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That was definitely true. Our ratio of good reviews to bad ones was outstanding. We had five stars on the app store, and the only negative reviews were for stupid things that weren’t our fault—complaints that, for example, if you wanted the app to autopay your monthly bills, you had to give it your bank information.
I’m not sure how anyone expected automated payments to be made on their behalf without providing that information, but people could be crazy.
“How’s the work going otherwise?” Danny asked. “How’s Olivia doing?”
Olivia was part of the equation I didn’t want to talk to Danny about because what was I supposed to say to him?
Yes, she’s doing an excellent job. I’m digging the whole pretending to be married to her deal. I’m spending a lot of time hoping to get to fuck her again.
Not something you want to say to your best friend about his little sister, especially while he’s holding a forty-pound dumbbell in his hand.
“She’s doing well,” I said cautiously. “She’s a good writer, you know, so she’s impressing Michael Sanders. We knew she would.”
Danny nodded. “I knew all she needed was someone to give her a chance,” he agreed. “But that’s hard in the film industry. This means an awful lot to her, though. You know, I had my doubts at first, but now I think it’s so great that you’re helping her out the way you are, Jake.”
It was definitely hard to accept his appreciation, knowing what I had been doing.
It wasn’t only the fact that I had slept with Olivia, though Danny would be furious about that. But he wouldn’t have approved of what was going on between the two of us.
For example, the way I continued to come up with excuses to touch her... I knew that both Olivia and I were having difficulty justifying our actions to ourselves, even though neither of us wanted to stop.
At this point, it had become a fundamental part of what we were doing. There’d been two more script-polishing sessions since that first one, and the tensions had been so thick at each of them that you could have cut it with a knife.
At yesterday’s session, she’d scooted her chair close to me and pressed her thigh against mine while we’d been working, at which point neither one of us could remotely pretend to believe that I was the only one who wanted it anymore. All I could think about was fucking her brains out right there, right on the makeshift desk.
And, as always, I’d invited her inside at the end of the night, and she’d turned me down. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she was entirely doing this for the fun of telling me no repeatedly. But I didn’t think that was true. There was no way I was imagining the chemistry between the two of us.
She wanted to act on it as much as I did, and I was pretty sure it was only a matter of time now.
Only a matter of time, and then she’ll be mine again.
But I didn’t want to talk to Danny about Olivia. That was way too uncomfortable, given the fact that I was trying to get her into bed for the second time. Much better to change the subject.
“What do you think we should do if we do manage to get someone famous to endorse Branches?” I asked. “What’s the strategy at that point?”
Danny shrugged. “I don’t know shit about marketing. You know that.”
He was right. Neither one of us did. Part of the reason we’d been so surprised when Branches 1.0 had done so well was that we hadn’t done any advertising at all for the first few months. Not until we had earned our first million did someone at a party suggest social media ads and offer to create them for us.
But I had no idea how to use a celebrity endorsement, and I was sure Danny didn’t either. All we knew was that it might be a good idea for us to have one.
“Come spot me,” I told him, heading over to the bench press, and he set down his dumbbell and followed me.
I added weights to either end and lay down on the bench, getting my grip ready. It was only after years of hearing that you never did this without a spotter that I asked for one. I was more than confident in my own ability to lift this bar. I pumped it up and down quickly while Danny stretched his hands, ready to catch it in case I needed to be bailed out.
“Maybe we could have them say something at the film premiere,” I suggested.
“Do you think Michael Sanders would allow that?” Danny asked. “I mean, he’s going to want everyone to be focused on his movie that night, isn’t he? He isn’t going to want people talking about some finance app that has nothing whatsoever to do with him.”
“Maybe,” I said, re-racking the bar to rest between sets. “Unless we make it have something to do with him.”
“What do you mean?” Danny asked. “How would we do that?”
“You know the project function?”
“Sure.” The project function was one of the additions to this new version of the app, and it was a way of tracking your spending on a specific project. If you were on vacation, for example, and you wanted to keep track of all the money you’d spent on various aspects of your trip, you could use the project function.
That was how a regular person might use it. But youcoulduse it for anything at all. For example, if you were a filmmaker, you could use it to track the money you spent making your movie. You could keep track of what you’d paid everyone who worked for you, how much certain effects had cost—the whole nine yards.
