The Deal Dilemma

As we pull up to the bar, Drew, Paula, and her cousin, Kenli, my official new hire, are all waiting outside the door.

Drew’s mouth drops open, and I grin, climbing out right as he steps up.

“Bro, what the fuck?” He reaches out to touch the paint, but I slap his hand away.

“Remember this?” Davis asks with a smile, climbing out my door rather than her own.

I tug her to me, wrapping my arms over her shoulders from behind and posting my chin on her head.

“Oh, fuck yeah, I—” he cuts off when he looks to us. “Do.” He lifts a brow my way.

“We just picked it up today.” Davis steps away, admiring the shine against the beating sun. “It was its first time on the road in thirty years.”

“Can I drive it?” my brother asks.

“Fuck no.”

“Sure.”

She and I say at the same time, looking at each other.

“Fuck no,” I repeat, and she shrugs, looking away, but not before I catch the smile she tries to hide.

“Dude, what’s with all this?” Paula frowns at the bed of the truck. “We got a shipment two days ago.”

“These”—Davis opens the tailgate, smiling at the bed full of freshly picked limes—“were free.”

“What?!” Paula gapes, looking to me. “How?”

“Davis embarrassed them.”

Her mouth drops open, cheeks growing crimson. “I did… not.”

“Baby, you so did, and you know it.”

In my peripheral, I catch both Paula and Drew’s heads snapping my way, and I have to keep myself from puffing my damn chest out like an egotistical motherfucker, especially when Davis shares a secret smirk with only me.

Truth, I want everyone to know she’s mine, an irrational, twisted part of me needing my brother to know she can’t and won’t ever be his, even when I know their relationship is no more than friendly teasing.

Drew starts the unloading, lifting a box and reaching in for a second while balancing the first on his thigh.

“Here, let me.” I take the second, setting it on top.

My brother frowns, his lips pinched to keep from grinning. “You want to help with the shit you asked all of us to be here an hour early to carry in?”

I shrug, stacking two for myself. “Why not? We’ll be done quicker.”

“Uh-huh.” He side-eyes me, and I follow him into the bar. “Someone’s finally getting his d—”

I slap him upside the head, and he laughs, disappearing inside the bar.

My brother and I might not be as close as we were when we were little, me moving in with the family next door and leaving him behind will do that, even if it was his choice to stay, but the wall between us isn’t so solid now that he’s here with me. He came home for me, after all. When I needed someone to have my back, he came.

I owe him for that.

I’ll have to sneak away to talk to him today when Davis isn’t paying attention.

Paula grunts, shifting the boxes to the edge of the bed, and I turn back to the task at hand.

“Let’s prep a box of these for tonight. Test ’em out, and then tomorrow, we’ll go back to what we have, so we don’t end up with rotten shit we’re forced to toss,” I tell her.

“Sounds good, boss.” Paula passes a box to Kenli, and they too head inside.

I call my girl to me with nothing but a look, and just like that, she’s standing before me.

“You up for some fun?”

She sways playfully, her dress brushing along the thighs of my jeans and testing my patience. “What did you have in mind?”

“Oh, it’s good. Your kind of foreplay.”

Her tongue pokes between her teeth as she smiles. “Is there candy involved?”

“There will be as quick as I can get DoorDash here…”

She waves a hand. “Meh, my purse is stacked with sour gummies and my last pack of Red Hots.”

“Oh no.” I tug her to me. “Guess we gotta take a trip back to the candy store.”

“Such an inconvenience.” She plays along, her arms looping around my waist.

“I’m about to give you something you’ve been dying for, baby.” I wiggle my brows. “Head up to my office.”

Her eyes light up. “No…”

“Oh, yeah. Books are all yours.”

“Archives and dates and numbers, oh my.” She grins, already tearing away.

I hold her back a second longer, my knuckles pressing at her chin.

“Don’t overwhelm yourself and don’t stress over it,” I tell her. “It’s a shit show I’ve been trying to work through for a year now.”

Davis pushes up on her toes, so I bend, giving her my lips, but she only speaks against mine.

“Challenge accepted.”

And then the girl straight skips into the place, leaving me here to do nothing but stare after her, my brother reappearing as she disappears.

“Could be a permanent thing, you know,” he says, tipping his head toward the door when I frown. “Her being here, helping with shit… if you’d buck up and tell her you bought the fucking place already.”

