old skin tonight, even if Lizard did it much more quietly. We await the morning with interest.
Much love,
Jennie
Chapter 21
Lizard sat down at her kitchen table and tried not to feel like she'd left her kidney with a stranger. Handing in her poetry journal had nearly killed her. Not handing it in and facing Freddie's dark eyes would have been worse.
And a tiny voice in the back of her head kept insisting that's why she'd written Freddie's Bus in the first place. Because she wanted the world to know she was a poet, and his belief in her was the only damn thing on the planet that could have forced her to go public.
Yeah. Lizard Monroe, poet laureate. That seemed likely.
And man, her head hurt. Sometime last night, possibly before the bra burning and her crazy decision to actually hand in her journal, they'd consumed some very bad wine. Or maybe some good wine that tasted bad thanks to the mind magic - she'd never been good at using power while drinking.
Not that she'd been convinced a backyard bonfire was the smartest idea of all time, but it was one of those things you pretty much had to finish once you'd started. Kind of like handing in poetry journals. Halfway didn't count.
"Morning." Josh walked into the kitchen holding out a box. "Don't shoot - I brought donuts."
What, was there a sign on their front door saying "Come on in, we don't mind?" Lizard started to scowl, and then remembered that was a totally ineffective tactic on this particular annoyance in her life. Instead, she pasted a grin on her face and grabbed the box. "How totally lovely. There are going to be ten half-naked women here soon, and I'm sure they'll be thrilled the donut shop delivered. Thanks, goodbye, don't let the door hit you on the way out."
Josh gaped. Then he grinned. And then he busted up laughing. All without actually letting go of the box of donuts.
Dammit, she was not playing tug-o-war over baked goods. Lizard let go of the box and stomped to the window. "Why are you here - did you lose your keys or something?"
"Nope." He opened the donut box on the counter and took out something that made her traitorous stomach growl. "I wanted to talk to you about an investor meeting."
"A what?" Lizard grabbed a cruller. Any sentence with "meeting" in it definitely deserved a donut.
"For the neighborhood-mapping project." Josh reached for a napkin. "I've got some investors interested in talking to you."
Okay, her head was going to officially explode. "Why do they want to talk to me - can't you just show them the demo?"
He paused, hand stuck in the donut box. "We talked about this when you came to the office. People don't just hand over a few hundred thousand dollars because they saw a prototype. They want to see who's behind the idea."
Her brain had stopped dead at "a few hundred thousand dollars."
Josh was back on his donut-seeking mission. "You're the creator, and you have great vision for where the project should go. Sit, talk with these guys for a bit, and you'll be funded." He grinned. "Then you hire us to execute."
Yup. Still stuck. Lizard blinked and tried to unglue her fried circuits. "What the frack do you need hundreds of thousands of dollars for?"
"More than that. About three million, I figure." He reached into his bag and pulled out a computer. "Here are some estimated start-up costs, sales projections, stuff like that. We're good at that part, but you're the ideas girl, so they're going to want to talk to you."
She'd never realized eyes could actually bug out of your head. "It's just freaking maps. That I do on a computer in my spare time with free tools anyone with an Internet connection and a brain can use." The numbers in the spreadsheet were mesmerizing, in a totally sick way. "Where do you find stupid suits who want to pay you lots of money for something anyone can do for free?"
Josh rolled his eyes and slammed the donut lid shut. "Okay. Then I'll let you make your own donuts and take these away with me."
"What?"
"You buy donuts. You buy bacon and eggs at the diner. Why? You could make them a lot cheaper here in your kitchen."
He was so not a cook. "It takes hours to make donuts."
"Exactly." He grinned, clearly headed somewhere she wasn't going to like. "How long does it take to make one of your maps?"
A