It's Called Sarcasm [1] ⌲ Twombly

16 | as a team or not at all

"Ladies and gentlemen it has been an impressive summer," Chetty says the next day as he walks across the stage. "And one final challenge remains. Sales."

I grin with excitement. Sales are my jam.

"Over a million companies advertise with Google," Chetty continues. "Find one that doesn't. Convince them. The bigger the sale, the more chance you have of taking this competition. The winner will be announced at our final meeting this afternoon. Good luck and happy hunting."

The minute he says that everyone is up and getting to work.

"Sales, son!" I exclaim with excitement as we walk back to Lyle's office. "Those other bitches are going down!" I say, giving Yo-Yo a high five. "Wait a minute, where's Billy?"

"He left." Nick says solemnly.

"What?"

"He thought he was holding us back and he didn't want to talk about it, that's for sure."

"Well, we have to get him back." I say, raising my eyebrows.

"She's right, we do this as a team." Yo-Yo says.

"I mean, sure, he might have been buried under a mountain of obscure 80's references and you know, just a bunch of other super inappropriate bullshit that I guess was intended as life lessons, but..." Stuart trails off.

"Stuart, baby, come to a point." I say, patting his elbow.

Stuart sighs. "I mean, he did teach us how to come together, Nick, you both taught us that."

Nick sighs. "Well, the only problem is that when Billy makes up his mind on something he has a tendency to really dig in. We're going to have to get ready to do this one without him."

"Yeah, but Nick, we wouldn't want to." Lyle adds. "Right guys?"

"Absolutely." I say, looking towards the rest of the group as they nod.

Nick nods slowly. "Okay."

***

"Well that just sucked." I say as all of us- minus Nick and Billy- walk out of the restaurant we attempted to sell our product to. Apparently they were a family owned business who didn't do the internet.

"Well, at least we got some free pizza, right?" Lyle says, trying to lighten the mood. "No? Yeah, okay."

I sigh, leaning against the brick wall beside Stuart, who drapes his arm around my shoulders. "This was suppose to be fun.." I mutter into his shoulder.

"Yeah, I know." Stuart murmurs, kissing the top of my head gently.

"Hello, hello!" We hear, and look up to see Graham and his team biking down the hill towards us.

"Oh, great. This guy." I mutter.

"We saw you were checked in here, thought we'd say hello." He says with a nod.

"That's really creepy." Stuart says with a nod. "Is that all?"

"It is all actually. We just closed a sale at a coffee shop down the street. Mackenzie, you're quite fond of coffee, yes? Such a shame your chances of beating us just went from zero to piss all because of it."

I open my mouth to respond but Stuart beats me to it. "Talk to her again, ass hat, I dare you." He snaps.

"Stuart, stop, it's okay." I murmur.

"Well then, if you'll excuse us, we have to get ready for that meeting this afternoon and get the jobs we so profoundly deserve. Let's go!" He says, and then they're off again.

"What a douche." Stuart sneers. "What makes him think he can talk to you like that, huh?"

"It doesn't matter, Stuart, I don't care."

"Well, I do." He says, kissing my nose and making me smile a bit. That's when we hear a car horn and turn our heads.

"Oh my God..."

Sure enough, Nick and Billy were climbing out of a taxi and making their way towards us. "Welcome back, Billy boy!" Lyle says.

"It's good to be back." Billy says, his brow then furrowing when he saw Yo-Yo's missing eyebrow. "What happened there?"

"Well, it didn't exactly go well for us." Yo-Yo explains.

"You know who else it didn't go well for?"

"Lay it on us, big daddy."

"That little steel town girl Alex. When she finally got her shot in front of all those stuffed shirts she took a tumble and fell. You wanna hear something totally nuts?"

"Always."

"She picked herself back up." Billy continues. "She danced her way back into their hearts and into a slot at that dance school." He finshes as Nick draws a new eyebrow on Yo-Yo's face.

"And that's what we're going to do. Tighten your asses and let's go." Nick says. I look up at all of them and nod.

"Let's get her done, boys."