Disclaimer: I do not own Silicon Valley.

Chapter 4 – Loco Logo

"You promised this guy 10,000 dollars without any approval? Are you high?", Jared said in his proprietary low voice as he followed Erlich in the house.

"A little bit, yeah. But that's irrelevant. A cool company needs a cool logo. You think those guys over at nucleus are hiring a convicted felon to paint a logo on their garage?"

"For 10,000 dollars, no!

Look I took a look at the burndown chart.", Jared said and then ran somewhere into the house to get it, bringing me along with him to talk some sense into Erlich.

"Jesus Fucking Christ!", Erlich exclaimed in exasperation at seeing Jared actually bought a whiteboard and me to support his side of the argument.

"It's not pretty." He said pointing to the whiteboard with the burn out graph. I was standing beside him looking at it. "The way things are going, we are not going to finish in 5 months. And even with everyone on reduced salaries, we will exhaust all our funding in 4. And that is without wasting 10,000 dollars on artwork.", Jared pleaded to Erlich.

"Wasting! I got us a great deal. You know he wanted stock options and I brought him down to 10k by pointing at Dinesh.", from there Erlich tried to point out how he was trying to not be a racist and how everyone was saying he was one for trying not to be one. I just tuned it out and re-read the chart again. Jared was right. We were going to burn through cash pretty soon.

Then I looked at Erlich and back at the chart. Back at Erlich and back at the chart. Then I grinned a shark-like grin and quickly stopped it before anyone could see it.

"Richard please talk some sense into him.", Jared pleaded with me.

"You know I agree with Erlich, I think it's a brilliant idea.", Everyone in the room was shocked. Then Erlich exclaimed, "Yes! You will not regret it.!"

"Of course I won't. Cause you are going to pay for it!", I replied grinning.

"I am sorry, but what was that? Why would I pay for the logo? You are the CEO, you need to pay for the logo.", He immediately replied defensively.

"I am also on the board. And as I recall, you want to be on the board too. You doing this out of your pocket will go a long way to convince me whether or not you are eligible for a board seat.", I said and a grin appeared on everyone's face except for Erlich.

"Hot dam, Richard really is CEO material.", Dinesh commented.

"He is got you now. What are you going to do? Man up or chicken out?", Gilfoyle goaded Erlich.

"I think I can agree with this.", Jared said smiling.

Now all of us were looking at Erlich and he broke like a twig under peer pressure within 30 seconds, "Fine, Fuck! But after seeing how amazing the logo is, you better give me that stupid board seat.", he screamed as he left the room.

"We will see." , I replied loudly enough to reach his ears.

XxxxxX

"Richard can you explain this to me?"

"What?"

"I just got this mail from my friend at Ted-Crunch. Pied piper just got into this year's Start-Up Battlefield?"

"Oh really? That's so cool!"

"No, No it isn't. Richard we are already seeded. Why would we enter a start-up competition at a tech conference?"

"Relax, I applied a few months ago. I will withdraw." I said shrugging.

"Relax! This house is chaos.", Jared exclaimed loudly offended at my non-nonchalance. Well loudly for Jared which was equivalent of a mouse squeak.

XxxxxX

In the next management meeting with Jared, he displayed his displeasure at the chaotic work environment. He talked about how Dinesh and Gilfoyle were always arguing and how separating them would help the work environment. The moment he started talking about cubicles Mount Dinesh and Mount Gilfoyle erupted. This lead to the meltdown of Jared. When Chuy arrived to paint the logo, this only aggravated the situation of his meltdown despite the company not paying for it.

Then Monica summoned us sounding extremely pissed. I guess Gavin and Peter had that restaurant meeting about Ted-Crunch.

Time to pay the piper.

XxxxxX

"…..let me tell you what's going to happen." We had been playing out the conversation just as it had happened up till this point. "Peter will pull all of his support and pass on any further funding, which as you know is a giant flaming red signal for other investors. You will burn through the rest of your runway. No one will step in and then you will go bust.", Monica laid out the facts of life in front of us.

"I don't get it. Doesn't Peter Gregory want what is best for the company?", I asked leaning forward to Monica.

"Look I am going to be straight with you. Peter Gregory doesn't care about you. You are small fry and they would spend millions down the drain just to insult or one-up each other. These are giants Richard. When Giants battle grass always gets trampled, but the giants don't care.", she said sitting close to me taking my palm in her hands and looking me in the eyes. As soon as she finished speaking, she realized where her hand was and tried to take it back. But I caught it in my grip gently before she could remove it.

"Then we will just have to become giants, won't we.", I smiled as I lifted the back of her palm to my lips and kissed her. Erlich who was sitting next to me was just oozing shock and jealousy.

