Page 23 of Take My Heart
Chapter 5
Brody
‘Hey, Nick, got a question,’ I say, going into my room.
‘You home right now?’ he asks.
‘Yeah. With the snow coming down this fast, there’s no use trying to clear it off.’
‘That makes sense. So what do you need?’
‘I had a question about my plow. There’s something wrong with the controller. It won’t move the blades. I checked all the wires and nothing’s disconnected.’
‘If the connections are good, I don’t know what it could be without looking at it.’
‘And you can’t get here with the storm.’
‘No, and I don’t want you trying to drive here. It’s too dangerous.’
‘I need to fix this. I’ve got people counting on me to show up.’
‘Are you in the truck rightnow?’
‘No, I’m in the house. I’ll go out there. Hold on.’ I walk through the house to the garage and get in the truck. ‘Okay, I’m looking at the controller.’
Nick tells me some things to try, but none of them work.
‘The thing’s dead,’ I say. ‘I think I need a new controller.’
‘You might. I don’t know what else to try.’
I let out a sigh. ‘What the hell am I going to do? I have customers depending on me. Their contract says I’ll show up. If I don’t, they can cancel.’
‘What contract?’
‘Last fall I wrote up a contract that locks them in for the season. It was to make sure they use me and nobody else.’
‘You wrote a contract and didn’t show me?’ Nick says, using his annoying big brother tone, the one that implies he knows better than me. He used to be a lawyer so when it comes to contracts, he does know better than me, but I still don’t like him using that tone. ‘Brody, what the hell? Why didn’t you give it to me to look over?’
‘Because I didn’t need to. It’s the same contract I use for lawn care, which you already looked at. All I did was add a line about snow removal.’
‘You need more than a line. You need to add language that gets you out of situations like this, ones that are out of your control, like this storm or your equipment breaking.’
He’s right. I should’ve let him read the contract before I gave it to people. I didn’t because I’m tired of always asking my brothers for help. Jason helped me buy this house. Nick helps me with legal stuff. Sawyer promotes my business at his brewery. It’s great they help me, but I really wanted to do thismyself. I wanted to prove I could have my own business without my family’s help.
‘So what does this mean?’ Nick asks. ‘If you don’t show up to plow their driveway, what happens?’
‘It doesn’t say. The only thing I put in the contract is that I’ll clean off their driveway after three or more inches of snow.’
‘And you didn’t give any timing? Like how long you had to get it done?’
‘No.’
‘Then you might be okay, but you’re leaving a lot up for interpretation. You need to revise that contract today and get it out to your customers. Send it to me and I’ll look it over.’
‘Let me go find it.’ I go in the house, passing Kate, who’s still on the couch.
‘Need some help?’ she asks, noticing me racing around.
