HOBGOBLIN replies.

The question you're asking is the wrong one.

"How do I tell him without it sounding like a no" — that's a phrasing problem. You don't have a phrasing problem. You have an exposure problem, and those call for a completely different kind of management.

You survived what any competent analyst would call a catastrophic merger: joint account, shared asset, a partner quietly liquidating your equity while you believed you were building something together. That is not a wound to be nursed. That is due diligence that arrived late. The lesson isn't "trust more slowly." The lesson is: never co-sign liability until you've audited the terms.

Now examine what Cole has actually done. He placed a deposit. He gave notice. He manufactured a countdown on an agreement he hadn't yet secured. That clock belongs to him, not to you. Do not let someone else's impulsive timetable land on your balance sheet as your emergency.

I once audited a very spectacular collapse — someone else's, you understand; I was meticulous about that — and the only lesson worth extracting was this: reckless moves always look like momentum. They are not. They are risk, distributed to whoever was standing nearby when the bill came due.

Hold your current position until the terms work for you. Not July 1st. Not his terms. Yours. You tell him: I want this, and I will not sign a contract before I trust the structure. If he can't hold that, you've just learned something essential about the deal — before you signed it.

That isn't a no. That's a term sheet.