaStar genuinely have the company’s best interest at heart. That they won’t gut PowerFun and fire all its employees. That they understand PowerFun’s vision and want to make it a reality on a bigger scale.”
“Oh, only that?” Franklin asks dryly.
“This is so not my strong suit,” I say with a groan.
Natalie would be so much better at this.
Natalie would know what to do.
What would Natalie do?
Natalie Natalie Natalie Natalie Natalie.
Dancing on the desk, holding on to my tie, wielding a sledgehammer, glistening wet in a bikini, bouncing on a trampoline, eating cake, under me with her face slack with pleasure, on top of me in a pool of Jell-O?—
And I’m here…doing…what?
“Preston,” Franklin says, waving a hand in front of my face. “This is absolutely your strong suit. You do this in your sleep. With one hand tied behind your back. What happened to you in Rush Creek? And don’t tell me nothing because I drove to New Haven and then flew across the country to get you pastries . You’ve never even made me go to Brooklyn for takeout. Plus, that was enough food for a small army. Don’t tell me you just had a hankering for Italian.”
“Shit,” I groan.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I won’t tell anyone. But—who is this Natalie ?”
He says it with a ridiculous French accent.
“Nobody,” I say.
“She’s definitely not nobody,” he says. “You know how I know? Because you are a fucking mess. And in all the time I’ve known you, I have never seen you not one hundred percent on top of things.”
I sigh. There’s not much point in lying to the guy whose job it is to watch you like a hawk and meet your every need.
“Yeah,” I say. “She’s not nobody. She’s?—”
And then, because I think, despite my best intentions, Franklin is my friend , I tell him. Just a little bit. About how the first time Natalie and I met, it was in Hanna’s office and I tried to fire her and the second time we met, she was dancing on a desk. I tell him about Jell-O wrestling and smashing things with baseball bats and sledgehammers and about Operation Fun.
“I don’t want to fuck this up,” I say when I bring him up to the present moment. “And I’m already fucking it up. It’s been less than a week, and work is eating me alive, and she and I are like ships in the night. And I knew this was going to happen because I fucked things up with Kali.”
“Whoa,” Franklin says. “Hang on. Hold your horses. You’re one of Newer York ’s titans of finance. You should know that past performance is no guarantee of future results .”
I stare at him, confused.
“Right? Isn’t that the saying?”
“Yeah, but?—”
“Well, it works both ways, right? You’re not necessarily going to get rich this time because you got rich last time. And just because you fucked things up with Kali doesn’t mean you’re going to fuck things up with Natalie.” He gives me a sharp look. “I’m your assistant, right?”
“Right.”
“It’s my job to know everything about you. Where you want me to order lunch from, whether you like your pants pressed with a crease or not, which hand you hold your dick with when you take a piss?—”
I close my eyes and wave that off. “Jesus, Franklin?—”
He shrugs. “My point being I’ve never seen you not get something you want. You’re the hardest working, most focused person I know, and if you tell me you don’t want to fuck things up with Natalie?” He gives a decisive nod. “You’re not going to fuck them up.”
My forehead feels too tight. My hands and feet are hot.
Because he’s right, of course. He knows me.
And he’s telling me, as someone who knows me?—
That I’ve got this.
It’s going to be okay.
Natalie and I—we’re going to make this work.
And it’s the best news I’ve ever heard.
Better than a promotion, for fucking sure.
He crosses his arms, not waiting for a response from me. “But as the guy who really wants to keep his job, can I suggest we tackle the other problem first? Because as much as I want you to live happily ever after, my personal interest lies much more with your professional success. Can we solve the PowerFun/MegaStar problem and then figure out how not to fuck things up with Natalie ? How about I get you a coffee? While you pull your head out of your ass and try to figure out how to keep PowerFun from wrecking their own deal?”
Grateful, I say, “Americano. Black.”
“You know, you could shake it up every once in a while. Just to keep things interesting for me.”
I’m about to say nah , but then it’s my turn to shrug. “Sure,” I say. “Bring me something different.”
“You’re letting me choose?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Surprise me.”
At the door, Franklin hesitates. “I know I’m just an executive assistant,” he says, “but if there’s anything I can do to help, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”
I sigh. “Not sure there’s much,” I say. “Unless you can convince the most uptight guy in business to loosen up enough to prove that he understands the concept of fun.”
Franklin’s eyebrows go up so far so fast I’m afraid they’re going to tangle in his hair.
It takes me a minute to hear what I’ve said.
What would Natalie do?
I know exactly what Natalie would do.
“Right,” I say. “Okay. Bring me that coffee, and then get ready to take some notes because I know how we’re gonna fix this.”