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I brushed back his hair and smiled. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Owen topped off everyone’s champagne and made a joke about sabotaging Furio’s private jet once he’s back in Italy. Furio teased the two American billionaires for not having their own private jet, and for taking Uber around the city rather than having their own driver.
While the three of them traded playful banter, I looked at all of them and smiled. Three men, one of whom had saidI love youtoday, and the others who I felt just as strongly about even if I hadn’t said the words. I had all three of them… and somehow they were okay with it.
It’s a crazy world, I thought.
A man walked toward our little section of the rooftop deck, and Melinda jumped up and hugged him. He was a foot taller than her, and his massive hands spread across her back as he kissed her. He looked vaguely familiar.
“I’m glad you made it, baby,” she said, turning to give Owen a triumphant look. “My boss was beginning to think you didn’t exist.”
Owen choked on his champagne. Furio had to hand him two extra napkins to wipe his face.
“Thisis who you’re dating?” he demanded when he could breathe again. “Your boyfriend is Jimmy fucking Garoppolo?!?!”
That’s how I recognize him. From the charity gala. He told me he was a big fan of ACS, which had confused me at the time. It all made sense, now.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I thought your boyfriend was a bum.”
“I get called that a lot,” Jimmy said with a white smile. “Especially after a bad game.”
Everyone laughed, but Melinda gave me a puzzled look. “Why would you think he’s a bum?”
“What I think she means,” Jude offered, “is that you said your boyfriend was unemployed.”
Melinda chuckled to herself. “I said hewasn’t working right now. That was back in April, during the off-season. He spent months on the couch watching TV and waiting for me to get home from work.”
“I can’t help it if I miss you, babe.” He put an arm around her waist and kissed her. “I’m busy now that the season has started.”
“Those women are taking photographs,” Furio pointed. “You are someone famous?”
“He’s the quarterback for the Niners,” I explained. “Our local football team.”
Furio shook his hand and chuckled. “Forgive me, but where I come from, real football is played with thefeet.”
“They should call it hand-egg, am I right?” Jimmy said, which drew several laughs. He pointed at the bottles. “What are we celebrating?”
“We turned down alotof money today,” Melinda told him.
He looked confused. “Is that some kind of joke? Because I don’t get it.”
“I’m not sure I get it either,” Owen agreed. “But hopefully we’ll all be laughing next year, when Advanced Crypto Solutions goes public!”
“Speaking of that,” Jude said, “we need to adjust our roadmap. Now that Google knows they cannot purchase us, they will be speeding up the development of their own platform.”
I nodded. “We should accelerate our timeline. I’m sure there are some tasks that can be done in parallel to save some time. We’ll need more Python programmers, though.”
“I’m all over it,” Melinda said. “I’ve got a stack of applications taller than my boyfriend. My veryreal, NFL-playing boyfriend.” She shot Owen a look.
“Okay, okay, you were right. I was wrong.”
“Mark your calendars, everyone,” I said. “Owen March just announced that he was wrong.”
Owen leaned back in the chair and grinned. “It happens once every four years, like leap days.”
“I’ll schedule a meeting for us tomorrow,” Jude said to me, “to review the roadmap and make the adjustments. I can already think of some tasks we can break into smaller pieces, which can then be split up among more of the coders.”
I grinned at him. “I can’t wait.”
