Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
It’s a lot of blah-blah-yapping-hand when he gets really sciencey about it, but it really has changed the way people find love. Since the DNADuo launched about three years ago, it’s even overtaken Tinder in number of users. Some analysts expect its stock to surpass Facebook’s now that the associated social media feed app, Paired, has launched. Everyone knows someone who’s been matched through GeneticAlly.
All this is amazing, but for someone like River, who prefers to spend his days facing a fume hood rather than leading investor meetings or fielding questions from reporters, I think the frenzy has been a drag.
But, as the nightly news is reminding us, GeneticAlly isn’t River’s problem for much longer. The company is being acquired.
“When does the deal close?” I ask.
Jess swallows a sip of wine, eyes still on the television. “Expected Monday morning.”
I really can’t fathom this. The GeneticAlly board has accepted an offer, and there are all kinds of subrights deals happening that I don’t even understand. What I do comprehend is that they’re going to be so rich, Jess is absolutely paying for drinks tonight.
“How are you feeling about it?”
She laughs. “I feel completely unprepared for what life looks like from now on.”
I stare at her, deciphering the simplicity of this sentence. And then I reach across the table and take her hand, fog clearing. Her right wrist has the other half of my drunken, misspelled Fleetwood Mac tattoo: Thunner only happens and wen it’s raining forever binding us together. “I love you,” I say, serious now. “And I’m here to help you spend your giraffe money.”
“I’d rather have an alpaca.”
“Dream bigger, Peña. Get two alpacas.”
Jess grins at me, and her smile fades. She squeezes my hand. “You know the old Fizzy will come back, right?” she asks. “I think you’re just facing a transition, and figuring that out will take time.”
I glance across the bar at the disheveled hot guy again. I search my blood for some vibration, or even the mildest flutter. Nothing. Tearing my eyes away, I exhale slowly. “I hope you’re right.”
two CONNOR
Some bloke on a podcast once philosophized that the perfect day comprises ten hours of caffeine and four hours of alcohol. I might agree with the caffeine bit, but the mediocre beer in front of me feels more like liquid sadness than escape. Oddly fitting for the day I’ve had.
“Pivoting over to reality television might be fun,” my mate Ash says distractedly, eyes glued to the basketball game on the TV above the bar. “It’s sort of like what you do now, just sexier.”
“Ash,” I say, grimacing as I rub my temples, “I make short docuseries on marine mammals.”
“And dating shows are short docuseries on land mammals.” He grins at his own cheekiness, looking at me and nodding. “Am I right?”
I groan, and we fall silent again, turning our attention back up to where the Warriors are obliterating the Clippers.
Rarely have I had such a horrendous day at work. Having started from the bottom in the shark tank of big Hollywood, I know I have it good working for San Diego’s comparably tiny production company North Star Media. There are the obvious frustrations that accompany working in a small shop—limited budgets, the uphill battle of distribution, and the simple fact of being 120 miles away from Los Angeles among them—but I also have autonomy in my projects.
Or did, until today, when my boss, one Blaine Harrison Byron—a man whose office decor includes a huge slab of graffitied concrete, a life-sized statue of a naked woman, and the newest addition, a gleaming saddle—told me the company was making a major pivot from socially conscious programming to reality television. Is it possible for a man named Blaine Harrison Byron to not be a giant, pretentious wanker?
(I see the fair point to be made—that a man named Connor Fredrick Prince III should not be so quick to cast stones—but I didn’t just sideswipe the lives of my entire staff on a whim, so I’m standing firm.)
“Let’s talk it out,” Ash says when a commercial for Jack in the Box comes on. “What’d your boss say, specifically?”
I close my eyes, working to recall Blaine’s exact wording. “He said we’re too small to be socially conscious.”
“Out loud?”
“Out loud,” I confirm. “He said that people don’t want to sit down after a hard day’s work and feel bad about the ziplocked sandwich they took for lunch, or how much water is wasted to make the electricity to charge their iPhone.”
Ash’s jaw drops. “Wow.”
“He said he wants me to go after the female demographic.” I sip my beer and set it down, staring at the table. “He said Bravo was the number one rated cable network in prime time among women ages eighteen to forty-nine because of their two top reality franchises, and that demographic spends the most. Ergo, the executives are going after premium ad revenue. They’ve already got one of my colleagues, Trent, working on some mash-up of The Amazing Race and American Gladiators they’re calling Smash Course. And they want me to spearhead a reality dating show.”