Page 85 of Broken Brothers

In short, what I had just done ensured there was no winning—and definitely very little sleeping on this particular night.

When the alarm went off at 4 a.m., the first thing I thought was how badly I wanted the warmth of my bed to stay where it was. Outside the sheets, nothing but cold, miserable air awaited. I had to drag myself out, but the whole ride to JFK Airport felt like a struggle just to stay awake. No one would do anything to me given it was New York City, but damnit, I didn’t want to have to even think about it.

At least the plane ride afforded me over four hours of sleep, and unlike many people, I actually could fall asleep on the plane without any trouble. It was a good thing, too, because given the intensity of what was to come with Virtual Realty, I would need as much sleep and as little dependency on caffeine and energy drinks as possible… even though that was coming as well.

Sure enough, seated in the far back of the plane—and for once, I felt reasonably confident no one was trailing me, because who the hell would want to wake up so goddamn early?—I passed out before the wheels had even lifted up. I dreamed of being back with Claire and, interestingly enough, having a threesome with her and Layla. The fuck that meant, I had no idea, but dreams on a plane were sporadic enough and choppy enough I didn’t have to psychoanalyze the whole thing.

That, and as soon as I landed, I had blistering number of messages from Morgan, all revolving around the same thing—Andrew and Virtual Realty intended to make a decision by Monday at noon when they had a conference call with their earlyinvestors. Which meant that whatever last second pitches I had to make, I had better make them strong over the course of the day.

There was no time for reflection. It was make or break time for MCH—either we’d get our early star, our early championship, and use that to catapult to greatness, or we would lose, news would leak to Edwin Hunt, and we’d both be fucked.

Suddenly, the precariousness of the position seemed much, much more tenuous. This wasn’t just a nice catch to have—it was an essential catch for the survival of MCH and our respective positions in our careers.

I practically hurdled out of the plane, in as quick a rush as I could to head over to Virtual Realty. En route in an Uber, Morgan advised me he had booked a hotel one block down from the headquarters, but I knew I wasn’t likely to spend more than an hour or two there, especially if negotiations went into the night. He also advised that Andrew had agreed to meet with me at noon by the office and promised me privacy.

Morgan’s note did not carry the greatest sense of confidence in it. I could sense his nerves starting to fray, and this wasn’t just about the deal but preventing Morgan from having the breakdown of all breakdowns. I had to do this not just for me, but for my brother.

We had to do this. We had to beat Edwin Hunt, consequences and fallout be damned.

As soon as I got there, I tried to steady both my breathing and the knock that I gave. I’m not sure how obvious it was that I was flustered and a little bit desperate, but given that Andrew answered the door in gym shorts and a t-shirt, he probably didn’t care the slightest bit that I was sweaty and and a little bit fast of mouth.

“Chance, welcome back,” he said.

He, too, looked a little tired, although not nearly to the same extent everyone in New York did. No matter what transpired in the next 24 hours, he would have a lot more money in his bank account than he did today. But we would have very different outcomes depending on what went down for us.

Must be nice. Maybe I’ll start one of these companies and make Edwin come begging to invest in us if we can’t win this bid.

“Thanks, bud,” I said, trying to keep conversation casual between two hotshots in their 20s. “How are things going for you?”

“Well, you know, usual, sales are never quite what we want them to be, but they’re coming along bit by bit.”

Exactly what I figured. He’s not quite there, but that’s where we can help. I can use that as a tool to negotiate.

“Oh, sorry to hear that. How far off are you?”

“About 20 percent, but still profitable.”

Maybe it was because he was a man and Claire was a woman, or maybe it was because Andrew seemed so willing to volunteer the information, but I felt absolutely no guilt about prying negotiating information out of him in comparison to Claire. Granted, I also wasn’t trying to sleep with Andrew, but even ignoring the romance, one volunteered the information, the other knew how to selectively distribute it.

Nevertheless, even with this nugget of information, I began to suspect that I was past the stage of pushing things in our favor. There was only so far out on a branch Andrew was willing to go for the sake of his friendship with Morgan before he’d wind up with Edwin or some other unexpected investor.

“Well, good news is, we’re here to help fix that,” I said. “Obviously, you know why I’m here, so let me just get to it, shall we?”

“Of course,” he said. “I ordered us some pizza. I have a feeling we might be here a while.”

“Anything to get the deal done, right?”

“Exactly,” Andrew said laughing.

I wasn’t willing to ever rest on my laurels, partly because I could tell Andrew as a people pleaser and partly because the last meeting had gone so well, only for us to hear that Edwin Hunt might have jumped in the lead.

But this was a promising start. Andrew not only wanted to help me feel comfortable, he was willing to acknowledge us getting a deal done. Signs pointed to us at least getting to a point where I had all the information on the table and could make the executive decision to go down or walk away as opposed to just flailing in the dark.

Over the next few hours, we went into the most mundane of details, from how we would send the money over to what to do if we had to put a stop on any of the checks for any reason. For the most part, all seemed normal and all seemed promising.

But about three hours into the conversation, well after the pizza had arrived, been eaten, and left out to sit after a couple of hours, the most ominous fact came to light.

“I really want to go with you guys,” Andrew said, and the sinking feeling that immediately came up reminded me of any girl who had ever rejected me.“You’re a really nice guy…”