Mitchell Saltonstall stretched his arms above his head as he sat in the Connecticut office of Last Chance, Inc. and glared at the spreadsheet Jericho had sent over about the “fictional” company of Match Play LLC.
If it was a “fictional” company, then he and Jericho weren’t really colluding and therefore breaking the New Year’s Eve bet contract.
However, Jericho was the spreadsheet wizard, while Mitchell was the hard-nosed businessman. He needed Jericho’s spreadsheets to figure out how to turn Match Play around.
The problem was that Jericho’s spreadsheets weren’t merely bleeding red.
The ledgers were gushing red ink.
They were a goddamn Niagara Falls of vermilion-colored numbers in the Excel cells, and red ink meant negative cash flow.
More money flowing out than in.
Debt.
When Mitchell had been making the Match Play deal, he’d had to agree not to fire any of the current staff for at least two months, which was an unusual and stupid clause in a contract. He shouldn’t have agreed to it. Half of that staff were extraneous and would go in the first purge in May, anyway.
He needed to get that company lean and mean to start increasing its value so he could win the damn bet for his friends.
When the new version of Match Play officially launched on May first, Mitchell was going to hold a press conference at their Phoenix headquarters to drop it with a bang, and then he was going to start weeding out the extraneous staff in that bloated office. Most one-product companies employed a third of the staff that Match Play did. Half of them were going to go in his first round of cuts, and half of the remaining employees would be laid off a month later.
And Mitchell absolutely had to get Match Play in the black, and fast.
After the first quarter of the year, their bet against Gabriel “The Shark” Fish was going very badly.
Jericho Parr had bought a dilapidated country club with a golf course for his project. Turning around a behemoth like that would be tough. Redirecting large projects was like flipping a U-turn in an aircraft carrier. That golf course might garner a thirty percent increase in value if Jericho was damn lucky.
The other two guys, Morrissey Sand and Kingston Moore, were farting around and hadn’t even made an offer on any companies yet.
And, of course, they had no idea what Gabriel “The Shark” Fish was doing out in California. He might have inked a deal on New Year’s Day and was now so far ahead of Last Chance that it would be impossible for them to catch up. He’d probably had a deal all set up and ready to sign on the dotted line, and then he’d bamboozled Mitchell and his friends into a bet that he’d known he could win handily.
The other guys weren’t going to be able to beat The Shark at his own game. Mitchell had to win the bet for Last Chance, Inc. He was their only hope.
To win the bet, they needed a business that would increase its value by at least three or four times, not just a percentage like Jericho’s middle-class country club was going to do.
That’s why reimagining a company would work better than merely improving one.
And that’s why Mitchell was the front runner to win the bet for Last Chance, Inc.
The new app architecture for Match Play was a huge upfront investment, and Mitchell was praying that his gamble would pay off. A computer science company in Andhra Pradesh was building the new dating app from scratch in three weeks. Match Play employed three computer software coders who were just twiddling their thumbs in that Arizona office because three CS guys in Phoenix couldn’t build an app from the ground up in three weeks. The three coders in Arizona could debug and maintain the code until he fired them in May.
Agitation swam under his skin, so Mitchell did the thing he always did when he was getting pissed off at business, which was essentially every day, ever since he was thirteen and away at boarding school in Switzerland. He told his phone, “Call Emily on video chat.”
As the phone rang twice, he felt his shoulders relax and his breath deepen because no one could be stressed and pissed off at the whole goddamn universe while talking to the blond ray of sunshine that was his little sister.
The line opened, and Mitchell could see one blue eye with blond eyelashes and a hooded fold covering her eyelid. “Hello! Mitchell! Is that you?”
Her voice was slightly slurred and thick-tongued when compared to a neurotypical person, but she was as giggly and happy as ever.
He said, “Hi, Emily. I’ve decided to quit my job and become that crazy orange mascot for the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team.”
She giggled a sweet, silly laugh. “April fools! Peregrine already fooled me this morning. I know it’s April the first.”