"Tell peter we will be ready for Ted-Crunch.", I said and immediately got up and walked away.

As I walked out I head Monica commenting to Erlich, "He likes making dramatic exits doesn't he."

"He didn't before. Ever since meeting you he had developed a lot of bad habits, including having a backbone.", I could head Erlich grumble as he came out of the room.

XxxxxX

"What the good fuck?!", Erlich exclaimed as he saw the logo. Well if you call Dinesh fucking The Statue of Liberty a logo. I just smirked. Time to make a few calls.

"Is that the statue of liberty? And is that…That is penetration.", He said in horrified numbness. I just pressed my lips together so that I don't laugh out loud. Somehow I got my emotions under control by the time he looked at me. I said no words but just shook my head in disappointment and moved inside the house.

I am guessing that after talking with Chuy which would only make the situation worse, Erlich came back inside.

"Look Richard I am sorry I didn't know he would paint 'that' man. I promise you, he got that we don't want that. He is working on something better.", he said to me as everyone was gathered around me.

I was leaning on the back of the sofa with my arms folded and disappointed expression on my face.

"I don't want to hear it, Erlich.", I said shaking my head at him. Which made him drop his head in disappointment.

"Jared cut Erlich a cheque of 10k for that barn door right now.", I told Jared. To say he was shocked was an understatement.

"Richard…." Jared tried to convince me otherwise.

"Just do it, Jared. Now. And make sure I legally own that stupid fucking barn door and the art on it. I want this done within an hour. Get on the phone with LaFlamme and make it happen.", I ordered with as much seriousness as I could.

"What would you want with a literal 'Dinesh fucking' piece of art?", Gilfoyle asked.

"Do you actually like it?", Erlich almost asked simultaneously.

In reply, I snorted and said, "Fuck no. But I might just be able to find a use for it. You should move your pot if you don't want a passing squad car to notice it and arrest you when the barn is gone by tomorrow morning. I am going to go take a walk and make some calls. And oh, We are participating in tech-crunch so we need to be ready in 8 weeks." I said shocking Gilfoyle, Dinesh and Jared.

"So both of you will do as Jared says, or when I come back, I will shove those keyboards so far up your asses that you will be spitting keys for a month.", I said I left the house in pretend anger slamming the door.

XxxxxX

By the time I had come back, Jared had already implemented Scrum and it seemed to be working. Even more surprising was that I detected no hostility from Dinesh or Gilfoyle. I was very surprised by the last one. I had thought for sure, he would have quit by now. But it seems I just gained Gilfoyle's respect.

XxxxxX

The next morning when the carrying truck came, all of us went outside to see Chuy's reworked piece of art. In the place of Dinesh's face was Gavin Belson's face and Statue of Liberty that was being fucked look startlingly similar to me.

"Richard I am so sorry. I do not know why would Chuy paint that! Let me talk to him!", Erlich said horrified as he felt his chances for becoming a Pied Piper board member wither away.

"Just shut the fuck up Erlich!

I gave you one job. One job! And this is what you do! Who are you working for anyway? Me or Gavin-Fucking-Belson! I want this destroyed! You hear me! Destroyed! I will not be fucked over by Gavin Fucking Belson!", in a screamed in anger that instantly stopped the sniggering of Dinesh and Gilfoyle. What no one knew was that the kid across the street was recording everything.

Soon the garage door was removed from its hinges and carted away.

Once done I went fuming back inside.

XxxxxX

"Hello. Is Richard here?", I heard Monica's voice from the living room as I was sitting in my own room working.

"Hey", I went to greet her.

"Hey", she said back awkwardly.

"Come to check up on your investment?" , I teased her.

"Look, I wanted to apologize. I am sorry that I played you, trying to make you say yes to Peter's deal. I know I could say, I was just doing my job, but that's the excuse the Nazi's used and I am not sure how good is that.", she said smiling

"Not good. Not good at all. Look, it's fine. We are fine." I said taking her hand in mine.

"So are you two an item now or what?", Dinesh asked abruptly from his work station. That made Monica snatch her hand away.

"No." "Not Yet.", we both said at the same time. And then we looked at each other. Her with a surprised look and me with a grinning look, "Can't blame a guy for being optimistic."

She smiled at that but immediately tried to hide it. "Richard's got game now. Never thought I would see the day!", Erlich commented as he too came into the room.

"Look I wanted to show you a video that is going viral!", she said and it was a video shot by the kid about my screaming match two days ago with Erlich.

"Who shot that?", Erlich asked.

"Looks like it was the kid from across the street.", Gilfoyle said as he caught the kids face in a couple of frames of filming.

