Chapter 2

Cody

A few days ago

“Thanks for coming, everyone. I’m excited to share with you the plans for my new business venture,” I said as everyone entered into the large board room at Westwood Bank.

Westwood had helped finance my first big business deal and I was hoping to have them back me on the new deal. My first company, Hotel Book It, was sold and I was ready to move onto bigger and better things. This new adventure was going to be even bigger than my last one and I couldn’t do it alone.

“Nice to see you looking good,” Richard said as he gave me a quick hug and then found a seat next to me.

“You too. Thanks for coming.”

“I’m here for moral support. That’s all I have to offer you right now.”

“I know. I know,” I said and turned to the group of men and women in business suits. “If you are ready, I’ll get started with the presentation.”

Richard had been my father’s attorney and was currently the estate attorney for the remaining money that was waiting to be left to me in his will. Unfortunately, there was a very specific clause that I hadn’t been able to work around just yet. I was hoping that Richard might be able to help me with that clause after hearing my business plan and seeing that the bank was willing to back most of the financing. It was a long shot, but I’d never been one to play it safe when it came to business or life.

“Cody, we are looking forward to hearing about this new business idea,” Susan, the bank manager said as she motioned for everyone to find their seats and get ready.

“Thank you again for coming,” I began. “As you all know, Hotel Book It is doing fantastically. Although I sold my stake in the company I am assured they will be backing this new project. I also have twenty percent of the capital in liquid assets of my own money that I will put in.”

“Cody, you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Susan said as she smiled at me from the other end of the room. “How about you tell us what this project is?”

“I’m getting there,” I smiled back. “But I’m glad to see you are just as excited about this as I am.”

The room was cool with their response. I already had a bad feeling about how this was going to turn out. The men sat at their seats looking down at the paperwork I had set in front of each spot and the women in the room did the same with only a brief added glance in my direction as they waited for me to wow them with my new plan.

Getting people to give you money wasn’t as easy as it used to be. The economy was different and my normal charismatic jokes didn’t appear to be doing the trick on this crowd. I took in a deep breath and forced myself to smile and continue on. This was a good plan and I just knew I could convince the bank to finance me.

“Since selling my previous company I’ve been hard at work researching and planning the next big adventure. Travel and leisure are still one of the highest grossing industries as you will note from the numbers sheet I have on page two. Specifically, people are searching for good deals and amazing experiences. With the Click It Hotel chain, we will optimize locations for social media by including colorful rooms, snap happy viewing areas, and unique furnishings that people will want to share on their social media pages.”

“You want to start a hotel chain?” One of the men in a grey suit asked from the other end of the table.

“Yes, but not ordinary hotels. I want destination hotels where staying at the hotel makes people want to click, post, and share their experiences. Click It Hotel isn’t just about having a room for the night, it will be about experiences.”

“I don’t like the name at all. Click It, what even is that? No, that name is horrible,” a woman added.

“The name is just preliminary,” I added.

“It’s where the industry is heading,” Susan started to say as she smiled back at me and gave me the first glimpse of reassurance. “You’d get a lot of free advertising. You could probably use local artists to help create unique spaces. I like the idea.”

“Great!”

“Where would the first hotel be?”

“I’m thinking out in the desert between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.”

“Just in the middle of nowhere?”

“Probably closer to Los Angeles, but I’m open to other suggestions. I do think the desert is the perfect location though. People can stay for one night on their way to or from Las Vegas,” I said.

“Richard, would you be releasing the estate money to be invested in this project?” Susan asked directly.

“No. Cody knows what the rules are of his father’s estate money being released. I’m only here to show support for him and his business plan. I cannot offer any additional financial assistance, that would have to come from the bank.”

My heart sank at the definitive nature of his words. Richard wasn’t fazed at all by my business plan. He looked stoically ahead without even the slightest glance in my direction.

“What are those rules?” Susan asked.

“I’m sorry, I cannot disclose those. Cody can if he would like to.”

“No,” I said shaking my head.

“Cody, at this point the amount of money you are asking for is just too much for us. We could finance thirty to thirty-five percent of what you’re asking. But you’d have to find the rest of the funding. Plus, I think whatever the rules of your father’s estate are, you should just abide by those rules and get that money released. If you had that, you wouldn’t need bank financing at all.”

