“Let me guess,” she said. “Larkspur?”
“You got it,” he said. “This area can host a receptionist and a couple of other employees until you outgrow it and need more space. You share a kitchen and restrooms with the other offices on this floor. Are you ready to see your office?”
She was. Behind door number one was a medium-size room whose tinted-glass windows gave a view of the Helms Bakery District sign. The office furniture was contemporary, almost generic, but everything looked ready to go. The phone on the desk even had a steady red light indicating an active line. As a joke, Trip had hung a framed motivational poster, the classic kitten in a tree captioned, Hang in there, baby. She appreciated the kitschy touch.
“You can replace that with whatever you want, as long as it fits your decorating budget, which I’m obligated to tell you is minuscule. As your chief investor, I demand fiscal responsibility.”
Lark turned a slow circle, picturing herself hard at work at the desk—imagining the office filled with employees—and trying to process the change from working with her feet up on the couch. Wondering how much it all cost.
Then, finally, not wanting to look ungrateful, she launched herself at Trip and wrapped him in a tight hug, kissing him deeply. When they broke it off, she said, “The poster stays. Now tell me how this works, exactly.”
He grinned and released her. “Why don’t you have a seat at your desk?”
Playing along, she pushed him down into one of the guest chairs and then did her best to slink seductively into the expensive-looking task chair behind the desk. She put both feet up on a corner, steepled her fingers, and cocked an eyebrow, enjoying feeling like an executive interrogating an underling.
“Damn,” he said, grinning. “You even look the part.”
“Explain yourself, Mitchell,” she growled.
“It’s simple,” he said, slouching comfortably. “You need a business address. You also need a place to work that reminds you you’re the real deal, not an amateur in sweats on the couch.”
She tried to interrupt, but he shushed her.
“I also need a West Coast office. I’m sick of coffee shops, and those coworking spaces are even worse. They’re all dog friendly, they play terrible music, and half the people in them are wannabe movie producers hoping you’ll overhear their phone conversations. I’ll take the other private office here, but the rest of the space is yours. We’ll carry the expenses on my books for the time being because I can use the write-off.”
She felt mildly deflated—this wasn’t really her office, after all?—but he anticipated her objection before she could raise it.
“Your name is on the door,” he said. “The phone number is listed to Larkspur or whatever you want to call your company. The lease will be in my name, but trust me, I’ll stay out of your way.”
“And if I want you in my way?”
He grinned. “You’re the boss, Ms. Robinson.”
Lark had signed the business agreement several days after dinner at Soyokaze, witnessed by Callie and notarized by a clerk at a funky corner store that also sent faxes and rented mailboxes to some of the neighborhood’s more transient characters. Trip told her to take as long as she wanted and had encouraged her to have her lawyer look it over, as if she had a lawyer. Not wanting to pay the hourly expense for a legal opinion, she instead read the whole thing repeatedly, word by word, until she felt convinced there were no clauses hiding bad intentions on Trip’s part. Truthfully, the mere fact that he encouraged her to use a lawyer convinced her he was on the up-and-up.
Yes, he was offering half the money Hunter-Cash had put on the table. But he was allowing her to keep her game, encouraging her to aim higher, and seemed convinced she’d be profitable. He told her he planned to use his first-investor clause liberally to pump more cash into her operation. In return he was asking for only 20 percent of the profit after recouping his expenses—and now he wasn’t even charging her for office space.
Lark had checked him out online, of course. There wasn’t much to find, but she had learned this was by design. While running his hedge fund, he’d explained, he worked with a small, handpicked group of clients who knew him by reputation. Once he became a so-called angel investor, he had every reason to fly below the radar, because no one was more popular than someone with money to burn. He’d been too busy to bother with Facebook and Twitter, and was still hardly a regular on Instagram. He had a neglected LinkedIn page and a bare-bones website with a contact form, and he showed up only a few other times on Google. Lark thought it showed a refreshing lack of self-promotion, and even Callie, who continued to half-heartedly play devil’s advocate, was slowly being won over.
I’m looking forward to meeting this mystery man, Lark’s mom had texted.
Over lunch at a nearby sandwich shop, Trip asked her what she thought was the next step for Larkspur Games.
“Well, I’ve never had a formal business plan, but I’ve studied what’s worked for a lot of other first-time game designers . . .”
He nodded in vigorous agreement.
“. . . and you’d be amazed at how many of them have successfully launched with Kickstarter.”
Trip made a face like he’d bitten into something unpleasant. “Those are direct sales, right? Individual people essentially preordering your game?”
She nodded.
“In a way those people also become investors—and as your primary investor, I’d like to encourage you to think even bigger. What if we spent the next month working on a business plan that includes production, manufacturing, distribution, and marketing? I can definitely help with the distribution angle. I have a friend who knows retail and can set up
