“Right. Okay. We can’t sit on this any longer.” He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him and kissed the top of her head.
She froze. Was there a protocol for when your boss kissed the top of your head at a bar? Her head was swimming. Could the drinks be affecting her that quickly? Pretend nothing happened, she thought. She pulled away and glanced at her phone. “I should take off. It’s getting late.”
“I guess I should too.” Was he not going to acknowledge that he had just kissed the top of her head? Was she supposed to think this was normal? “Wow. Mack McAllister is going down.” He looked at her again—was there a hopefulness in his eyes, or was she just imagining it?
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She slid off the bar stool and walked out of the bar without turning around. On the subway, she sat slumped against the window, her eyes closed.
When Katya got home, Victor was sitting on the couch with Nilay, and the apartment reeked of pot. Victor and Nilay had made up? When had that happened? And why were they smoking in her apartment? Please don’t let Janelle be home, she thought.
“Hey, Katya,” Nilay said. “I was actually just about to leave.” She didn’t respond.
“Where’d you go?” Victor asked.
“I told you, just out for drinks with some work people.” She wasn’t totally sure why she wasn’t telling Victor the whole truth. Even though she knew she hadn’t, technically, done anything remotely wrong, she still sensed that Victor might react badly.
Victor patted the couch next to him. “Come on. Sit down. Do you want to smoke? Nilay brought some over.”
Normally, she wasn’t opposed to smoking pot and generally didn’t mind when Victor did, but there was something about coming home and finding Victor in her apartment with Nilay, and the weed, and it was late, and Dan had kissed her on the head…ugh. “Where’s Janelle?”
“Dunno,” Victor said. “She hasn’t been around.” Nilay was looking increasingly uncomfortable. Victor glanced at him and back at Katya, and then he slapped his thighs and stood up. “Okay! You know what? I’m gonna stay at my place tonight. Just need to grab my bag.” He went into the bedroom and Katya could hear him throwing stuff into his backpack. She gave Nilay a strained smile.
“How you been, Katya?”
She didn’t know Nilay very well, even though he was her boyfriend’s roommate and his company’s co-founder. He’d gone to Columbia with Victor, and whereas Victor had a scrappy outsider vibe—he’d grown up in LA and gone to private schools on scholarship—Nilay just seemed like a spoiled guy who’d never really had to work for anything.
“Fine.” She stood in front of him, arms crossed. “What have you been doing?”
“Not a ton, to be honest,” he said. “I kind of just came to terms with the fact that StrollUp isn’t coming back.”
She snorted. “Yeah, that’s probably a good thing to come to terms with.”
Victor reappeared in the doorway. “All right, I guess we’re outta here.” He looked at her plaintively, as if to say, Are you sure you want me to go back to my beautiful apartment? He walked over to her and gave her a hug and nuzzled his face in her ear. “See you tomorrow,” he whispered.
“Actually—can I talk to you for a sec?” Katya said. Victor glanced at Nilay, who was looking intently at his phone. “Alone.” She pulled him into her bedroom and shut the door. “Were you going to tell me you and Nilay made up and you’re going back to your apartment? When did all this happen?” She was trying to keep her voice down but these walls were so thin—Nilay could probably hear everything.
“Yo, chill.” Victor sat on her bed and put his backpack on the floor. “First of all, you told me I’ve been texting you too much at work. So I just figured I’d tell you when you got home. And second of all, I thought you’d be happy! You’ve been on me for a week to get out of your apartment and now I’m leaving and you’re all pissed?” He shook his head. “I can’t win with you.”
Katya looked at him through narrowed eyes. Was it even worth trying to make her point? “Fine. I mean, I am glad you’re leaving. Not because I don’t want to see you, but, you know.” Victor nodded. “But it’s weird that you didn’t tell me ahead of time! What if I’d gotten home and you were already gone?” She felt her face flushing.
“Why do you think we were waiting around? I was just waiting for you to get home.” She was slightly mollified by this. “And Nilay and I ‘made up’ this morning. The fight was stupid.” He shook his head. “Like, he’s my boy, you know? I just needed some time to chill out about everything.” Katya was still silent. “Is that acceptable?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He looked at her one last time and shook his head as he picked his backpack up off the floor. “You are tough,” he said, and he kissed her. “That’s what I like about you.”
13
Coming to Terms
THIS TERM SHEET summarizes the principal terms of the Series A Preferred Stock Financing of TakeOff, Inc., a New York corporation (The “Company”). It does not constitute a legally binding agreement…
There it was, in ten-point Arial font on the five inches of his phone screen: the term sheet from Gramercy Partners, which had come through via email from Teddy Rosen, as promised, that morning. Beyond pumped abt this, the email said. We’ve never gotten a term sheet together so quickly—can’t wait to get going. And there, right after all the preamble and legal boilerplate, were the numbers Mack had been awaiting:
Amount: $20,000,000
Price per share: $3.41
The purchase price is based on a post-money valuation of $600 million.