Triplets Make Five

But everything was so boring. You could only make condominiums look so different so many ways before they all looked the same. All the facades of the buildings were the same and all the levels were carved out in the same manner. They all had the same number of floors with the same number of condos on each floor. It was like I was stuck in a desperate rerun of a movie I couldn’t get out of.

“Mr. Dobson, do you have any input?”

All the board members turned towards me and I cleared my throat. I took a quick look at the chart in front of me before I peeked at the file in my lap, but the only thing I had going for me was my honesty.

So, I ran with it.

“Dan-”

“Dave,” he said.

“Dave. Project manager. You. Why do you keep bringing me these types of projects?” I asked.

“Because that’s what the company does,” he said.

“We do all sorts of things. We sell homes, we build rental properties, we own a couple of luxury hotel bungalow things overseas. We have our hands in many different areas. Why do you keep bringing me the same rundown buildings that we outfit and sell? Why can’t you bring me something interesting?”

“Because we’re all here to make money, Foster,” someone said.

“We’ve invested our money into these things, too,” another said.

“Well, you don’t have to. No one’s chaining you to this table,” I said.

“You have a responsibility to use as your board members to recoup the money we put into your projects,” yet another said.

“And when have I ever not delivered?”

They all fell silent and I sat back into my chair. These greedy assholes cared about nothing else but the money that fell into their laps. Money they didn’t have to work for because I returned their investment two-- somethings three-fold. I closed my eyes and saw those ruby red lips pop up into my vision again. It was either deal with this meeting and get her off my mind or keep her there and walk out with a raging dick tenting my pants after this hellacious meeting.

Holy hell, I should’ve taken it slower with her.

“The apartment building can be remodeled into midlevel condos. We can sell them for mid-level pricing and the building will be easy for people to maintain. We’ll mitigate costs by selling the condos instead of renting them because you won’t have to hire someone to oversee the building for you, and when someone wants to sell they’ll have to come back to us. We’ll just keep reselling these places over and over and over again,” Dave said.

“Daniel-”

“Dave.”

“Whatever. Isn’t there a-- I don’t know-- rundown theater or opera house somewhere. Maybe a shoddy nightclub that could use a new owner or a cabaret venue we could take on? God, I’d love to do one of those,” I said.

“You want to branch out into the nightlife business?” someone asked.

“It’s still retail. We’d own the property, we’d revamp it. We’d bring in people to work and cut them a decent salary then make bank off everything else. Music, girl, booze, live entertainment on the weekends. Sounds like a fun plan to me,” I said.

“Well, let’s get back to the issue at hand-”

“There’s no issue at hand, Darwin.”

“Really? It’s Dave.”

“Yeah, that. We do these all the time. It’s like playing the same old sappy story all over again. It’s getting old. Come on, this entire table knows about getting old. It’s no fun, right?”

I could feel their glares on me, but at least I was getting a laugh out of this meeting.

“Okay, okay, okay. Hypothetically speaking-”

“There is no hypothetical,” Dave said. “We’re due to put in a bid this afternoon.”

“Well, when were you going to tell me that, Dirks?”