But the insider joke doesn’t stop at her wings. The concept extends all the way to her gold halo. The best part? She’s wrapped bigger bills around it—a handful of thousand-dollar bills.

“I see you don’t just have a halo. You have a halo effect,” I say, referring to the marketing term as I signal to the bartender for a glass of champagne.

“Why stop at one bit of wordplay when I can have two?” she says, with a clever grin I’m pretty sure I want to kiss off her face.

“Where did you find a one-thousand-dollar Monopoly bill? I thought the game only went to five-hundred-dollar denomination.”

“It does. Unless you have Mega Monopoly,” she answers.

I mime an explosion by my temples. “Mind blown.”

She gestures to her ensemble. “I made the whole thing myself.”

“Clever and handy. I’m defenseless before your charms.”

She laughs. “Good to know, since I make all my clothes. Will that render you completely helpless?”

“That’s a likely possibility. As long as you aren’t about to pitch me an app for how to make your clothes.”

She laughs and shakes her head. Her hair is light brown, almost a caramel color, and it’s braided down one side. From behind her gold mask, her hazel eyes twinkle at me.

“No. My app would say go buy scissors, a sewing machine, and a pattern.” She raises her flute to her lips, and I watch her drink, wondering briefly how the champagne tastes on her lips. She sets down the glass. A faint imprint of pink from her lip gloss decorates the rim. “Can you even imagine if someone tried to make an app for how to do that? There can’t actually be an app for everything.”

“But people try. Next thing you know, someone will make an app with a sign that says taxi on your phone screen, and you hold it up to hail one.”

“I think someone did make that. Also, I didn’t fund it,” she says, laughing, as the bartender slides me a champagne.

“I didn’t either.”

She runs one hand along a wing full of money. “I only fund the best and brightest ideas with my Monopoly money.” Her voice turns slightly more serious. “Do you get pitched on apps a lot?”

I take a drink of the bubbly. “I get pitched on everything all the time.”

She nods. “That must be par for the course, being a VC and all.”

I part my lips to speak, to tell her I’m not a VC. But I flash back to the racquetball game, to the face-lift suggestion from my sister. If this angel thinks I’m a VC, that means my face-lift is working. My costume is doing what I want it to do—it’s making it possible for me to be me. To have a conversation as Flynn Parker the guy, not as Flynn Parker the multimillionaire.

She doesn’t know who I am. And I don’t correct her. “It can be.”

She nods thoughtfully then roams her gaze over my black attire. She taps her bottom lip. “Hmm. Let’s see what we have here tonight because I don’t think you’re a ninja.”