There was nothing better than waking up next to a beautiful woman who smelled like sex and strawberries. Nothing, that is, except the chance to make a cool million in the space of an hour.

I took a moment to appreciate the picture she made on my bed as I dressed for my meeting. Her thick, strawberry-blond hair across my navy blue pillows, her perfect tan, those full lips pushed out in an innocent sleepy pout. She was gorgeous.

“Yep, Miles, looks like the gods are finally smiling down on you,” I told myself as I straightened my tie in the mirror.

I blew her a kiss and hurried out. Luck wasn’t patient, and neither was Nate. He had already texted me twice, and the meeting wasn’t supposed to begin for another thirty minutes. Regardless, I told him I was on my way and hurried to the address the investor had given me.

Nate was already in the parking lot when I pulled up, flipping his keys around his finger, his eyebrows lowered behind his reflective sunglasses.

“Frowning already? Cheer up, man; we’re invincible today.”

I bounced across the parking lot, trying and failing to rein in my wildly elevated mood. I couldn’t seem to keep the grin off my face, and even though I’d been awake way longer than I should have been, I had never felt more energized and alert.

“What got into you?” Nate asked, then slid his glasses down his nose to peer at me with his piercing dark eyes. “Or, should I say, who did you get into?”

“Yes,” I answered cryptically. “Doesn’t matter who. She’s perfect, this day is perfect, and this meeting is going to go perfectly. It’s a perfect storm of perfection, Nate. Get on board!”

“I don’t know if hyper-active Labrador is really the impression we’re going for,” Nate said, raising a brow as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Better off being cool. Aloof. Real Silicone Valley material, catch my drift?”

“Dude, all those guys geek out just as hard over their stuff. Trust me, I got this.”

Nate shrugged, but let it go.

Still, I could feel his eyes on me as we made our way through reception and up the elevator to the office on the top floor. The higher we went, the more lavish the floor on the other side of the glass doors appeared. By the time we reached the top, the walls were practically gilded.

Nate didn’t seem to notice, but he wouldn’t. He came from old money. This was standard for him—like a department store break room for those of us who have had to work in one. Or shop in one, for that matter.

I managed not to gawk. My confidence was leaps and bounds ahead of my self-consciousness, and I made a mental note to express my gratitude to Shelley later. I now understood why soldiers used to make a point of getting laid before going into battle; something about it just made a guy feel like a god. This morning, I would be unstoppable.

We were ushered into the boardroom, where the investor I had already talked to stood with two other suits.

“Nate! Miles! Good to see you boys again. These are my partners, Natalie Eisenhower and Frederick Jones.”

Hands were shaken all around.

“Thank you again for meeting with us, Mr. Dalio,” Nate said, putting on an air of humility I didn’t know he was capable of.

“Call me George. Would you like anything before we begin? Coffee? Water? If not, the floor is yours.”

I expected to be quaking with nerves, but I found that I was just excited. Nate and I set up our presentation as the investors grabbed their coffees and arranged themselves at the far side of the table. Each had a notepad in front of them and a look of casual interest on their faces. I locked eyes with Nate as we put the final touches on our setup.

“You ready for this?” I asked him.

“I was born ready.”

He literally was, so I couldn’t really blame him for the cheesiness. I turned to our investors.

“Imagine, if you can, that you are a business owner in one of the poorest countries in the world. This business owner—we’ll call him Joe—pulls in maybe fifteen thousand a year for himself; barely a living in the United States, right?

“Now, let’s say that you’re an average mid-grade worker in the U.S.—we’ll call you Paul, and you make twice what the other guy makes in a year. Paul wants to make a little extra passive income in his downtime, and he has a little bit of money to invest. Joe has a brilliant idea to double his profits, but doesn’t have the startup money.”

I was gesticulating as I spoke, and I could feel the excitement building with every word. Nate was sticking to his cool-guy persona, smiling mildly at me as I went on my rant.

“So, the way things are right now, these two have little to no chance of ever meeting or helping each other out. This app changes all that. There are very few micro-investing services on the market right now, and the ones that are there offer very little control to either party. It’s practically a grab-bag scenario out there right now. This app allows business owners to input everything that makes their business unique, from their experience and plan details to ethical and moral concerns.”

“Studies have shown,” Nate interjected, “that the vast majority of people entering the workforce right now are more concerned with the ethics of a business than they ever have been before. People would rather be out of work than work for a company they find morally reprehensible, and those same people would rather spend a little more money on ‘good’ businesses than spend their money on companies who represent ideas they find distasteful.

“These people will be doing the majority of the micro-investing on this app, and they will want to know who they are funding; not just from a business perspective, but from a personal one.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Which is why this app—in addition to giving a platform to business owners and investors—also gives a platform to their friends, associates, and employees. It’s like a social media network for the business world.”

“There’s already one of those on the market,” George interrupted. “And frankly, it isn’t doing so well. It built up slowly, and is now where resumes and professional profiles go to die. What makes yours different?”

