Ivan told him, “You still haven’t let me help you out on your taxes yet. I could probably save you another thirty thousand dollars or more.”

Goddamn, this motherfucker’s a shark! Thomas sat there and thought. He started laughing again. He said, “Ivan, you’re still in here hustling. So, what you get, a new client commission over at Hutch and Mitchell, and now you’re trying to bring everybody over there for taxes? I saw that ‘Financial Corner’ page on your website.”

Ivan grinned. He answered, “Client commission is their whole model. I just wasn’t using it. But now I use it with my own company. And you get all motivated people that way.”

Thomas shook his head, grinning again. He had to stand up from his chair. He stuck his dark brown hand out across the desk and said, “Ivan, I’m on your team now. So, if you need me to sign up with Hutch and Mitchell, like I got you to sign up for the Urban League, then let’s just do the paperwork tomorrow.”

Ivan stood up and shook his hand on it. He said, “That’s a good money deal.”

When they both sat back down, Thomas said, “Now let me ask you a question, Ivan. What made you decide to just turn it on all of a sudden? I mean, I’ve been knowing you ever since I did that real estate lecture on campus, but you never seemed to be interested in anything. Now all of a sudden you just…taking off,” he commented with a forward clap of his hands.

Ivan sat there and thought about it. He looked up and said, “I don’t really talk about it much, but…when my mom passed away before last summer…she told me, man, ‘Live your life now’…and you know, I had always felt guilty about not being back home with her while she struggled with cancer. But once she passed…it was like, ‘What are you waiting for?’ You know?”

Thomas sat there and heard him out. He had nothing to say for a change.

Ivan shook it off and said, “So I just started seeing things that I wanted to do and that I wanted to be a part of. And I kept telling myself, ‘You don’t have no excuses now.’ Not to say that my mother’s cancer was an excuse, but…in a way, it was. It stopped me from really putting myself out there. It was like I was always holding something back. But now…it’s like I can hear my mother in my ear. ‘Do it, Ivan. Live how you wanna live.’ So I just do it now, man. You know? Like you said, I feel like I got nothing to hold me back anymore.”