Page 115 of Five Mountain Daddies

I take a deep breath. “I wanted you to be here, Roy, to hear what we talk about. So there’s no suggestion of…” I trail off, not sure how to putit.

“Impropriety,” Amelia offers forme.

“What shesaid.”

Roy grins. “What’s thisnow?”

“Some things are gonna come out about Amelia and me,” I tell him. “Sooner or later. But I don’t want that to affect what weaccomplish.”

“Okay,” Roy says slowly, clearly not fully understanding. “What are weaccomplishing?”

“We’re hashing out a contract, right here and now.” Amelia pulls a stack of papers from her bag. “You boysready?”

Roy sighs. “At least let me order drinks. Samuel, whiskey? What about you,Amelia?”

“None for me,” shesays.

“Whiskey for me,” I say. She gives me a little look and I wink ather.

Roy comes back with drinks a minute later, and then we divein.

Guys come and go throughout the night. Some say hello, but most just ignore us, probably guessing rightly that we’re fucking working. I go through a couple whiskeys, and Roy drinks his beers, and he doesn’t comment on the fact that Amelia’s not drinking. I doubt he really knows why, but I’m not going to test thattheory.

A few hours pass. We slowly move through the original contract, making changes, haggling over little details. The sun sets outside, more guys come into the place, and soon it’s getting late. We break to get some food, but we end up arguing instead of eating, and our burgers go cold on thetable.

By the time midnight rolls around, I’m fucking exhausted, and all my optimism isgone.

“Let’s take a break,” I suggest. “I’m fuckingfried.”

Roy nods, clearly ready to be finished with this. “We’re not gettinganywhere.”

“That’s not true,” Amelia says. “We’re making progress. We’re just… not making the numbers addup.”

“You and your fucking numbers,” I say, sighing. “Why can’t those numbers be yourproblem?”

She gives me a look. “I guess they are. But they’re alsoyours.”

I groan, get up, and get a whiskey. By the time I come back, she’s already deep into the contract again, and I can barely follow what she’s saying at thispoint.

Amelia’s damn smart, definitely smarter than me. Sure, I can work hard, fight, mine, do all that shit. When it comes to numbers, Amelia’s got me beat hands-down. Still, I know what the guys want, really what they need, and she’s not able to give me everything. She’s barely able to meet me in themiddle.

“There has to be a way,” I say, after another hour ofhaggling.

“We’re so close,” she says. It’s after one in the morning. I want to fall the fuck asleep. Roy’s leaning back in his seat, head against the wall, eyes closed. I’m pretty sure he’s been asleep for a half hour like that, which should be surprising, but I feel like joininghim.

Even Amelia’s starting to look worn. She’s been dedicated to figuring this thing out, barely taking any breaks at all. But she’s also negotiating from her position as the CEO of her company, and she’s not just giving us everything we want. We’re genuinely trying to find a middle ground, and while we’re close, it feels like we’re still so faraway.

Amelia leans back and sighs, rubbing her eyes. The bar’s slowly clearing out as guys head home. Most of them are pretty drunk, which isn’t a surprise. They have nothing else to do but drink and waste time while this strike drags on and they don’t getpaid.

“We’re just short,” she says finally. “We need to be able to meet our revenue projections, but we can’t do it with thesenumbers.”

“And we can’t go back to work for less,” I say, sighing. “Seriously Amelia. This is theminimum.”

Roy snores a little bit and I just ignore that uselessasshole.

She rubs the bridge of her nose. “There has to be something we’re missing. Some place we can compromise on to make thiswork.”

“I’ve been compromising,” I say, suddenly getting annoyed. I know I’m letting my exhaustion get the better of me. We’ve kept this really civil and honest this whole time, and I don’t want to ruin itnow.

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