garage. Which, by the way, are you going to be able to say Dicky and keep a straight face?”
“I’ll just picture a dick wiggling in your face,” Jackson said.
“You’re going to think of some guy’s dick? That’s what you do during meetings?”
“I don’t need games to get through meetings, Callie. I’ve got this locked down.”
“You think so?”
“Their goddamn growth has been double digits for six quarters straight,” Jackson said. “They’re poised for a triple digit pop with the right backing. Which is Amado Investments. The company my father started. The company my uncle took over. The company that’s going to be mine. You know the company, right? Oh, yeah, you work there…”
“That’s good,” I said. “I can’t wait to boss your ass around.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jackson said. “I’m not into ass play. At least not on me.”
“Sorry to break it to you, Jackson, but I’m going to own your ass after this meeting,” I said.
The bartender put drinks down on the bar.
“You know, you offended my friend here,” Jackson said to the bartender.
“I did?” the bartender asked.
“She was asking for a drink and you ignored her,” Jackson said.
“Stop,” I said. “He’s too busy over there with the super skinny girls. He can’t handle a real woman like me.”
“She offered to flash you and you missed out,” Jackson said.
“Look, I’m really sorry,” the bartender said. “That drink is on me.”
“No,” I said. “Put it on his tab. Double the cost even.”
I grinned at Jackson.
The bartender slipped away.
“Hey, you don’t need to pimp out my chest,” I said. “I do just fine.”
“Just fine…,” Jackson said.
The smirk on his face pissed me off.
I was not going to take the bait and talk about my sex life.
Or that fact that my sex life was so dead, I would visit it once a week at the sex life cemetery and bring it flowers and talk to it and remember all the good times when it was alive.
“So,” Jackson said, lifting his drink. “Cheers?”
“Cheers,” I said.
“Ready to talk business?”
“I’m always ready, Jackson.”
“That’s how you close it,” Jackson said.
“That’s weak.”
“What?”
“We’re going to shell out some serious cash to these guys,” I said. “They aren’t stupid. They know the competition is stiff. They know if they don’t get to market fast, they’re fucked. And if they’re fucked, so is your uncle’s money.”
“It’s not my uncle’s money,” Jackson said with his lip curled.
Oh, is someone still mad that their father died?
I cringed.
Shit. That was mean.
“Sorry,” I said. “The company money. Whatever you want to call it. This is a move fast kind of deal. They need the money yesterday to get to market and then it explodes. We get our money back, plus a gigantic return, and everyone is happy. I’d rather take cash than equity.”
“I disagree,” Jackson said.
Of course you do.
“Why?” I asked.
“We take both cash and equity from them. Cash secures us in the investment so we don’t lose any money. But the equity… they’re going to sell.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” Jackson said. “I did a little digging. A little talking. Dicky’s play is to grow and sell. Even if Michael doesn’t want to, Dicky will force some kind of buyout or whatever. Either way, they go to market, the value pops, Dicky cashes out… we cash out too.”
I gritted my teeth.
Jackson took risks.
I didn’t.
He could take risks because his uncle would never fire him.
“I stand by what I said,” I said. “We’ll see what happens in a couple days.”
“You know I’m right,” Jackson said. “Now, how would you close this out?”
“I would tell them my lemonade stand story.”
“What’s that?”
“When I was a little girl, I sold lemonade to pay for the rent,” I said.
“That’s cute.”
I punched Jackson in the arm. “It wasn’t cute. It was serious. And my point is that I know what it’s like. To stand there on the edge of being completely broke, out on the street. It takes balls to push through it.”
“Oh, shit, Callie… do you have a set of balls?”
I slowly smiled. “My balls are bigger than yours, Jackson.”
“Prove it,” he teased.
I touched his arm. “One look at me and you’d come so hard in your pants, you’d cry. Trust me.”
Jackson wiggled his shoulder. “I’m out of here. Stop overthinking this. You’re going to fuck it all up.”
“I won’t fuck anything up,” I said.
Jackson threw a lot of money on the bar. “There’s enough for another drink or two. Maybe you can loosen up enough and get laid tonight.”