I wake up to a hangover, no texts from Sara and an email about a grade update for Math 190. I shimmy down to the foot of my bed and pull my laptop off my desk, then type in my password, still lying down with my arm at a weird angle.

Grade results posted! the message bubble on the website says. I roll my eyes. Really? An exclamation point? When is this ever an exciting moment?

I click on the alert.

Hart, Braden, Assignment Four Grade: 73.

Damn it. I slam the computer closed. The test was two days after Sara and I broke up, and I wasn’t exactly in the best state of mind to take it. That, plus my lousy attendance record due to hangovers like this, and I am now looking at a solid C in the class. A nice parting gift from her, I guess.

I lie back and close my eyes. Maybe I will just sleep for the rest of the day.

My phone vibrates against my desk.

Arrrgh. I flip it over.

Call from: Father

Great. I have to answer. I tap the green button.

“Hey, Dad,” I say, putting the phone to my ear.

“How’s my favorite son?”

I roll my eyes. “I’m your only child.”

“That I know of,” he says.

I laugh, but given my parents’ complicated relationship, it might not be that far off the truth. Which makes it a little less funny.

“How goes it with the company?” he asks.

Of course, he never likes to spend too long talking about personal lives, even thinly fictionalized ones.

“Good,” I say. “I told you we have an offer.”

“Right, right,” he says. “From whom again?”

I bet I’m the only kid in the world to have this much success and still be forgettable to my parents.

“Bell Ventures.”

“Oh,” he scoffs. “They run a half-assed shop. You’d do much better elsewhere.”

“Yeah.” I scrub a hand across my face. “I mean, they want to buy it almost outright.”

“Then that settles it. A flattering but useless offer—brush it off and get back to initial meetings.”

“It’s not quite that simple,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

The door opens, and Jesse, my roommate, walks in, wearing a backward baseball cap, pastel shorts and no shirt.

I wave and point to the phone. He nods and turns to place his longboard on top of his desk.

“I mean we have to vote,” I tell my father. “And my partners are not the easiest people to convince.”

“These are your employees,” my dad says. “If they’re your friends too, that doesn’t mean—”

“They’re not though,” I say. “My employees.” They’re not my friends anymore either, but that’s another point entirely.

Jesse climbs onto his bed, puts his giant headphones on and plugs them into the turntable on his nightstand.

“They code and you run the business?” he asks.

“Yeah, but—”