“You were telling Ava we don’t have any specific timeline for how long we’re going to be here,” I said. “Do you have any idea at all? Even a ballpark?”
“It might be a little while,” he said. “I need to handle all of this and oversee the bar reopening. I think we can manage work from here just as well as we could from the home office if we use somewhat of a creative approach. But I completely understand if you need to go back to San Francisco at any point. You just let me know, and I will arrange for you to go back.”
“I can’t see any reason why I would need to go back sooner than you do,” I said, hoping that sounded professionally willing and not overeager. “And speaking of a creative approach, I know Landon is prepped and ready to be handling the meeting tomorrow morning but are you still considering using videoconferencing to be there?”
His widened eyes told me he had completely forgotten about the meeting.
“What time is that meeting?” he asked.
“Nine,” I told him.
“Seriously, I don’t know what I would do without you. Yes, I still want to do a video conference into the meeting. He is more than capable of managing it, but I want to be there and see how it goes. My brain is just in a thousand places right now, and I barely even know what the meeting is about.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I have notes, remember? We can go over them as a refresher.”
I was glad to have transitioned the conversation over to work. It helped him get his mind off the bar and everything going on with that and took the heat off me. I accessed the notes I’d saved to the cloud through my phone, and we went over them as we ate.
We talked about work for the rest of the meal, and by the time we were finished eating, it was obvious we were both exhausted. It had been a long day, and it felt like it all had just suddenly hit me. We went back up to the room, and Tom unfolded the sofa bed.
“Convenient,” he said.
“Are you sure you’re going to be comfortable?” I asked. “You can have the bed.”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I will be just fine out here. Remember, I have the gaggle of brothers. I have slept on sofa beds, cots, sleeping bags, and any manner of makeshift bed more times in my life than I can count. I want to make sure you’re comfortable.”
“Thank you,” I said. I gestured behind me. “Do you want to hop in the bathroom and brush your teeth and everything before I change into my pajamas?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Let me just grab my stuff.”
It took another half an hour for us to jump in the bathroom back and forth and for me to finally get into bed. When I did, I fell asleep instantly.9TomI was up bright and early the next morning, opting to go down to the gym in the hotel to get a quick workout in. It helped me clear my mind a bit and relieve some of the stress of the last few days.
When I got back to the room, Amanda was up and dressed, ready for the meeting. I shouldn’t have been surprised, knowing she was always the first to the office. I still had a little time, so I hopped in a quick shower and got dressed. When I got back in the room, it was ten minutes until the meeting start time, so I sat down at the desk, Amanda beside me on her own laptop, and started the call.
Landon was the first one to join a few moments later, and then around nine, the rest of the crew joined in. When I had the whole group of investors and team members on, I greeted the group. I didn’t know how many of them could tell that Amanda and I were clearly in the same room, so I figured I would go ahead and let the cat out of the bag.
“I am glad you were all able to teleconference for this meeting today. Landon has been terrific running things while I have been back in my hometown, but just so I made sure I was up-to-date fully, Amanda joined me. Before we get started, I wanted to express my gratitude to the both of them for going out of their way for me these past few days,” I said.
Amanda looked at me over the lid of her tablet and grinned.
“No problem,” she said, more to me than to the screen. I smiled back at her.
“We always have your back,” Landon said from his tiny box on the screen.
“Thanks, guys,” I said. “Now, I believe Landon has a few updates for us about the marketing campaign and a few new ideas he has been tooling around with. Take it away, Landon.”