Thomas nodded to him and grunted. “Mmm-hmm.” Then he cracked another smile. He said, “I knew that was coming. Ida’s a nice girl for you, but I think you like money too much right now to get caught up in emotions with her. So you just packed it up and moved on to the next one, hunh?”

Ivan took a breath and said, “You gotta move forward, Thomas. I mean, I still like her and all. I respect her. I thank her for her support. But at the end of the day, I still got a lot of other things I wanna do. And like you said, man, all the extra emotions…it just ends up slowing you down.”

Thomas grinned and said, “But you didn’t drop that Lucina Gallo girl, did you?”

Ivan laughed it off. “Naw,” he answered, “she’s still making me too much money.”

Thomas said, “I bet she is.”

Twelve

Everybody Wants Something

JOHN AND BARRY investigated Ivan’s website and promotions brand from top to bottom at their accounting offices and loved the idea. Ivan continued to impress them as a young business leader in their midst. So they offered him a $150,000 package deal that included $132,000 in salary, plus the extra $18,000 for their one-year sponsorship of his financial corner website page.

“And I’m going to hold you to that offer to post my blogs, Ivan,” Barry Mitchell told him.

Ivan agreed to follow through on the blogs, but he did not agree on the $150,000 package.

He countered, “You add another eight thousand to the salary to round it up to one-forty, and it’s a deal.”

John Hutch quickly agreed to the revised numbers with a silent nod. There was no sense in holding up the deal over seven hundred extra dollars a month. So Ivan accepted their final offer and felt good about it.

At lunch break, he rushed out of the office to meet up with Eddie K. at Subway to discuss their sales goals, only for Chip Garrett to catch up to him outside the building before Ivan could reach his car.

“Hey, Ivan, let me talk to you for a minute, man.”

Ivan looked at Chip and was prepared to brush him off. But he figured it was better to get it over with instead. Chip seemed urgent.

“All right, hop in the car with me,” Ivan told him. He didn’t want his coworker slowing him down.

Chip walked over to the black Altima with him to climb into the passenger seat. He looked around inside the car and commented, “Come on, guy, when are you gonna get a new car? You got things going on now, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll get one soon. That’s just not a priority right now. But what can I do for you?” Ivan asked him.

Chip looked at him and said, “Dude, there’s this one party girl on your website that I would just kill to meet.”