“How can I help you?” I finally say.
“Coffee, black, biggest cup you have,” he replies, reaching up and wiping the rain from his forehead.
“It’s wet out there, huh?” My lame attempt at making conversation. I blame Mr. Super Sexy Beard. He’s distracting and has my brain scrambled.
That smirk again. “You could say that.”
I can feel my face heat. Funny how when he blatantly caught me checking him out, I couldn’t care less, but the minute I open my mouth and words fly out, I’m embarrassed. Lesson learned: ogle the sexy man, but do not engage in conversation.
I fumble with the cup, making an even bigger spectacle of myself. I focus on the task at hand and fill the extra-large to the brim with steaming hot brew. Carefully I add the lid and then turn to face him. “That’ll be two dollars,” I say, carefully sliding the cup across the counter.
He gracefully pulls a five out of his wallet and hands it to me. I don’t make eye contact as I make his change from the register. When I lift my head to count back his change, he’s already at the door. “Sir,” I yell out, waving his three dollars in the air. “Your change.”
“Keep it.” He winks.
Then he’s gone. Like a figment of my imagination, no one here to witness that he truly does exist. I should have snuck a picture. Damn! I always think of that after the fact. Not that I could have been covert about it anyway. I barely held on to the stupid cup.
The rain is still pouring outside and Mr. Super Sexy Beard has been my one and only customer all morning. With a heavy sigh, I perch on my stool and pull out my phone. I scroll through my social media accounts and get lost in what everyone I know had to eat in the last twenty-four hours. This is what my life has been reduced to.
IT’S AMAZING HOW money can change your life. A year ago I was working construction, busting my ass day in and day out, living paycheck to paycheck. I enjoyed the work, being able to build something from the ground up, seeing my progress. I started right out of high school, since college wasn’t my thing—hell, school wasn’t my thing—and I was good with the choice I made. I knew I would never be rich, but I was able to support myself.
Life was good.
Then it got better.
At least after the initial shock wore off. The condensed version is that my grandmother, my dad’s mom whom I thought was dead, wasn’t. Until she was. When she passed, she left me, the grandson she’d shunned, her fortune.
Ten million dollars.
At first I refused it, but after some thought and talks with my parents and my best friend Zane, I decided to accept. My first order of business was to pay off my parents’ house. I tried to buy them a new one, but they threw a fit insisting that their home was all they needed for the two of them. Mom cried and said all of our memories are there, and her tears had me conceding. I also bought them both new cars and transferred a million to their bank account. They were pissed but soon got over it.
My next step was an investment banker. I wanted to use the money wisely. I kept my job at the construction company and pretty much just laid low. Six months after meeting with the investment banker, I had gained just under one million.
“Sleeping on the job, I see,” Zane says, pulling up a bucket beside me.
I motion toward the laptop I’m holding. “Not hardly. Just thinking about how things have changed in the last year.”
“True that.” He holds his fist out for me and I don’t leave him hanging.
“Why are you not at work?”
“Got rained out. How are things coming along?” He surveys the room.
“Good. I met with the contractor when I got here this morning and everything is on schedule.”
“You settle on a name?” he asks.
“Yep.” I click the file on my desktop and pull up the logo. “Club Titan,” I say, spinning the screen so he can see it.
“Hell yeah!” He grabs my laptop to get a better look at the logo. “This is sick, man.”
“The designer nailed it. Actually, I’m glad you stopped by. There’s something that I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
“Shoot,” he says, handing me the laptop.
I close it and put it back in the case. “I want you to come work for me.”
He opens his mouth, but I stop him by raising my hand. “Just hear me out. I’ve known you my entire life. I need people I can trust along for the ride in this adventure. No matter how hard I’ve tried to hide my inheritance, word gets around. You have your choice of capacity. Security, bar, overall management. I don’t care.”
“Do you even need all those positions?” he asks.
I shrug. “Honestly, I have not the first fucking clue what I need at this point.”
Zane throws his head back and laughs. “Count me in, my man. You name it and I’m there.”
“Yeah? Why don’t you go ahead and put in your notice and you will be the first official employee of Club Titan. We can work out the specifics of your position as we go.”
Zane doesn’t hesitate; he pulls his phone out of his pocket, taps the screen a few times, and places it next to his ear. I hear a deep voice pick up on the other line, and Zane tells him he’s giving his notice. The voice on the other end gets louder, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. Zane gets a huge grin on his face as he hangs up.
“Well?”
“Marty, the dick that he is, was pissed. Said not to bother with two weeks and that he would mail me my last check.”
“Looks like you start today.” Reaching into my laptop case, I pull out the legal notebook I was working on last night. I rip off a corner of the top sheet and write his new salary. “This is what I was thinking. Salary, of course. I’m working with an agency to get a full benefits package, so that will come later.”
“Crew, this is . . . a lot of zeros.”
I try not to laugh. “It’s a six-figure salary. For you, my right-hand man. I’m really going to be relying on you, so I need you to be well compensated.”
Zane studies me for a minute. He must realize that I’m not budging on this. “All right,” he concedes. “Where do we start?”
“Staff, I think. Construction will be finished in two weeks, at least that’s what they tell me. At that point we’ll need to get the place furnished and staff trained.”
“You have an opening date in mind?”
I’ve thought about this long and hard, and after talking to the contractor, I settled on a date. “Yeah, Halloween weekend. The thirtieth is on a Friday. My hope is to have an invite-only soft opening the weekend before.”
“That’s just under two months away.”
“Right. All the more reason you starting today is a good thing. I’m thinking we run some ads in the local papers. Maybe put some fliers up at the college.”
“Okay. I’ll get something made up today and start getting the word out.”
“I have an appointment today to meet with the city to finalize my liquor license. The designer is supposed to be here at three. You can sit in on that too.”