My eyes slide to the entryway. “When I’m ready, I will.”

“Dude, you’re living with her, doing a fuckton more than that now, apparently, and I’ve seen nothing from her to make me think she ain’t cool with you working here. Fuck’s the difference?”

The difference is huge, and this asshole knows it. Right now, I work as a manager at a bar, a job she might assume is temporary and can get behind. But tell her I own the place? I don’t know about that.

Davis might have forced herself to trust herself by finding a healthy relationship with alcohol, but for it to be part of the foundation her future would be built on with me as a partner and this place my livelihood and focus?

Not so sure she would want that. Not sure it would be right to ask her to, knowing there would forever be a fear in the back of her mind, a worry she might lose me, herself, or someone else to the shit she lost her brother to. She must want a family one day, right?

What woman wants to raise her kids around a bar?

“Crew.”

I turn toward my brother, my eyes following him as he steps up to grab the last two boxes of limes.

“You worked your ass off to make something happen for yourself.” He holds my gaze. “Take a second to be proud of yourself, instead of kicking your own ass over the things you can’t or should do.”

Pressure falls on my chest, and I eye my brother.

How he turned out as decent as he did, I don’t know. He doesn’t talk about the years he was alone with our fucked-up parents—a choice I think he made simply because he was only ten when the Franco’s asked for legal guardianship over me. That, or my dad got in his head when I wasn’t around, which is very fucking likely. He doesn’t want to talk about it though, and I’ve tried a time or two.

I don’t know the shit he saw or what he went through, but I know it was no cakewalk. The day he turned seventeen, he had one foot out the door, waiting for eighteen to get there, but just before his birthday, our dad went to prison—finally—and my mom convinced him to stay. He lasted a while before shit went south yet again.

He took off, lived in solitude in Yosemite before I called him and begged him to come here.

I nod, and he squeezes my shoulder before lifting the last box.

“Hold up, I have to tell you something.”

Drew looks back with a frown, but one glance in my direction, his features smooth and then he’s standing front and center. “Talk to me.”

Crossing my arms, I lean against the door, staring at Davis. She’s sitting on the floor, the cot folded up, desk pushed to the side, and papers strewn out all around her in a chaotic mess that likely makes perfect sense to her. Her staple candy necklace is still strung around her neck, but now stretched across her jaw and face, allowing a few tiny pieces to settle along her lips, just enough to give her a hint of sweetness with each move of her mouth.

It takes her a second, but she finally looks up, the stretchy choker rolling down her chin and leaving a streak of white. She frowns. “What time is it?”

“A little after four.”

Her eyes widen. “We were supposed to be at Layla’s.”

“I know.”

She opens her mouth, but I lift my hand.

“This can wait. Come on. Let’s go eat.”

“But—”

“A pregnant woman spent the last hour getting a meal ready for you, you really want to ditch her for this?”

“If by ‘this,’ you mean increasing this place’s ROI by no less than eleven percent and counting, yes, yes, I would.”

“Wait, for real?” My ears perk up.

Increase the return over investment?

I step into the room. “How?”

Davis is damn near giddy to nerd out for me, jumping up with a notebook in her hand. “I’ll tell you all about it on the drive.”

And she does, breaking down things I never even thought to think of, shit that should be obvious but wasn’t. At all.

The way she explains things, though, makes it easy to understand.

“That’s crazy,” I say, killing the engine in front of the house. “I didn’t even realize I was paying that tax.”

“That’s because it’s presented as a ‘flat fee,’ which it is, but when you don’t see the tax amount, your brain automatically assumes you’re getting a deal, when in reality—”

“They’re charging at a higher percentage and hiding that under the simple price mark.”

“Exactly.” She grins. “And all this, Crew, is only based on changes that are right there to be seen, and solely on the liquor side. Wait until I look at the beer and draft drinks. Plus, we still don’t know what can be saved using local farmers.”

“Damn.” A long exhale leaves me. Maybe I can pay down the loan on this place sooner than I thought.

“I haven’t even told you the best part.” She pushes her door open, meeting me by the hood. “The ROI increase is based on last year’s sales alone, and with one quick peek at this quarter’s? I think that number will be even higher. The bar has really picked up compared to a year ago.”