“Susan, you know the smart decision wouldn’t be to invest all of my personal money anyway,” I said as I tried not to get agitated with her. “This is a solid business plan as you will see by the research and development page I’ve included in my proposal. I haven’t even finished with my presentation.”

She shook her head slowly and whispered something to the man sitting next to her. Dealing with banks was the worst. They were only your friends if it looked like they were going to be able to make money off of you. The second you turned into a bad investment, the banker’s friendship turned cold.

For a room full of executives, it was surprising how little they were able to hold back their smirks. Had they all just attended this meeting out of obligation? Was there some sort of plan to not finance me long before I’d even started to explain my business plan? My paranoia was getting the best of me and it was all I could do not to say something rude as the room filled with chatter.

“Why don’t you continue on with your presentation?” Richard suggested. “Susan, it would be helpful if you heard the whole plan, correct?”

The two of them looked back and forth between one another as if was a secret between them. This was a money game. I knew it, Richard knew it, and Susan knew it. The bank didn’t lend people money out of the goodness of their hearts; I had to show them what they were going to get from it. I had to make them see the upside.

I couldn’t help but wish my business partner Todd Martinez was there with me. He was better at explaining all the numbers and selling the financial aspects of the business plans. Well, I should say my ex-business partner. After we sold Hotel Book It, Todd used his cut of the money to open his own accounting firm. How utterly boring was that? A whole business that just dealt with numbers day in and day out, but he was happy and his wife was happy that he’d moved onto something less volatile than startup businesses.

There was no use in continuing the presentation, I knew it. I felt it in the room. The tension was incredibly thick and people looked so uninterested that I thought a few might actually fall asleep. I also knew at the level of business that I was, I couldn’t just give up and walk out of that room. Only when I put my full effort into this was I going to be satisfied.

For the next thirty minutes, I proceeded to give my PowerPoint presentation. I forced a smile on my face and threw in a few cheeky comments to try and loosen everyone up. It didn’t work. The bank manager smiled at me and paid attention to my presentation as did Richard, but that was about it. The rest of the room was either trying to secretly look at their phones or they were nodding off.

“Thank you all for your time. I’m open to answering any questions you might have,” I said as I stood in front of the group.

“There are a lot of great ideas in the world, not all of them can become a reality,” one of the men said.

“Very true,” I added.

“Cody, I appreciate the amount of research you put into this,” Susan said. “The hotel does appear to be a good idea and I like the idea of implementing social media friendly rooms and décor, but money isn’t as easy to come by for financing right now…”

“Let me stop you there,” I said before she gave me a firm no answer. “How about you tell me what you need in order to give me financing. I know there is some way that you’d let this deal go through. So let’s talk about that.”

“I would need Richard to release your father’s estate to you. Even if you’re not putting all that money into this project, knowing you have access to it when you need a financial infusion would make me feel much better about the deal.”

I looked longingly at Richard as he shook his head definitively back and forth to deny the requests. Richard was in his sixties with a finely trimmed grey beard that matched his suit. He had a bit of a rebel look with the beard but he was one hundred percent by the books and wasn’t about to budge on this damn estate issue.

“Cody knows what has to happen for the money to be released. He could easily make it happen.”

I cringed at his words. It wasn’t as easy as he was making the clause out to be. I couldn’t just find someone to go along with this plan. And it really pissed me off that my father put such a clause into his will at all. He knew I wouldn’t just fake a marriage. My father knew me and my sisters well enough to know we wouldn’t get married until we were in love and that would mean waiting years to get our inheritance. Well, at least it would mean waiting years for me, all three of my sisters were now married, including my younger sister Missy who had just recently tied the knot.

“Cody, I don’t know what else to tell you. We, unfortunately, cannot back this project without more collateral,” Susan said as she stood up and made her way toward me. She shook my hand and leaned in close. “Whatever it is that you need to do in order to meet your father’s requirements, just go get it done and I’ll back your project. We have a long history together, Cody, and I hope we can continue it.”

“Thank you, Susan,” I said without responding to her obvious push to find out what my father requested of me before he’d give me the money he left to me. “I’ll be in touch.”

“How hard can it be, Cody? Just do what your father asked and you can move on with your dream project.”