“Ah! That’s exactly what makes ours different. The investment pitch and social profile are two separate components of the same account. An investor can put in the criteria for a project that he or she is interested in, search, and pull up a bunch of opportunities. Once they find one that interests them, they can then click on the poster’s profile, where they will find not only their social media interactions, but a reputation score. This app allows anybody with a real life connection to the poster to rate them on a user-friendly scale. Better reputations get higher rankings on searches, emphasizing the ethical focus of the project.”

“Who will use it?” Ms. Eisenhower asked.

“Literally anybody. The app itself will be free with upgrades available for a small fee, and a small percentage will be taken off of any completed business deal. Money is moved right through the app with the click of a button. This thing makes investing so easy that anyone who has ever used social media could use it effectively. This app makes it possible for anybody with five extra dollars to make someone else’s dream come true, and make a profit at the same time.”

Their interest was piqued. I launched into an overview of the technical specifics, and the outcome of the thousands of simulations I had run. Nate took over afterwards, discussing the marketing side of things. The more we talked, the more interested the investors looked; the more interested they looked, the more excited I got.

By the time we’d wrapped up our presentation, I was practically bouncing with pent-up energy. I could see that this was going well, and I was dying to know how much they were going to invest and how soon we could get the ball rolling. I was mere breaths away from my dream becoming reality. I could taste it.

“Well I must say, that was a very interesting presentation,” George said, nodding his head. “Very interesting indeed. Would you two mind stepping out for a moment so my colleagues and I can deliberate in private?”

We respectfully made ourselves scarce. I paced the hall while Nate leaned up against the wall. To the untrained eye, he looked utterly relaxed, even bored. But I saw the tension at the corners of his hooded eyes and the little fold at the corner of his mouth which told me he was just as anxious as I was.

“How do you think we did?” I asked him.

“I don’t know, man. I told you to tone it down. You were like a puppy ready to piddle in there. When you hit some of those techy points, you were talking so fast I was afraid they would think we were trying to hide something.”

“I could always go over those points again. Maybe I should do that now.”

“You open that door before they call us in and I swear to God I will end you.”

“Okay, okay.” I pushed a hand through my hair and sighed. “I wasn’t that bad, was I? If they weren’t interested at all, they wouldn’t be discussing it for this long, would they?

“Maybe they’re just toying with us.”

“That’s ridiculous; they wouldn’t…would they?”

“Mr. Lane, Mr. Dunn, the investors will see you now.” The receptionist’s voice came over a speaker, startling me.

I straightened my suit and took a deep, steadying breath.

“Moment of truth,” I said.

“Let’s see if your app is worth anything,” he answered.

We pushed back into the boardroom, practically vibrating with anticipation. The investors were all smiles, and I thought I might actually vomit. The nerves had finally hit. I was just glad they had waited until after the presentation.

“Have a seat, boys,” George said in a grandfatherly sort of way. “Let’s talk funding.”

* * *

I was still hyperventilating when we reached the elevator.

“Five million,” I gasped. “Five m-million dollars!”

“Yes,” Nate said with barely-concealed annoyance. “Five million dollars. That’s not that much, Miles. This app is worth at least twice that. Startup costs could eat through that overnight.”

“Nope,” I said adamantly, shaking my head. “This baby’s working and ready to go. Branding won’t cost near that much. We’re in the money, Nate!”

“I’ve always been in the money,” Nate said with a sly quirk of his lips.

“Well, now I’m in the money,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him. “God, why aren’t you more excited? This is the first day of the rest of your life, Nate! You made something happen! We’re about to change the world!”

“It’s just business to me, man. Sure, I believe in your vision and I’m thrilled with your app and how you managed to make it work, but I’ve known this day would come since I was three. Maybe not with you, or with these investors, or whatever. But I always knew I’d make a million before twenty-five. I wouldn’t be a Dunn otherwise. It’s in our blood.”

I didn’t let his chill demeanor cool my excitement. I knew someone who would be just as blown away by my sudden success as I was. The second Nate and I parted ways in the parking lot, I called her.

“Shelley!”

“Miles! How did it go? I’ve been biting my nails for you all morning!”

“Well, bite no more, babe! I won their hearts and wallets in one fell swoop.”

She squealed, and though I had to pull the phone away from my ear, I was grinning like a fool.

“Oh my God, that’s wonderful!” she said, then added after a pause, “Even if it means you won’t be working at Finnegan’s anymore.”

“True, but I will be raking in loads of cash and doing something I actually enjoy doing. Not that I don’t enjoy watching you flirt with old men all night, but it’s not much of a career path.”

She laughed, adding a golden sparkle to my already sunny day.

“I’m so happy for you, Miles. I can’t believe you did it! You actually made it!”

“I can’t believe it either! I want to celebrate. Celebrate with me? Tonight. I’ll take you somewhere ridiculously expensive, a sort of preview of the life I’m about to have. What do you say?”

“Yes! Yes, yes, every time, yes.”

Her enthusiasm boosted my already-inflated ego, and I felt as if I were floating a hundred miles off the ground, soaking up sunshine. We set the time and threw around some ideas for places, punctuating the conversations with bouts of giddy laughter.

It was really happening. The girl, the gold, the glory; I had completed the hero’s quest, and it was time to soak up the rewards.