Page 104 of Caught A Vibe

“Well, I took a day, wandered around by the docks, noticed which bar they all went to after their shift, and hung out for a few hours. I let several burly men buy me drinks before I found the one I was after and convinced him to ‘accidentally’ grab our container so we could unload early.” Zarah examines her nails and rubs them against her shirt as if this isn’t a big fucking deal.

“You are amazing. I will never underestimate you again.”

“See to it, boss lady!” Zarah laughs, her dark curls bouncing. “Jen’s got good news too.”

“Jen? How is everything at the factory?”

“Things are good. They are starting to reopen the production lines at reduced capacity, but they are open, so we should be able to start getting fresh units made any day now. I’ve also done some research on starting a second factory line in Europe to diversify our suppliers.”

“That’s a relief. Do I want to know how many hours you’ve spent on the phone to China this week?”

“No. No, you do not. But better me than you. You just scare them, and they tell you lies to keep you happy. They still don’t know I speak Mandarin and think I’m some lackey, so I get all the dirt when they talk in the background of the call.”

“Brilliant. You are simply brilliant,” I say before turning my attention to Emmie, who is frowning. “Emmie, how are we doing on design?”

“I’m still frustrated that there isn’t enough room for a vibe next to the fingering mechanism, so I’ve been playing with prototypes for the next version to make more room. Based on feedback from the community portal and surveys, I also want to look at warming features. We should whiteboard together soon.”

“It’s a date. And Nicola? Where do we stand on funding? I’m sorry I kind of dropped that in your lap this week, but—”

“Don’t be sorry. I fixed it.”

“What do you meanyou fixed it?”

“We needed money to float us through the launch. I got it.”

My jaw drops. I know I must look like a gasping fish, but I am too surprised to care. “Elaborate. Please.”

“Well, the article didn’t really do us any favors. Thanks for that, by the way.” She directs that jab at Dash, who takes it gracefully and drops his head.

“I’m truly sorry about that. It won’t happen again.”

“Oh, you could write about us again, just maybe run it by me first? It turns out that being called cowards pissed off a lot of the VC bro-dudes, but Veronica Lim took it as a challenge. She told her team at Greenlight Go to award their next five capital grants to underrepresented entrepreneurs. Starting with us.”

“Oh my God! Really? How much?” I am bouncing in my chair.

“Not quite enough. I’ve got the funding offer right here.” Nic taps a few buttons and a file appears in the chat.

I try to suppress a sigh, but it sneaks out anyway. “Damn. I know you did your best. At least it’ll buy us a little time to figure out something else.”

“I already did!”

I swear to God I’m going to kill her if she doesn’t take me out with a heart attack first. I know she set that up on purpose to mess with me. “Wait, what? I swear I have only been gone a week!”

“Yes, but what a week it was. I talked to Hayley Prescott.”

“I thought we weren’t considering approaching her anymore after her negative review.”

“Will you let me finish the story?”

I raise my hands and lean back, gesturing for Nicola to take the floor.

“So, no shit, there I was, scrolling through InstaSnap, when I saw her review. I watched it, and realized from the way she was holding it that she hadn’t properly adjusted her MiO. I slid into her DMs and sent her the link to the portal and offered to give her some private coaching, and voila! She’s a believer! She’s been buzzing about it all week.”

I groan at the pun, but inside I feel golden. Each and every member of my team went above and beyond in my absence to solve major problems. I am so freaking proud.

“So do you think she’d be interested in investing if I approached her?” I ask Nic.

“I already talked to her about it, and she is jazzed! We still need to work out the numbers, but between her social media platform and a buy-in for partial ownership, I think we’re going to be okay.”

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