“It’s not that easy. Thank you for your time and I’ll keep you in the loop when I have more collateral for the project.”

I shook hands again with Susan and the rest of the bank members who quickly filed out of the room behind her. Most of them had smiles on their faces as the meeting finally wrapped up, but I could barely manage a grimace as I walked out of the building with Richard close behind me.

“I’m sure there are a lot of nice women you could enjoy time with for the next few years,” Richard said as we stood next to my Jeep in the parking lot. “Take one out, get to know her, date her. You might be surprised if you put a little effort into getting to know someone.”

“Richard, I’m not going to marry some woman I don’t know and be stuck with her for five years. That’s not fair to her and not fair to me. What if I actually met the woman of my dreams during that period? Then I’d just be some married dude who couldn’t talk to her.”

“There are no clauses about infidelity,” he said nonchalantly. “Just a fraud clause. As long as you’re honest with the woman about the situation and you get married with her understanding everything, you’ll be fine.”

“Wow, Richard. Nice. So I should just marry some woman and then sleep around. That’s not the spirit of my father’s request and you know it.”

“I’m just trying to help you out, and you’re right. That’s not what your father would want and I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I just meant if something happened and infidelity happened in your marriage, it wouldn’t negate the terms. Maggie didn’t even like Rex when she first met him, and then she married him and now they are happily married with three kids.”

“That’s only because she and Rex talked about the whole thing ahead of time. She liked him, she just didn’t think he was handsome. It was a business deal to her. A five-year business deal that ended up helping them fall in love. It’s easier for girls; I think men are much more willing to get married for money. Well, other men besides me. I would feel horrible.”

“Cody, you’re thinking about this like you have to trick some woman into marrying a hideous beast. You are a good guy. Nice looking. Don’t you have a female friend you could talk to?”

“Richard, I’ve thought about it a million times. I just can’t marry someone solely because my father would give me the money. I’m not ultra-religious or anything like that but marriage is a big deal and I only intend to do it once. I’ll see if I can find some more capital somewhere else. There are tons of investors looking for a good place for their money. I’ll just work around the problem.”

“I commend you on sticking to your principles. Maybe you’ll run into the woman of your dreams and this will all settle itself soon. Keep in touch, okay?” Richard gave me a hug and left me standing there.

The woman of my dreams wasn’t likely to fall in my lap anytime soon. I’d met a lot of great women. I’d dated a lot of amazing women too, but none that I’d wanted to spend five years with and certainly no one even close enough to what I wanted in a partner.

After that disaster of a meeting, the only place I wanted to go was the gym. The level of aggression I had to work off was off the charts and I sent a quick text to my friend Henry to see if he wanted to meet up. The gym was my oasis from stress and a much better coping situation than going out and drinking myself into a stupor. It had taken me a while to transition to more positive coping skills over the last few years but the clarity that came with the changes was well worth it. I still went out and partied every now and again, I just didn’t do it every weekend.

Henry was already at the gym though; he’d had a similarly frustrating day and was already drenched in sweat when I walked out onto the gym floor. I was going to need to catch up.

“One on one?” Henry asked.

“Let’s go.”

We spent thirty minutes playing hard one on one basketball. No talking. No working through our shit. Just running, blocking and shooting until we were totally exhausted. Sometimes the best way to deal with something was to sweat it out.

Henry Kidd was a longtime friend and matched my wild side. He rode a Harley, had a beard, had more muscles than me, and an attitude that made other guys afraid of him. When we hung out, I was tougher than I was alone; something about Henry just brought out my asshole side.

Normally my blonde hair and blue eyes made me seem sweet and soft. It didn’t matter that I was 6’2” and muscular, girls still thought I was sweet. But hanging around Henry switched that perception up a bit; suddenly I was this hard dude who had an attitude. The truth was that my personality sat somewhere between the rough motorcycle guy and the sweet softy.

“When are we leaving Friday?” Henry asked as we sat on the bench trying to catch our breath and drink some water.

“I think Todd had us meeting him at the airport around noon.”

“Todd? What the fuck, Cody. Why is he coming?”

“Because he’s our friend. Come on, you two don’t hate each other. Stop pretending like you do,” I laughed as I saw Todd walking into the gym.

