I screamed as he ate both the donut and the little paper plate it was on.
“We need to make other arrangements for you,” I told Prancer, petting his velvety nose.
“Especially if he’s eating paper products,” Olivia stated. “I can’t have him eating my architecture notebooks.”
I gazed around the Christmas market, wondering whether someone was going to pop up and say, “Hey I’d really like to adopt that reindeer.”
Instead, people had their phones out and were videotaping the moment when my life ratcheted down yet another notch to a new low point.
“You know who has some land in the country?” Olivia said slowly. “With lots of forests and a stable?”
“No. No way,” I said flatly. “I’m not asking Matt for a favor. Besides, he’s selling the house.”
“No one is buying property over Christmas,” Olivia said. “We can find a reindeer rescue for Prancer in the meantime.”
The reindeer sat down and scratched at his ear with a hoof.
“I think he might have been living in the city a bit too long to be relocated to a wild rescue,” I said.
Matt didn’t answerhis phone when I called him. He also didn’t respond to my text messages. I did not want the reindeer in my shop. He looked hungry, and I had a lot of expensive Christmas ornaments in there that no one was going to buy.
Prancer followed me through town to Matt’s office. I texted him again. Nothing.
I waited around, hoping Matt would magically appear. No such luck.
“I’m just going to pop in and grab him,” I told Prancer. “Wait here.” I opened the door to the renovated historic building.
Prancer stuck his head in behind me, inhaling deeply. Someone had catered lunch.
“You can’t bring that animal in here,” the receptionist said, standing up. “Hey!”
But it was too late. Prancer pushed past me into the building and clopped down the hall.
Fuuuuckkk.
42
Matt
“This is it,” I said, trying to hype myself up. We had city approval for the expansion. Now I just needed funding. I had several representatives from Manhattan’s biggest investing firm assembled in the conference room. I had a killer presentation ready that one of my associates had put together. The receptionist had catered lunch from a popular spot in Harrogate, Girl Meets Fig, and they had brought alcohol because apparently, that was what happened at business meetings in small towns.
“You ready to make some big bucks?” Eli gave me a fist bump.
His brother Hunter shook his head in disapproval. Eli saluted.
“Thank you all for coming in for a quick informational session about the Series A funding round for the next phase of FarmTech Solutions’ vertical farm initiative,” I said as Eli clicked through the presentation.
“We believe this type of farming is the future. It uses less water than traditional farming, it takes up less land, it can be implemented year-round in any climate, and by interfacing with smart logistics systems, we can ensure that we are only growing the type and amount of produce that the market wants. Because the plants effectively grow indoors, there are few pesticides required, making it some of the healthiest produce around.”
Eli clicked to the next slide, which showed a video of our robots harvesting lettuce. My sister Belle and her business partner Dana Holbrook were taking notes. Greg was watching Belle.
I just needed to convince one of them to invest. Then I was sure the other would too. Also in attendance were Chris Winchester, who ran a huge hedge fund, Evan Harrington, who I knew was looking to branch out into the tech market, and one of the Richmond brothers, who also had a fund that specialized in ground-floor tech investing.
“We are making strides in robot harvesting tech. Currently, we are ten percent automated. We also have started partnerships with several restaurants in town and with the local tech college to train workers.”
A commotion rang out from the lobby. I ignored it.
“Assuming we close this series of funding, we—”
