Growing up with an American mom and a Dutch father in England, the concept of a brunch was difficult to wrap my head around. My dad never liked big breakfasts, not being used to them. But my mom grew up with Sunday morning feasts with bacon, pancakes, waffles, French toast, eggs, syrup in whatever combination was decided that day. And then I found out what a Full English breakfast was and had that at friends houses a few times.

               Comparing a big American breakfast to a Full English breakfast was like deciding between a typhoon and a hurricane. There are differences, but they were pretty much the same in a few ways. They were both going to destroy your belly for a few hours, and they both contained a lot more food than anybody really needed.

               Once I started living on my own, I gravitated towards my dad's point of view, and stuck to a smaller breakfast, usually a bagel or muffin with coffee, but I couldn't deny the allure of an occasional large brunch. Usually, for me anyway, that meant a nice big waffle and some bacon. I know, nothing crazy, but I didn't think I needed too much more!

               So, the morning after we spent the night at my parents' place, I shouldn't have been surprised that my mom made a big breakfast. But it was a mix of things that probably shouldn't go together. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, baked beans, fried mushrooms and fried tomato was just a weird combination. Luckily it was still tasty if you ignored the odd mix of cultures that were trying to physically assault each other on the plates.

               I was grateful for the calories too. We'd been up too late talking and catching up, and then I may have fulfilled my promise to Brooke to make love to her on another continent as we enjoyed each other's company in my old bedroom until we just ran out of energy. But it was a wonderful night, and one we wouldn't soon forget.

               After breakfast, we had a big goodbye hug fest, though we knew we'd be back some time tonight and it was just temporary. Carol was waiting out on the street for us, and she drove us over to the O2 Arena. Yeah, we also took a little bit of a detour so Brooke could see the London Eye, Big Ben, the House of Parliament, and a few other sights as well. We couldn't have her say she'd been to London and never saw anything!

               But the arena had all our attention, and we both had jitters as we arrived. The good thing was, Carol assured us that her friend had already talked to Gene's manager, and that he was expecting us, though he only had 30 minutes to spare. He was a businessman now that he was getting older and had already invested in a lot of different things. If we were lucky, he'd want to invest in our little league.

               We were able to park in a VIP parking lot, and then made the trek into the arena through a guarded doorway where we met a short balding man waiting with the guard.

"Barry!" Carol called out. "Thanks for meeting us! These are my coworkers, Brooke and Kris."

Barry smiled at Carol and nodded. "You're welcome, and it's nice to meet you both. But now you owe me!"

"No chance! You still owe me for the incident over at Wembley!"

"That wasn't my fault!" he yelped. "They were supposed to have all been dressed!"

"Do I get to hear this story?" I asked Carol.

"No way! It was way too embarrassing. But we had some good laughs. I'm sure you'll have stories like that too. Though hopefully that doesn't make your therapist laugh like mine did," Carol said with a shudder.

Barry and Carol chattered away as we headed through the bowels of the stadium. I slipped my hand into Brooke's hand and felt her squeeze back and a smile spread over her face. I could get used to this.

As we walked, I started seeing signs for stage entrances, and restricted access, and knew we were getting close. But when I heard the feedback blaring from a guitar, my heart started to race. We're almost there. It was almost time. The next hour or so could make or break our pitch and potentially ensure the league's success. Sure, we had other options, but this was the one that could take care of two issues at the same time.

Barry slowed as we reached the side of the stage, and we could see several of the roadies out on the stage with the band. Now, I don't know if you're familiar with the band KISS, but Gene Simmons is a very large man. Even in his 70s, he's over six feet tall and quite imposing. Seeing him walk about on stage, plucking the strings on his bass until it sounded right, was pretty exciting.

We watched for about 15 minutes before the band was satisfied with the sound, and Barry waved Gene down as he exited the stage. "Mr. Simmons! Over here please! These are the ladies that I mentioned."

Gene walked closer to us, and he was even larger up close. I'm not short seeing as I'm about 5'7", but he had at least six inches on me. When you combine his natural size with the platform boots that he wears on stage with the makeup, he was appropriately nicknamed The Demon.

"Mr. Simmons, it's a pleasure to meet you." I held out my hand in greeting. "I'm Kris van Noorel and this is my colleague, Brooke Adkins."

