“I wasn’t trying to do that,” Brook said. “I was just sharing what I know to help.”
“Ignore my mom. She’s just giving you a hard time while pointing out why that technique works. It makes me wonder what I’m missing out on if I do this,” I explained to my girlfriend. “What do you think, Dad?”
“You’ll still have a 9% ownership interest in the parent company. If the projections are even half of what she is proposing, 9% ten years in the future is worth more than 60% ownership of what we were projecting. In fact, it’s worth more than what we’d have by that time in our wildest dreams. I also consider what she did by giving you back the other businesses as more than generous,” Dad said.
“The only fly in the ointment, so to speak, is that she plans to move the company to Cincinnati, where she lives. I was surprised when she said that Ava would be moving there and would help run the company,” Scarlet added.
I wondered what that meant for Brook’s parents. Brook wouldn’t look at me, so my first thought was that whatever it meant wasn’t necessarily that great for her on a personal level. It also made me wonder about Scarlet, Caryn, and Megan. Would they make the move?
In particular, I wondered what it would mean for Scarlet. One of my goals was to spend more time with my kids, and if she moved, she would take Carol. I also worried that Ashley might decide to move with her. They were much closer to each other than they were to me. Frankly, with the news of the income from their trust funds being released to them, they didn’t need me.
My uncle had been silent throughout this conversation, which surprised me. I turned to look at him and saw him sitting there with a sideways smile on his face as he observed me. I hated it when he did that. When I was exiled to the farm, and he helped turn my life around, I would catch him doing just that. He would give me that look when he thought I was on the verge of making a breakthrough.
“Change is good, right?” he asked.
I wanted to roll my eyes at him. I’d heard those words before. It was when I was exasperated by his continued attempts to hammer home the point that I wanted to change my life but didn’t want to admit it. What teen wants to do that with an authority figure pointing it out to them? I’d learned he knew me well enough to push my buttons and finally get me to move forward.
I took another moment to think before I committed. Our family had been running farms since my grandfather’s younger days. I knew that Uncle John and my grandmother didn’t need me to be involved in any of that. My mom took care of the real estate, and I could count on Mary Dole and Granny to run the two restaurants.
I would have to find people to run the charities, but that wasn’t all that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Angie had been the only one who had needed an income, and I’d promised my brother I would find something else for her to do.
This would solve my biggest issue. I didn’t want to run a business … yet.
“Okay. Let’s consider this,” I said.
From the looks from everyone, it seemed I’d made the right decision.
“Can David come out to play?” Brook asked.
God, I loved her. The look on my mom’s face was worth it. I would leave it to everyone else to figure out the details with Brook’s grandmother.
◊◊◊
We found Cassidy at the front door.
“Someone sent their security to Chicago this morning,” she chastised me.
“Let’s go to lunch,” I suggested.
“Monical’s?” Cassidy asked.
“If you want to,” Brook said to tease me.
Of course I wanted to.
Once we arrived and sat in a booth, I felt I was home. We ordered a Family Pleaser, which came with a family-size salad, a large pizza, and a pitcher of soda. Brook wanted pepperoni and Diet Coke. I was just happy we were here, so I didn’t argue.
“What are you going to do with all your money?” Brook asked.
“What money?”
“Did you even read the offer?”
I hated to admit that I hadn’t. This was probably why I wasn’t cut out to run a company right now. I felt a little stupid when Brook pulled it out of the giant bag she called a purse. She flipped through to the last page and pointed.
“Why didn’t she lead with this?” I asked.
They were offering me ten equal payments each year, starting as soon as I signed, and then a balloon payment in the last. The note said that with it structured this way, they could use the money to help build the business.
Brook’s grandmother guaranteed the loan in case the company wasn’t able to fulfill it. The payments were, uh, substantial. I suddenly felt like one of those tech guys who had sold a start-up and retired before the age of thirty.
Cassidy had been reading it along with me.
“If I show this to my dad, he’ll let you date me,” she suggested.
“Hands off,” Brook said as she shot her friend an affable scowl.
“If your mom moves to Cincinnati, what’s your dad going to do?” I asked my girlfriend.
“He’s staying here until I graduate high school and then they’ll see. I just found out about it this morning,” Brook said to explain why she hadn’t told me about it.
