“Oh, my! We’ll excuse me, my scrumptious chocolate drop. I hope you didn’t feel the slightest bit of disrespect. There is no way that common men such as ourselves could ever feel worthy of being in the presence of your exquisite beauty. Are you a soror of ours?” Eric said before reciting their Greek chant. Mark followed behind him.
Dawn was cool about it and returned her sorority intone. She turned to look at me, I had assumed, for answers.
“My escorts. Eric Garrity and Mark Richardson,” I introduced. She greeted them and then turned back to me with big eyes and lungs filled with air. I cut her off, “Oh. And no. I’m not Greek. Not my thing.”
She released the air and seductively twisted her neck, “Well, what is your thing? I’ve been trying to figure that out for a while now.”
In my peripheral, I could see Mark nudging Eric and Eric’s mouth swinging open. My phone rang again. This time it was Brett calling with important information about my travel. I knew he wouldn’t be available for long that evening so I had to take the call.
I answered the phone, “Brett? Yeah, hang on.”
I looked over to Dawn and answered her question, “Merging and acquiring at the moment.” Her brows furrowed as she chewed on my words.
Then I peered over to Mark and Eric, “I was just about to tell you that I’m gonna head back over to the house. I have a few contracts to read over and an important call from the West Coast that I have to take soon. I’ll have the car come back and collect you whenever you’re ready.” I gave them dap. “Thanks for inviting me out, my dudes.” I guess, sensing my sudden flux, they didn’t say much outside of agreeing to my plan.
Dawn looked greatly disappointed. I knew better than to keep blowing her off and that very soon I would have to give her an ultimatum, but I was hoping to consider their offer and see which way the wind blew me first. I reached over to her and gave her a quick hug and kiss on the cheek before taking my call and walking back out to the car.
Back at the house, I quickly showered and set up my control center in the television room so that I could get some work done. I was tired, but anxious to knock out a few pertinent action items before Rayna’s called. I’d poured myself a glass of brandy to help me relax. If there was anything that could unwind me it was work, and if there were an abundance of anything in my life it was work.
Once I was done renewing contracts with a few of my vendors, I pulled out Bacote & Taylor’s Planning and Public Relations Corp. proposal. This preliminary contract was to launch the re-opening of Cobalt. The earnings of the club were declining. We were riding the initial high wave of the novelty of being a new and trendy club on Santa Monica Blvd, but three other clubs in the vicinity had opened since us and clientele is finicky. People are typically with the hype and if you aren’t new or innovative, you aren’t hype. I wanted to launch with fresh ideas and mainstay themes.
Taylor and Bacote were very promising. Much of the proposal read as their verbal pitch did, just more in detail. They even introduced suggestions for minor cosmetic upgrades to the bathrooms and bar. They have record label connections that were similar to mine, only they were driving hard at adding live performances to our identity by having someone there weekly. I hadn’t thought of that. I needed to know if it would increase my liability and therefore change my premiums. I made my notes with my infamous green pen, that denoted money, when the doorbell rang. I thought it was strange that the guys didn’t have their keys, but figured they were too drunk to even know.
I swung the door open, prepared to cuss their asses out when I found the radiant Dawn Taylor shivering and rubbing her hands against her arms.
I jolted. “Come in. What are you doing here?” I asked as I moved aside to let her through the door.