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had two options. One, call a meeting immediately and stop the deal or two, pretend for a while that we were still going to move forward. If we did the latter, Jason could perhaps flush out Nick’s true motives. Either way, I felt a million times better now that I had Jason on my side. It meant a lot to me that he was willing to take my word for it.
    “So, here’s what I was thinking,” Jason said. “We should hold off on making any official decisions for now. Let the board continue to think that you’re in Hawaii. I’ll call Nick, and you can listen in on speaker. I can pretend that I’m still mad at you, and hopefully, I can get him to tell me what he really wants. We can make a decision based on what he says.”
    “I think that’s smart. I am worried about both Bob and Kayla. We know she’s always been pushy, but they were both really adamant about buying this company. It doesn’t sit well with me. I think it would be best if we kept all of this information between us for now.”
    “Agreed. So what are we going to do about you?” He laughed.
    “What about me?” I asked.
    “Well, we’re going to have to hide you, since you’re supposed to be on vacation. What do you want to do for the rest of the week?”
    “I don’t really know. To be honest, our whole bet slipped my mind when you started talking about Nick Carver, but this has been quite an experience for me. I’m not sure that I’m ready to give up being homeless yet.”
    “You can’t be serious. You got punched by a thief in the middle of the night, for crying out loud!”

    “Yeah, I know, man,” I said, “but there have been some really great parts, too. I was kind of looking forward to learning to tend bar. You know? It’s an experience that I’ve never had, and I’ll probably suck at it, but I’d like to try. For once in my life, Jason, I feel like I’m really making it on my own steam. Our parents are awesome people, but you know that they handed everything to us. For once, I want to feel like I earned it from the ground up.”
    “Jackson, you work very hard. I spent one damn day doing your job, and I was exhausted.
    You shouldn’t feel like you haven’t earned your life.”
    “I know. I don’t mean it like that. I just mean that when I look at self-made people, like Alissa, I think they have so much to be proud of. Maintaining a business is hard work, but what’s another million dollars on a business that was already making millions? Honestly, it’s more of a challenge trying to get a social security card in this town.”
    “So that’s what this is really about?” Jason said with a wide smile.
    “What’s that?”
    “A girl! You want to stay homeless because you want to be with this girl.” His signature boisterous laugh filled the room. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

    Jason
    When I left Jackson and headed back to the office, I felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off of my shoulders. I could be such an idiot sometimes. I was still kicking myself for ever having doubted my own brother. He might have a stick up his ass, but I knew better than to think he would ever screw me over, especially over a company that might be worth fifteen million dollars a year at most. Jackson already had a ton of money, we both did, and I should have known that money no longer motivated him. We both worked for a variety of reasons: we wanted our parents to be proud of us, we wanted to be proud of ourselves, and we enjoyed our jobs. The money didn’t really matter anymore, but Nick didn’t understand that, and I had forgotten it for a brief time.
    As weird as it was, I understood why he wanted to do this homeless thing. Of course, it wasn’t at all like being a real homeless person. Homeless people didn’t have social graces embedded in them from an early age; they couldn’t charm their way into jobs. They didn’t have college educations. Most homeless people were also battling mental illness, illiteracy, a history of