"This video has 5 million hits on youtube and now climbing!" Monica said shocking the occupants of the house. Gilfoyle and Dinesh immediately took out their phone to search for it. "Do you know what happened to that garage door art?" She asked gaining the re-orienting the attention of house occupants back towards here. "Richard sent it to the junkyard to be destroyed.",Erlich provided. Though he was looking very nervous thinking something else might have gone wrong.

"Then someone must have stolen the Garage door and put it up on E-Bay. In bidding war of epic proportions, Gavin Belson bought it for 4 million dollars and has posted a picture with it strung in hooli campus.", that left all the occupants of the home shocked but one.

"So you are telling me there is a Garage door-sized portrait of Gavin literally fucking Richard in Hooli campus?! Oh, this priceless!", I think this was the first time I have seen Gilfoyle laugh. It was very scary.

"When I find that Motherfucking kid, I am going to strangle him.", Erlich engaged!

I just snorted and said, "Why would you do that? I was the one that paid the kid 100 dollars to shoot the video. He even shot it with my phone!", that took the wind right out everyone's sails. Also, Gilfoyle stopped laughing so fast I swear I heard his lips snap.

"Not just that, I was the one that uploaded the video with a fake youtube account and I was also the one that asked Chuy to repaint the portrait with mine and Gaven's faces." I said taking a sip out the beer I had got from the kitchen. Everyone was just catatonic. No one could understand, why would I do that?

"Why?', Monica asked.

I just smirked as I walked towards her, took a stray strand of hair and tucked it behind her ear, "So that I could get Gavin Fucking Belson to pay me 4 million dollars.", I whispered in her ear but loudly enough so others could hear as well. As I took a few steps back from Monica, I could see the shock on her face and looking around the room I could see similar expressions of shock on everyone's faces.

"Awesome!", Dinesh cheered.

"You are the Son of Satan. I pledge my forever loyalty to you, oh dark lord!", Gilfoyle said in a monotone voice but I could see from his face that he was in awe at my scheme.

"Why would you do that to yourself, Richard?", Jared asked though I could see the pride in his eyes as well.

"Because of her." I said pointing to Monica.

"ME?!", she exclaimed in shock.

"You.", I merely said nodding. "Last time we met at Peter's office, you basically straight out told me that if we do not win tech-crunch, Peter is going to drop us just because of a pissing contest between him and Gavin Belson. Well by doing this I just made sure that even if Peter abandon's ship, we will have enough cash to keep the company afloat and go on till something else work out.", I said shocking everyone with the revelation of my sneakily brilliant plan.

Monica said nothing at first, but then she grabbed my head and gave me the most intense kiss I had ever had! "I am sorry!", she immediately said. "I am not", I said pulling her by the waist into another kiss. If it went for any longer I don't think I will be able to control myself. Even she felt the same apparently as I could feel her reluctantly come up for air.

"How did you know, it would work?", Monica asked after taking a deep breath and visibly trying to control herself and grab me into another lip lock. "I didn't. It was a gamble. I betted on Gavin's ego and hate for me. And it seems I won!", I said the last part with open arms.

"So it was all a plan from the start, even telling me to get the logo done?", Erlich said trying to gather steam for another bout of fury.

"Oh no! The chance I gave you was very real. I genuinely wanted to see how you handle the responsibility and what can you come up with. But then you fucked up. And we had just come from a meeting where Monica had taught me something very important – Of how billionaires are like Giants and they have ego's the of the size to match one. When I saw the Dinesh Fucking Liberty art, the idea just clicked.

And it was a simple cost-benefit analysis. If the gamble paid off the win would be enormous. If it didn't I would just loose 10k and I might recover even that if the video went viral. Which it did and I have earned 33,274.23$ from the video so far.", I said to my repeatedly shocked audience.

I saw Monica's open mouth an opportunity and promptly stuck my tongue down are throat.

"So who wants to go to dinner! My treat!", I said as I came up for air leaving the soft lips swollen of the beauty in front of me.

XxxxxX

"What do you think he will do when he finds out?", Erlich asked now in a relatively pleasant mood with booze in him.

"Break a lot of stuff" "Shoot someone" "Bash his head on the garage door", came multiple varied responses from my friends around me.

"What if he doesn't find out?", Monica asked.

"Oh, he will find out when he checks the account statement. And even if he doesn't the whole world will find out when I expose the trick in a video I will upload after 2 days. Hopefully, that goes viral as well. More cash for me!", I said taking another sip and then another kiss from the beauty on my arms.

XxxxxX

The next day I woke up next to Monica snuggled against me. Life was good.

XxxxxX

AN: So what do you think?

~Till the next time