Addison put her hand over her mouth, like she was trying to hide a smile. “Oh my goodness. Oh, I bet he was mad. Can I please be in the room with you, honey, when he finds out about this poll?”
Peyton furrowed her brow. “Why would that make him mad? I mean, he must’ve looked good and had a great article written about him if that many people want Bex to interview him. That’s exciting and fun! Why would he not think that’s a good thing?”
“You’ve met the guy,” Bex said. “I don’t think he does ‘exciting and fun.’ What was I thinking, turning the interview choice over to my viewers? If I have to interview Roman, I’m as good as forfeiting my chance at the Eddie Award.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Timini said as she reached out with a fork that seemed to materialize out of nowhere and snuck a piece of shrimp. “It’s just his fifteen minutes of fame. It’ll be over in less than twenty-four hours, and Corbin Shields will make his way to the top of the list again.”
“I hope you’re right,” Bex said. “Because I really want to win that vlogger award, and I can’t do it with the wrong guy winning that poll.”
2
Roman
Roman Powell looked down at his tablet as he walked to the conference room to meet with his department heads. In big, bold letters at the top of his meeting agenda was his company’s and his own personal motto: Be the Best You. He liked to remind himself of it before everything he did in his company.
But it didn’t pump him up the way it normally did. Probably because of the annoyed feeling that lately seemed to always hang around like gum under a middle-school desk, even when he wasn’t thinking about the reason why.
Four of his five department heads were already in the room. He glanced at the empty seat. “Anyone seen Charli?”
“I’m here, I’m here,” Charlotte said as she blew into the room like a force of nature and slapped her stuff down onto the table before taking her seat. “Don’t worry. I’m late for a reason.”
“It’s a good thing you’re so skilled at what you do,” Roman said, although they all knew Charlotte wasn’t late. One of the things he loved about his team was that they always showed up five minutes early, ready to go. That, and they were all amazing at what they did, and none of them complained about the slash in their job titles that meant they were doing the work of more than one department. They were barely beyond startup status, and running lean was paramount. He’d managed to bring together a dynamic bunch who all had the same goal as he did—to pull the company forward.
Since this meeting was about the launch of their latest app, he started off by going around the table, having each department head give an update on where they were at. The development department and the design and user experience department told how things had gone for the advance users in the final round of testing, his finance guy talked about advertising budget, and his assistant slash human resources head, Melinda, talked about a couple of promising interns they were about to give job offers to. The whole time, Charlotte was leaning forward, elbows on the table, tapping her pen or drumming a finger.
Melinda reached out and put a hand on top of Charlotte’s fidgeting one, but kept her eyes on Roman. “The offers will go out today. Hopefully they’ll both say yes and will be able to start in the next two weeks, because marketing and app testing could both really use the help.” Then she looked at Charli. “With as much as you’ve apparently wanted to go first today, it wasn’t the best day to come into the meeting last, was it?”
“No—I’ve been dying for my turn!”
Charlotte looked at Roman, so he motioned to her. “Give us your update, Charli. Since it looks like you might explode if you have to wait another second.”
Charli looked visibly relieved to finally be able to speak. “My team, of course, is always looking out for ways to have our products stand out in a crowded market. And an opportunity to help launch Nudge Out has practically dropped into our lap.” She pulled a magazine out of the middle of her stack and tossed it to the middle of the table, beaming.
And there it was. The source of the annoyed feeling that had been following him around since the magazine was released four days ago. He closed his eyes, shaking his head, trying to keep his temperature from rising.
“Stop,” Charli said. “You’ve got that vein by your temple popping out again. This is Business Success magazine! And you’re on the cover! Remember how much we celebrated when you got the email saying that they wanted to do an interview and photo shoot to be in their top ten CEO’s under thirty list? And that was before they decided to put you on the cover. This is a big deal, Boss.”
“It was a big deal back when I thought it would all focus on LivenUP and our products. It became considerably less outstanding when they changed the title of the feature to Top 10 Young (and Single) CEO’s and chose a picture that makes me look like I’m smoldering at the camera.” He didn’t know how they got the picture at all—he swore he never even smoldered at the camera once. It was probably taken at that moment when he suddenly wondered if he actually clicked send on the email he had written to Daran about setting up a meeting to discuss a new app idea. He couldn’t help the fact that, with the right photographer, his thinking pose looked like an invitation to ogle him.
“It’s a good smolder,” Charli said.
“It looks more like they’re advertising an episode of The Bachelor than spotlighting CEOs who have built a successful business.” The picture they used was a full-body shot of him leaning against the back of a chair, wearing a suit—a pose more suitable for a menswear model than a CEO. The second he saw it, he knew what his dad’s reaction would be: embarrassment.
“But the article is good,” Charli said. “They asked a lot of great questions about the company and our products, and you answered them perfectly.”
Roman shook his head. “The article also includes a lot of personal stuff that I thought was just small-talk. Off the record.” It still made him mad whenever he thought about it.
It didn’t matter what Roman said; Charli’s excitement didn’t seem to dwindle. “But it shines you and this company in a great light. Pointing out that you’re young and single doesn’t take any of that away. What it does do is make people interested enough to want to find out more. And that was exactly the goal we had when you agreed to the interview. Who cares if they put you on the cover because you have a face that sells magazines? This extra exposure is golden.”
“The way I see it,” Daran, his app development head, piped in, “it’s like you’re going on a trip. You reserved a mid-sized car, but when you get to the car rental counter, they say they’re out and they are going to upgrade you to an Aston Martin. Sure, it’s only temporary. But it’s an Aston Martin! Are you telling me you’re just going to complain about how much gas it guzzles and not drive that beautiful piece of machinery every second you can?”
“This,” Roman said, reaching for the magazine in the middle of the table and holding it up, “isn’t an Aston Martin. It’s not a gift. It makes me look like I’m not serious about this company. Or worse, that I’m not legitimate. That I’m only in the list because they needed someone to look good on the cover.”