Their brother Peregrine talked to Emily a lot, too.
Mitchell laughed. “And how is the sunshine of my life today?”
She giggled again. “I am fine, sweetums. How is your business today?”
He told her, “It’s going pretty well. We just got the final computer code installed in the new app that I bought, the one called Match Play. I’m calling my single friends and demanding they sign up for the new dating app for this month’s beta test.”
“It’s funny that it’s called Match Play, when your nickname was Match in high school.”
“It’s like it was meant to be.”
Wonder infused her voice. “Are you going to sign up and go on dates?”
“No, sugarlicious. You’re my whole life. Why would I want to go on dates with someone else?”
“Because you have to get married because I want a sister, and Mom says she isn’t having any more babies.”
“Absolutely not.”
“But you should go on dates and fall in love. Love always wins.”
That was Emily’s motto: Love always wins. How could anyone not love that?
But that didn’t mean Mitchell was going on a wife hunt when he didn’t plan to settle down for five or ten years, at least. He had businesses to run, travel to experience, and goals to achieve.
Not to mention a damned-stupid bet to win.
“Em, I am not signing up for Match Play or any other dating app. I’m too busy for dating.”
Emily’s eye crinkled tightly as she grinned. “But if you’re going to be Gritty the Philly Fliers’ mascot, you would have lots of time for dating.”
Mitchell cracked up. “You got me! But I don’t have time for dating right now. You should tell Peregrine that he needs to get married, though. He would definitely love it if you told him that.”
Heh. Peregrine would hit the roof, though not at Emily. He’d chew out Mitchell the next time they saw each other.
Heh.
Emily said, “Match Play is a really good name for a dating app for golfers.”
“Yeah, I lucked out. Half the reason I bought it was just for the name.”
“I think Match Play is a good idea, a dating app where the first date is always golf. It will make them go out and play golf instead of sitting on their butts.” She giggled because she’d said the word butt.
“That’s always a good idea, Emily. Are you golfing today?”
“No. I am going to work today.” Her smile showed in her voice and her eye in the corner of his phone screen. The Arc, the advocacy association for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, had helped Emily get a job in the cafeteria of a pharmaceutical company for eight hours a week after she’d turned twenty-one. She’d held the position for over a year, and she was so dang proud of it.
Mitchell smiled back at her. “Do well at work.”
“I always do. After that, I have my reading tutor.”
“Busy day, today.”
“Never too busy for my honey bunny big brother.”
The silly nicknames were a game they’d played since she was a kindergartener and he was a teenager. “I suppose I should get back to my work since you think I wouldn’t be a good NHL mascot.”
“Is Match Play a lot of work?”
“Well, yeah. After the other deals fell through when I tried to buy the Sticks chain of golf stores and that ladies golf apparel company, I had to find something else fast. I work a lot at my job, but I like it when the businesses succeed. A strong, stable business that pays employees fairly and does a good job is beneficial for everyone. Last Chance doesn’t wring all the money out of companies and then set them on fire like some other venture capital firms.”
“That’s evil,” Emily said.
“Yes, it is,” Mitchell agreed with her. These calls with her were the best part of his day.
“And you’re not evil,” she told him.
“No, I’m not.” Or at least he tried not to be, sometimes. “But it’s a lot of work to make these companies work right.”
“Can I help?” she asked.
“It’s business, honey. Not family.”
“But I like to help, and I’m good at my job.”
“I know, sweetie-snookums. But this is different than bussing trays in the cafeteria and restocking the milk cooler. Not bigger, just different. You wouldn’t like business. There’s a lot of reading involved.”
“Oh,” Emily said. “My reading tutor says I’m doing better. I want to read A Wrinkle in Time all by myself.”
“That’s amazing, sugar plum. And I know you’ll get there. But my job is business, not family.”
“But I want to help you.”
“You help me every day by being the bright ray of sunshine that you are, honey bear. I think I can come to Mom and Dad’s house this weekend to see you, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”