“Oh, I do hate him. He’s uptight and is always trying to talk you out of having fun.”

“I’m not uptight,” Todd said as he stood in front of us with his perfectly pressed gym shorts and brand new shoes.

“God, Todd. Could you look any more like a nerd?” Henry shrugged and threw the basketball in Todd’s direction.

“What? This is all Nike. I look good.”

“You look like a preppy Nike commercial with all that stuff on. Why do you even want to come to Vegas with us? You never want to have any fun. All we are going to hear all weekend is what we shouldn’t be doing.”

“Not true. I’m ready to party,” Todd said unconvincingly.

“Did your wife give you permission to go out for the weekend?” Henry continued to mock.

“Felicia doesn’t have to give me permission. I’m my own person. But yes, we talked about this weekend and decided I should go and have fun.”

“God, please help me to not kill this man,” Henry said. “Did she give you permission to go to a boxing fight too? Because if you can’t go I’ll get some hot piece of ass to come with us instead.”

“I’m going to the fight, Henry. Come on, that’s the reason we are going to Vegas. I’m ready to have a fun time. You’ll see. This is the new and improved me. I’m going to drink and party and you two aren’t going to know what hit you.”

Both Henry and I burst out laughing at the thought of Todd partying hard. There were only a handful of times that I’d ever seen Todd drink at all and I certainly hadn’t seen him partying, not even at his wedding reception did he party. He was the soberest of all the people there at his wedding.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I laughed.

“Seriously, you too, Cody? I can have fun. Remember that trip we took to Europe? I was all fun on that trip.”

“Todd, I don’t remember you having much fun on that trip,” I said through my laughter. “From what I remember you were more interested in planning every aspect of the trip and were super stressed out.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine you having fun,” Henry added.

“I can have fun.”

Todd was getting defensive about his ability to have fun. It was funny how he thought he could loosen up and have fun when I knew that wasn’t his personality at all. Todd was dependable, trustworthy, and an all-around great guy. He wasn’t fun though, that just wasn’t part of his personality. Not worse or better than Henry and I, just different.

“Let’s stop worrying about it, we will all have fun, I’m sure,” I said trying to bring the situation to an end.

“You know he’s going to be all amped up the whole trip,” Henry continued to egg Todd on. “Maybe you should just stay home so Cody and I can have a good time?”

“Shut it,” Todd said as his anger started to build.

“Oh, are you getting pissed off now? Why don’t you hit me? Go ahead, take a swing.”

Henry was a big guy, more muscular than Todd and certainly tougher. I didn’t want to see either of them fighting each other. I also understood why Henry was agitated about Todd coming with us. Todd did tend to be a downer when it came to picking up women, drinking and having fun; but he still really needed to learn to relax and having him along might be good for him after all.

“Alright, that’s it, guys. We are all going. We are going to have fun damn it,” I said louder than I had intended. “Now let’s find a fourth and play some ball.”

It only took a minute to wrangle in a fourth player and we were back to playing basketball and working our aggression out more productively. I needed those two to get along well enough for us to have a good weekend. The last thing I wanted to deal with was them bickering at each other all weekend when I needed to blow off some steam.

And I really needed to blow off some steam. This deal had been my baby for the last several months. I was positive the bank would love all the research I’d done for it and the business plan clearly showed a profit much faster than normal big projects like mine.

In the back of my head, I’d tried to prepare for the possibility of the bank saying no but I just couldn’t get my brain around it. The numbers were good, the business plan was good, I had a great track record; it should have been a done deal. The market wasn’t as bad as Susan made it out to be. It wasn’t a great market for investing, but not terrible either. Now I was floundering without financing and no real prospects to get money for the project without giving up a lot of my equity to investors.

Marrying some random woman to get my inheritance wasn’t my style. The only other option I saw was to try and find some venture capital groups who wanted a piece of the deal. This wasn’t ideal for me though because I was going to have to water down my own shares in the business in order to get their money. But in business, nothing was ever perfect; just as in life.

My new mindset was to have a blast this weekend. Let all the business dealings and money issues go and then revisit the deal next week with fresh eyes. After a long weekend of fun, I was sure I’d be able to take a look at the deal and find just the right way of moving forward. A weekend in Vegas was just the thing to make me forget about my problems.