I love this bar. Coming in here every day isn’t work to me. It’s not just entertainment as Lance assumes it is or just a paycheck like Walker thinks. It’s not even some attempt to stay young and half-assed irresponsible like my sister, Blaire, points out every other time we talk.
I’ve seen people come in here ready to drive off a cliff and leave with a smile on their face. Why? Because I poured them a shot and listened to whatever bullshit they had to say, or they ran into a friend they haven’t seen in a couple of weeks and got distracted. People let their guard down here, admitting their feelings. Others cut loose and enjoy Friday night because it’s fucking Friday night. This place brings people together in a way most don’t understand, and being a part of it makes me feel as if I’m doing something worthwhile.
Today, I can’t remember any of that. I can’t find the good this place usually brings. There’s only a wobbliness that started when I walked into the apartment earlier.
It’s as if I’ve forgotten how calming Crave is to me and the only way to get that peace is to skip back in time to this morning. To her lying upstairs on my futon. To the sleepy look in her eyes.
“Who’s that?” Peck asks as he walks behind me.
“Who?” I glance up, annoyed to have my attention drawn away from Hadley. Following his gaze as it settles near the storeroom, I see a head of blond hair with purple streaks framing a heart-shaped face. “Oh, that?”
“Yeah. That.”
“That’s Navie.”
Peck climbs on the stool across from me again. This time, he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at her.
I expected as much when I hired her. Hell, I hoped as much when I hired her—not so much from Peck, but from patrons.
Navie is pretty. Tanned, muscled body, full lips, and cheekbones that nearly touch her blue eyes. She’s smart and cool and can talk to anyone about anything. But it’s her moxie that makes her perfect for this job.
“Hey,” she singsongs as she approaches. “I hope you don’t mind, but I just swept the storeroom.”
“Why would I mind?”
“Because it doesn’t look like you’ve done it in maybe forever. I thought it might be some barkeeping superstition or something. Like if you don’t sweep the floors, you get good luck.”
“Nah,” Peck says, leaning forward. “Mach’s just a mess.”
Navie turns her attention to my cousin. Her body follows suit. “And he’s apparently also rude. I’m Navie.”
“Nice to meet ya. I’m Peck.”
They exchange a smile that has me rolling my eyes.
“You’re on the clock,” I tell her.
“This is a part of my job. I’m just getting to know the customers,” Navie says.
“He’s not a customer.”
“I am too!” Peck bristles. “I’m in here almost every day.”
“Customers pay,” I point out.
Navie laughs. “Is he the one you were telling me would rack up charges?”
“That’s him.”
“I always pay, though,” Peck protests. “Don’t let him fool ya, Navie.”
She laughs again. The melody does something to my cousin. As she walks back toward the storeroom, Peck floats behind her. I almost yell at him to leave her alone, but before I do, my gaze lands on my binder at the end of the bar.
A sinking sensation washes over me as my head muddles. I should be training Navie. I want to reminisce about Hadley. I need to be preparing for the meeting I have with Spencer Eubanks in less than an hour.
Sliding the book around, I open it. My entire business plan is sprawled open—including my proposal to Eubanks. Bank statements and credit letters and all the other bullshit he wanted are organized in little clear inserts for his viewing pleasure.
I wish it didn’t come to this. But even if I used all of what’s left of my inheritance from my parents to buy the building on Ash Street outright, I wouldn’t have enough left to do the renovations necessary to make it what I want it to be. I need him to let me give him half and pay the rest in installments.
Sweet-talking people has never been my strength. Lance got all of that in the gene pool. I sure as hell don’t kiss ass either. Lance got that too. What I did get is a stubborn streak that might just come in handy for the first time in my life.
“What are you doing?” Peck asks before a fresh bottle of beer cracks open.
“Looking at this shit for Eubanks.” I flip a page in the binder. “This is probably my last shot at convincing him. If it doesn’t happen today, it’s not gonna happen.”
“You know if I had the money, I’d loan it to you.”
I look up at Peck as he takes a long swig of his drink and am reminded why I like him. As much crap as he gives me, and I give him, he’s good people. The best people, really.
“I know,” I say, looking back down. “I appreciate that.”
“I mean, if I loaned you money, you’d have to be lenient on my tab, right?”
A glare is what I aim to fire at him, but a laugh comes out instead. “You’re a jackass.”
The door opens, and Spencer walks in. A crisp white button-down with khakis looks as out of place in Crave as a nun would. He takes in the space as if he’s grading it, measuring my worthiness to pay back a loan by the looks of my bar.
My teeth grind together as I remind myself to be nice. Play nice. Let this judgmental asshole do his thing while I do mine. Peck turns his back to Spencer and makes a face before tipping back his beer and disappearing from my peripheral vision.
I take a deep breath and unlock my jaw. “Thanks for coming by,” I say. Clearing my throat, I extend my hand. Spencer takes it and shakes it like a wet noodle. “Good to see you.”
“Nice to see you too, Machlan,” he says. Propping his briefcase on a stool, he makes no attempt to hide the fact he’s surveying the bar again. “How’s business?”
