Lucina told him, “I don’t know. I’m just trying to work this all out in my head.”

He said, “Well, you gotta understand that I’m trying to create enough party connections for your girls to work more regularly. And we may pay them less, but they’ll have a lot more opportunities to make money. That just makes more sense for all of us, to me. The more they’re seen, the more promoters will want to hire them.”

Lucina argued, “It’s not about the quantity, Ivan, it’s all about the quality.”

“Yeah, but we can do both. We can even host a second Monday Night Football spot downtown if you can work a deal that makes sense there. But if you’re only gonna make two or three thousand dollars a night, and then turn around and pay your girls two hundred an hour…”

“I usually pay them that for the much bigger parties,” Lucina explained.

Ivan said, “But, these are not the home-run hits. These are singles, doubles, and triples that all add up on the scoreboard.”

Ivan was becoming frustrated with her hesitation. His plans were based on understandable math: create the lowest-priced parties to run up your profits.

However, on Lucina’s end, she was already predicting Ivan’s greed. It had happened to her several times before. But what could she do about it? They still had to move forward with a profitable partnership, and his plans were sure to make money. She had to admit that much herself.

Finally, she took a deep breath and agreed to it. “Okay, but I’m letting you know right now that I will give my girls the choice to work your venues at your price or not.”

Ivan nodded. “That’s fair. And like I said, if you want to pay them more out of your share, then you’re free to do that.”

Typical! Lucina thought in a huff. He’s already becoming bigheaded. And now I can see his head more. Which was my idea.

TO LUCINA’S SURPRISE, two of her girls who were familiar with the Filipino and Mexican crowd of the southeast agreed to work with Ivan. And once Audrey and Christina had settled into the San Diego area as roommates, they were in on the deal as well. A thousand dollars a month to host wealthy, bodacious men during Monday Night Football once a week was an easy decision for all of them. Their rents would all be paid with just sixteen hours of work.

Ivan even had the girls do photo shoots wearing the featured teams’ opposing jerseys for the flyer, with Pittsburgh and Dallas as their first game. He then had Eddie K. work a deal to feature a sporting goods store on the sports spotlight page of the website, with a promise from the store’s manager to advertise their next sales specials on the site.