Need You

Chapter 25

I already wasn't getting good sleeps and the couch only made it worse. Derrick kept making subtle sly remarks about my stay in his house and as much as I didn't appreciate it, I understood that we were not going to be roommates forever and that he preferred living alone now.

Briefly shifting my focus from trying to find a job to finding an apartment, I found one located on the ground floor of a modest building.

Inside was small and cramped but it was still functional. The living room was sparsely furnished with a long old sofa with a short table in front of it. The yellow paint on the walls had faded and there were a few cracks in the plaster.

The sunlight that shone through the window during the day did light up the apartment beautifully.

I was in the sofa, back to searching for a job when a knock came at the door.

"Hi." Amanda sang happily when I opened the door.

"Hi. Welcome to my humble abode." I said, holding the door open.

"Thank you." Her eyes roamed the apartment as she entered and sat. "This is nice."

"Yeah it is..." I remarked and then asked of Nikki.

"She has to handle something at the restaurant."

"Oh." I paused. When I asked her if she would like me to her anything, her answer was no.

I had moved in not long ago so I didn't wouldn't have had anything to give her really.

"Okay."

"So how has it been since you moved here? It seems like a nice neighbourhood."

"It is a nice neighbourhood." I stated happily. "I haven't gotten the chance to really get to know my neighbours but they seem nice."

"What have you been busy with?"

"Tryjng to find a job. Hopefully I can find one soon before the next payment is due."

"Mmm."

"At this point, I'm ready to find any good paying job, it doesn't have to have anything to do with accounting or any of that." I commented.

"Well, if finding employment is not going as easy as you would want it, why not just start your own business or something?"

"What?" It sounded absurd to me.

"I was thinking about it the last time I visited you at Derrick's. There's a very profitable venture into financial consultancy and I remember how well you helped Ethel's Diner."

"Umm..." I wasn't sure. I had never started any business but I knew that it was most at time not as easybas one would hope for.

"And remember you said you'd like to have more in person engagements."

That was true, and as appealing as that might have been but I wasn't ready to start my own business. "I think I'll stick to trying to find a job for now."

"Come on Harry. I know you'd be perfect at giving financial consults." She smiled.

I allowed myself to imagine what it would look like if I were to heed. I would be in something professional, most likely a suit. I would have meetings with clients regularly.

"I know you're thinking about it from that smile on your face." Amanda pointed out. I turned to her and she said, "I'm not saying you should completely ignore your job search but give the idea a shot. It could work and if it doesn't... no it will work!"

I chuckled. "Okay."

"Great. I've already done some research but there's still a whole lot we need to find out about starting a financial consultancy agency."

We spent that night and most of our weekend researching the business. In the days that followed, I had completely immersed myself into starting the agency.

"You know?" I said to Amanda as we sat in my living room. "To be honest, I didn't think we'd get anywhere with this when we first started." My lips parted into a smile as our eyes met.

"And now we are almost done." She responded happily.

I nodded. "All we need now is an investor. I looked into some few names which might be willing to invest in a new business like this one." I told her. "Hopefully, with the presentation I put together, they'll be inclined to work with us."

"Okay. Can I see the presentation?"

I opened it for her and said, "It's basically going to tell them all that the agency is about."

"How much will be needed to finalise everything?" She asked after watching the presentation.

"Roughly fifteen thousand."

"Okay then, let's do it."

"Mmm... I'm going to try and set up a meeting with them."

"You don't need to do that for now. I can get you about thirteen thousand."

"Oh no."

"The presentation will get them on board."

"I'm not worried about it doing that."

"You've already done a lot dealing with the legal processes."

"That shouldn't stop me." She countered. "Look," She put her hand on my wrist and immediately, I felt warm inside as we stared at each other. "I believe in you and in what we're doing here; that's why I suggested it in the first place. Besides, I'm only going to get richer once this business takes off." She ended wittily.

After working long hours together, Amanda and I were almost ready to launch the financial consultancy agency.

"I thought you had taken care of this already." I rubbed my palm against my forehead. "You know I deal well with numbers not all these legal stuff."

"In that case, here are a number of requirements the licensing office expects us to meet before they give us a licence."

I chuckled. "I see what you did there."

"Harry it's not that complicated." She sat next to me and tried explaining it better.
"Do you get it now?"

"I do. But I'm sure you can take care of that."

"Fine. But you need to name the agency."

"Um... What about A&H Financial Consulting?" I grinned.

"A&H?"

"Amanda and Harry."

"Oh no." She chuckled.

"Why not?" I asked. "This whole thing was your idea."

She seemed to not be able to put together a response. All she did was smile. "Then it should be H&A instead. Harry and Amanda."

"No. A&H."

"H&A"

"A&H!"