“Closed, right now. But it’s good otherwise. I wish you’d come in last night. You could’ve seen for yourself.”
He adjusts his collar. “Not really my scene.”
My fingers clench at my side as I remind myself, once again, this is a business deal. I can’t tell him off and escort him out. I can’t lose my temper.
Yet.
Business deal or not, if he steps over a line—he steps over a line. The line of respect is there for everyone whether they wear an ironed shirt or not.
“I gathered all the data you asked for,” I say, scooting the binder his way. “Financial statements. A business plan. Letters from my suppliers showing I pay on time every month.”
His gaze falls to the blue plastic container and then back at me. “You know, Machlan, I appreciate you jumping through these hoops. I do. And it means a lot. But …”
“What?”
“You’re asking me to extend a line of credit that’s pretty substantial.”
He looks down his long, angular nose at me as though I’m the gum on the bottom of his designer shoe. My instincts buck against the insinuation, my body falling into a specific role I always do when dealing with situations like these—situations where someone thinks their shit don’t stink and mine does.
Looking him directly in the eye, appreciating the way he’s smart enough to squirm, I square my shoulders with his. “I’m not asking you to loan me thirty grand. I’m asking you to let me give you thirty thousand dollars and then take me at my word that I’ll give you the next thirty thousand in installments over the next six years.”
“I—”
“With interest,” I add. “You’ll make more money off me than off someone who can cough up sixty grand right now. You know that. And, if I don’t pay up, you still have thirty thousand in your pocket and get the property back too.”
He takes off his glasses and tucks them at his side. “I understand the way this works. Clearly. It’s what I do for a living.”
“Then why is this a hard decision?”
His shoulders fall as a breath streams in the air. “I’ll be
honest with you. I’m not sure you'll turn a profit over there. Not with the demographic you plan on going after.”
“Kids?” I laugh. “Kids spend more money than their parents these days.”
“But not at your price points. Look, Machlan, you’re not going to make a living off a juvenile version of a bar.”
I’m not sure if it’s the eye-roll I think he adds in as the glasses slide over his face or the way he nearly spits the words like my idea is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. Either way, I heard a chuckle roll past my lips that most people are smart enough to realize isn’t a reaction to something entertaining.
Spencer isn’t that smart. He laughs.
“Look, Spencer. I’m not trying to make a living off your building, man. I make a living here.” I lift a brow, hoping he chooses this as a fight to pick, but he doesn’t, so I continue. “The building is something I want to do because I want to do it.”
“Let me get this straight. You don’t want to make money off this venture?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I don’t expect to make a living off it. I want to make enough to cover my costs. If I pocket anything after, that’s great.”
His glasses come off again. “I don’t understand why you’d go out of your way for this. That building needs a lot of work. It’s not easy starting a business. Getting permits. Getting tax papers in order. Why bother if you’re not turning a profit?”
I look at the ceiling. A barrage of memories trickle through my mind as I try to come up with words that would explain to someone like Spencer, someone who probably had the world handed to him on a silver tray, why this would matter to me.
When I look at him, he’s not as irritated with my lack of a response as I thought he would be. Instead, a curious look paints his face.
“When I was a teenager,” I tell him, my throat all of a sudden going dry, “my parents died in a boating accident. I was supposed to be there, spending quality family time. I promised them.” A swallow barely passes down my throat. “Instead, I was off with my buddies doing dumb shit, and they didn’t know where to even look for me.”
“So you were an irresponsible youth?”
“You have no idea.” I jerk my brain off that slippery slope and back to reality, ignoring the sadness that seems to fill every cavern in my body.
“Kids do dumb things,” he says.
“They do. But they do less dumb things when they have smart things to do instead. And that’s why I want this building, Spencer.” I flip open my binder and whirl it around to face him. My finger jabs a page with a mock-up of the interior I plan on installing. “If anyone in the world understands young, dumb kids, it’s me. I wrote the book on it.”
He looks at me over the rim of his glasses. “You aren’t really helping yourself here.”
“This place is a bar. People think of bars as places lushes go to get tanked. That’s true to some extent, I guess, but not completely. This place keeps a lot of people from drinking down country roads. From staying home when they’re lonely and drinking themselves to death. Instead, they come here, catch a conversation, maybe a game, and then they go home. Alive. Maybe even feeling a little better than they were when they arrived. I want to recreate this with pool tables and game systems and—”
“And not turn a profit.” He closes the binder and sighs. “The truth of the matter is a business relationship like this demands a lot of trust, and that’s something I don’t give easily.”
I can’t argue with that.
My gaze lands on the binder. Sandwiched inside that plastic cover is weeks and months of planning. Of a harebrained, half-assed idea that consolidated into something I want to do. I need to do, really, in some weird way.
His hand goes to his briefcase, and I look up. He’s ready to walk out of here, money still in his proverbial pocket, and I don’t know how to keep him here. I don’t know what to say. I know what he needs to hear, but nothing I can say will work.
There’s nothing I can do that I haven’t already done.
What I need is a miracle, and it’s been proven I’m not the miracle-getting kind of guy.
Ten
Hadley
Having no plan is better than having a bad plan.
I think.