He took my hand gently, then shook Brooke's as well. "Please, call me Gene." As expected, he had a very deep voice, but it was also slow and thoughtful. "I heard you had a business proposition?"

"We do, yes. Two of them actually. Do you have time to discuss them?"

"I always have time for business if it makes me money. Come on back to the lounge and we can talk about it."

The lounge wasn't anything fancy, just a place for the performers to gather and relax before going on. For us, it was a perfect place to sit down and go over things. "So, we have two propositions. The first is very simple, and the other more complex."

"Well, let's get the easy one out of the way," he suggested.

"Perfect. Okay, we have a pitch for a client that we're working up, and we were hoping to use one of your songs in the pitch. If we win the pitch, then we would use that song in a commercial for the client, and you would be compensated with the fair market value of the song usage," I explained while Brooke started to get her laptop out and booted up.

"Which song did you want to use?"

"We want to use Lick It Up."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Is the second proposal related to the pitch?"

I shared a glance with Brooke, and we shared a smile. I knew he'd become a shrewd businessman over the years, so it wasn't surprising that he'd figure a few things out about our plans. "The pitch is for something called the Tongue Dominance Fighting League, or TDFL. It is an existing league trying to refine their business model with ten teams in America and ten in Europe. The other business proposition would be you becoming a team owner in the league."

"A team owner in a brand new league? That seems like a risky proposition," he pointed out.

"At face value, yes it does seem that way. But the product is original, already has competitors, and a rabid international following, even if it is small. If we get more streaming events out there, or even better a television deal, it could be the next MMA."

"Alright, that all sounds good. But what is the ownership fee? And what facilities are needed? There are a lot of questions I'd have before thinking about getting a stake in a league."

"You're absolutely right," I agreed. "But this league is going to be successful. It is going to get sponsors. And it doesn't need much to make money. The current events are being held in old boxing gyms, but once there is money, we can do them anywhere that can host a fight. We don't have injury issues like most sports. The biggest issue they had was a bad case of mononucleosis a few years ago, but I'm already working on a partnership with a health care provider to provide testing for that. The competitors need a gym to stay in shape, but that is the only facility needed. If you like, we can put you in touch with the founder and she can walk you through all of that. Brooke, can you please show one of the streams?"

Brooke quickly pulled up the previous weekend's feed from the Los Angeles event, and Gene was instantly engrossed. "This is the base for the Los Angeles team. So, if you became the owner in LA, these girls would be your team. Now, having said that, we have a lot more competitors than teams at the moment, so you'll be able to have tryouts." I was happy to have Brooke sounding so confident in this. She was really blossoming.

Gene kept his eyes on the screen, and just shook his head in disbelief as he broke out a big smile. "How did nobody come up with this concept before? This is the sexiest fucking sport out there!"

I felt a surge of excitement at that. "Yes, it is. Now, I know you had a bad experience with the Arena Football League, but there is a lot less overhead on this, and there is a lot of marketing that will appeal to our audience. This model is built to succeed." Gene and some of the band had become owners in the Arena Football League from 2014-2016, though it didn't work out and they ended up getting out of the league.

He nodded while stroking his chin. "What is the buy-in?"

"One million." Yeah, Monica had said to pitch half of that, but I could see the excitement in him, and if he bought in, it would be much easier to sell others at the same price. Besides, to the wealthy, one million was nothing. "If we use everyone's buy-in and the initial Nike investment to grow the league then year two, we should be making a profit. By year five we should be able to add at least four more teams in both Europe and America, and those teams will have a higher buy-in to be split among current owners. This is a chance to get in on the ground floor of something that could grow exponentially."

"Okay, I like this. I love what I've seen of the product, and I like the buy in. Give me Monica's information, and I'll talk to her about it," he said thoughtfully. "This is certainly something I wasn't expecting to see today, but I'm excited about this! You said there are European teams too?"

"Absolutely." Brooke pulled up the European teams and their schedule and showed it to Gene.

"Perfect. We're going to Copenhagen after this, and we can catch a match in person there next week. If things work out with Monica, we could provide a little publicity. I don't mind putting in the work to build this too. I can see this investment growing!"

"I can as well! Thanks so much Gene!"