Pride blooms in my chest, but I lick my lips to keep from grinning.

I had thought we were bringing in more revenue, but using more product means ordering more, so I guess my mind focuses on the checks I cut versus what came in to make the move necessary.

“If you’re up for it, there are a lot of other ways to add a little more into the registers.”

We step into Willie’s living room. “Like?”

“Like charging a small fee at the door when you have a live band?” My face must give away my unease, because she rushes to say. “You’re the only bar in town with live music, Crew. That’s big. Even if you keep it low, like three bucks a pop, it would, at the least, cover the band’s pay for the night, if not more.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think our customers would like that.”

“So include a drink ticket, and bump entry to five.” She shrugs. “There’s a seventy-six percent chance that every person who steps into the door will purchase a second drink, and fifty-three percent of those will go for a third. You could keep it to draft beer only or choice of bottom-shelf white or gold.”

“Damn, she’s good.” Layla walks up grinning. “That’s a solid idea.”

“Yeah.” I stare at Davis, my chest growing tight, images of a future flashing through my mind. “It is.”

Davis smiles and spins, pointing at Layla. “Speaking of ideas, we went to the farmers’ market today.”

I look between the girls, my eyes narrowing as I follow behind.

“Davis…”

“Hear me out. You know those killer stuffed mushrooms you make? I was talking to this woman—”

“Leave them.”

I jerk to a stop, glaring at my best friend leaning over the kitchen counter. I swiftly look back, and Davis already has Layla on the back patio, and Layla’s thrusting a parfait into her empty hands.

“What was that about?”

Willie smirks, sipping slow as fuck from his beer like an asshole, before popping one and passing it to me. “Try this.”

Sighing, I step toward him, taking a small sip from the bottle. My eyes widen, and I look at the glass, swirling it around. “Damn, that’s good shit, Wil.”

“Your girl gave me the idea.”

My brows jump.

“Little less yeast, longer brew time and a couple scoops of caramel malt. That shit’s gonna hit. I can feel it.”

“Bro, I think you’re right.”

Willie nods, pulling a tray of barbecued chicken from the oven and dropping it in front of me.

I grab it while he loads his hands with watermelon and potato salad then follow him onto the patio.

Layla laughs, catching my attention, and I look as Davis’s hands flail all around as she explains whatever the hell it is she’s talking about.

“She gave Layla an idea, said use the slab of concrete on the side of the brew house as an outdoor seating spot, serve street food and bring in beach walkers. Use Layla’s recipes and serve my beers with ’em. Offered to be a part of it, excited to see my beer do well and confident in mine and Layla’s ability to make it work… according to my wife.”

My pulse jumps, and my head slowly turns toward him, eyes waiting ’til the last second to leave the stunning woman in yellow.

I meet Willie’s gaze, and he smiles, but it’s softer this time, his hand on my shoulder firm and reassuring.

He slips by, clapping his hands and saying something to the women, but my feet stay planted where they are, my mind whirling.

She’s settled right into my world, carving out a place of her own within it, like I hoped she one day would. Doing good things for my friends as she is me, helping find and navigate avenues they never knew they had. Because she’s kind and good, accepting and understanding.

Because she’s Davis.

“I’d give you anything you wanted.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re you, and I’m me.”

It really is that simple for us, isn’t it?

Davis smiles from across the pool, waving me over.

I don’t make her wait, but I sure as fuck cut dinner short.

The second she swallows her last bite, I catch her by the wrist, hauling her from the seat.

“What the hell? I thought you didn’t have to be at the bar ’til seven?” Willie pouts from where we left them at the patio table, plate lifted high in one hand, fork in the other.

“I don’t, but we’ve got homework.”

Davis and Willie both frown.

“Homework?” She cocks her head, entwining her fingers with mine.

“Math homework.” I speak her language, tugging her along.

“Math?” She scowls, confused. “Should we go back to the bar and grab the invoices?”

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“Yep.” I yank her into the house, pushing her against the wall, and take her lips with mine while blindly unlocking the front door, and then we’re at the truck, climbing inside. “It’s a real simple equation.”

“Simple equation…”

“Oh yeah.” I tug her lower lip into my mouth. “Seventy minus one, baby.”

Davis throws her head back with a laugh.

And just like that, the worries of the day are drowned out by the pure perfection that is Davis fucking Franco.