Looking up at the unlit letters of Crave, I wonder if Machlan plans to fix the ‘a’. It seems to drop a little more every time I see it. Knowing him, he probably thinks it makes the place seem less yuppie and fully expects to just let it hang until it eventually breaks free and falls to the sidewalk.
Kind of like me.
Rolling my eyes at my dramatics—although not completely untrue—I take my keys and stick them in my pocket. But I don’t move. I just sit in my car and look at the bar.
I don’t know why he loves this place so much—more than he might’ve ever loved me.
There are nights when I’m lying in bed thinking about my past, and I wonder, if Machlan hadn’t bought Crave, would we have had a chance? Was the bar the nail in our coffin or the stamp on an ending that was predestined from the start?
Samuel’s name flashes on my phone. I silence it while wishing I could silence myself.
Climbing out of the car, I take my time walking down the sidewalk. There’s no hurry because I don’t know what I’m going to say.
I tug open the door. Cool air rushes against my skin as my stomach tumbles at Machlan’s energy pummeling me from somewhere close. My eyes adjust to the light.
Machlan is standing at the end of the bar, wearing a pair of jeans and a black collared shirt stretched over his body. The sleeves are short enough to display the end of the colorful art decorating the top of his right arm. It’s only when the person beside him turns to face me do I even realize he’s not alone.
“Hadley?” Spencer Eubanks’s face breaks into a smile. “Is that you?”
“Mr. Eubanks,” I say, hoping I’m covering my confusion. “What are you doing here?”
Machlan stands behind Spencer. His hand motions between me and Spencer and ends with a shrug. I give him a subtle shake of the head.
“I was talking with Machlan about a business proposal,” he says. “What are you doing here?”
I ignore his second question and, instead, focus on the first. “A business proposal? This sounds interesting.”
“It’s not.” Machlan flashes me a look. “What do you need, Had?”
Climbing on a barstool a couple of seats down from the end to leave plenty of space between me and the men, I smile. “I wanted to talk to you about a proposal of my own.”
There’s a glimmer in Machlan’s eyes that tells me he took that the wrong way. My thighs pull together in an ill-fated attempt at dulling the combustion at the seat of my core.
The fucker somehow reads this, or at least predicts it, because the corner of his lip flickers toward the ceiling. I glare at him for good measure.
“Do you know each other well?” Spencer asks. His question feels like someone just walked in on me dressing, and I actually jump.
I laugh. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I asked if you know each other well.”
“I’ve known Mach since I was fourteen,” I tell him. “We’ve been friends for a long time.”
Machlan shakes his head, walking around the bar and positioning himself between Spencer and me. My focus starts to waver as the intoxicating mixture of his cologne and energy wallops me from head to toe.
“Friends,” Machlan repeats. His lips twist in amusement. “That’s us. Friends.”
“Maybe that’s too strong of a word.” I flip my gaze back to Spencer. “We’ve been acquaintances for a long time. My brother and Machlan are best friends. We’re just in the same circle, I guess.”
Machlan completely ignores Spencer’s presence. He pierces me with his gaze. I shift in my seat and try to block out the questions Machlan is burning into my brain.
I take a deep breath and try to redirect this mess. “How is your mother?” I ask Spe
ncer.
“Oh, she’s good. She and Dad are leaving for their end-of-summer vacation next week. It’s all I hear about.”
“Did they pick Oregon or Maine?” I ask.
Spencer starts to answer, but Machlan cuts him off.
“How do you two know each other again?” he asks, obviously perturbed.
“Hadley has worked in my mother’s dental office for quite a while now,” Spencer says. “Mom thinks a lot of her.”
My cheeks heat. “Well, your mom is pretty amazing.”
Spencer releases the handle to his briefcase. His arms cross over his chest as he looks at me, then at Machlan, and finally back at me.
The feeling in the room changes, shifting from an easy banter to something more serious. Machlan feels it too because he takes a step toward me.
“Hadley …” Spencer takes a deep breath, looks briefly at Machlan, and then rests his attention back on me. “Do you come here a lot?”
I have no idea what’s going on. The way he asks this question makes me immediately uncomfortable, and Machlan’s reaction to it worries me. He stretches his neck like he does when he’s frustrated, and that’s never, ever a good thing.
Suddenly, I’m curious. Probably too curious for my own good.
“I do,” I lie. “Why do you ask?”
Machlan mumbles something under his breath, but I can’t make it out.
“How much do you know about this business?” Spencer asks.
“Let’s leave her out of this,” Machlan says.
“Um, let’s not.” I lean against the bar and settle in.
Spencer sighs. “I know Hadley. I trust her judgment.”
“That’d be your first mistake,” Machlan says.
I rise up. “Excuse me?” Not that I particularly care what this is all about, but I’m not about to be excluded from it now. Not after that little comment. “I know a ton about this business.”
“You do, do you?” Machlan asks.
Spencer smiles. “Have you ever worked here?”
My heartbeat quickens as I see my opening. Machlan sees it too. His lips part to interject before I can say something stupid, which I’m about to do. But, lucky for me, I can talk faster than him.
Crave: The Gibson Boys, Book #3 Page 7