Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Ben
“ S eriously, Benji, why do we not live together so you can make me breakfast every day?” Hallie asks, as she shoves a fork full of the cheese and mushroom omelet I made her into her mouth. “This is so much better than the granola bar I usually grab on the way out of the house in the morning.”
I pin her with a stare. “Jesus, Hal, you’re a whole grown-ass woman. Eat breakfast.”
“But it takes so much time and effort to make it for myself. I like to cook, but it seems like so much trouble when it’s just me.”
This woman, honestly. She would make a full meal, plus dessert, for a friend who was sick but can’t take out a frying pan to make herself breakfast before work. I have always tried to do things for her, but lately the need to be the person she leans on is overwhelming. I want to be the one who makes her breakfast. Who makes her coffee the way she likes it and is there for her when she needs someone to depend on. Her tears earlier when I told her how the morning was going to go shredded my heart.
I have always seen Hallie in a way that no one else has. She wants someone to take care of her so badly, and she doesn’t know how to ask for it. I don’t understand why no one else sees it. Why everyone thinks that she is so self-sufficient and happy to run around taking care of everyone else. I mean, god, she practically fell apart when I told her I was making her breakfast and that I dry-cleaned her suit for court.
“Well, you’ll just have to start staying here more often so I can get you fed and caffeinated before you go to work.” I wink and turn around to grab the coffee pot. I need a second to clear my head of the quick montage of images flickering through my mind of Hallie and me sharing this space for more than just a night of sleepovers between friends in separate bedrooms. The last thing she needs right now is to see how much I want to make that a reality.
“For eggs like this, I would set up camp in your spare room forever.” She eats her last bite and pushes her plate away just as my phone dings.
Jeremy
Check your email.
I immediately open my email app and see it. It’s an email from Kyle Braverman with the subject “Per Our Discussion.” Being with Hallie last night and this morning pushed the meeting from my mind, but now here it is, memorialized in black and white. I open it and see a recap of our discussion. Then I open the attachment and see a proposed term sheet for the deal.
A fucking term sheet. Jesus Christ.
Stonegate would make an investment in Fireside and front all the costs for establishing locations in twenty sports arenas and stadiums over a two-year period, with the option for more as Stonegate contracts with more stadiums for food service. They list the percentage of revenue that we would make from each location, and it details our responsibilities and the control we would have over the look and feel of the bars. It requires that either Jeremy or I travel to each location to approve design choices and various other things I can’t focus on right now. The money alone is staggering.
“Guy didn’t waste any time,” I mumble under my breath.
“What guy?”
I think quickly about the promise Jeremy and I made to each other to keep this to ourselves, even though we told Jordan. But the idea of telling Hallie it’s nothing and moving on feels wrong. I want her to open up to me, so I have to do the same.
“Can you keep a secret, Hal?”
“Did you do something illegal? If we have to hide a body or something, I think that the Pennsylvania bar would probably frown on that. But you’re my best friend and I love you, so I might not do the actual digging, but I’ll drive your getaway car.”
I laugh, feeling in this one moment like a one-hundred-pound weight has been lifted from my chest. Having Hallie here in my space, talking to her over breakfast about what’s going on in our lives, feels so damn right.
“It makes me feel really special that you would risk your law license to drive my getaway car, but it’s nothing like that.” Then I tell her everything about Jeremy and I being blindsided by Kyle, about the deal, about the original location becoming a capital L Location since we would be in stadiums all over the country and therefore pretty well known. What I don’t tell her is any of my feelings about it because I’m not sure what they are yet.
“And how do you feel about it?” Hallie asks carefully. Fuck. I should have known she would jump straight to the point. Lawyers.
“I have no fucking clue, Hal. I’m a Pittsburgh boy who went to school to learn how to open a Pittsburgh bar with my best friend with interesting beer and drinks and good food. I wanted it to be a place for people to hang out and relax, a place where Jeremy and I would get to know our customers and let them feel at home. We did that and I love it so damn much. I always figured we would open another location or two, but this? I never considered something like this. I’m not a businessman. I just knew what felt right to me and ran with it. But a stake in bars all over the country? I just don’t know.”
She studies me for a second, eyes sharp. “It’s a big decision.”
I let out a sigh of relief that seems kind of silly, but god, yeah, it is a big decision. It feels good to have someone acknowledge that and not just tell me that I should do it because it’s a big opportunity.
“It is.”
“How much time do you have to decide?”
“Awhile. He wants our final decision by the end of December so that if we go for it, they can start construction on the new locations in the new year. Jeremy and I decided to take a few days to think about it. He and I are going to talk this weekend.”
“That makes a lot of sense. Take some time to think about it by yourself, but not too much. You tend to get yourself into trouble when you think too hard on your own. Do you want to talk more about it now, or is just telling me enough?”
It does something to me that she knows me well enough to ask the question. “I think that’s enough for now, Hallie girl. It just feels better that someone else knows.”
“You can tell me anything. I guess we both have decisions to make now and big secrets to keep.” She lets out a little laugh but there’s no humor in it. This is the first time she’s brought up what she told me last night, and definitely the first time she’s mentioned that she has a decision to make. She likely won’t tell me if I ask, but I think the decision is whether to stick with the firm or not. I hate that she has been carrying the weight of that choice alone.
“You can always talk to me too, Hal. You don’t have to carry any of it on your own.”
She looks at me for a second before standing up and carrying her plate around the island into the kitchen. She elbows me out of the way and puts her plate in the dishwasher before taking the last sip of her coffee and putting her mug in the dishwasher too. Then she leans up and kisses my cheek.
“Thanks, Benji. I’m going to grab my bag so you can take me to get my car. I have to get to Callahan and get ready for court.”
She turns to walk down the hall but before she gets too far, I reach out and snag her wrist. I turn her back towards me and wrap my arms around her. Everything this morning from her breaking down to sharing breakfast and coffee to telling big secrets in the dim morning light has me thinking about it being like this all the time. What all this more with Hallie would be like. I try not to think about it too often or I’ll go insane, but right now those thoughts are pinging around my brain like lightning. I need to feel her against me more than I need almost anything else in my life right now.
Hallie relaxes against me, wrapping her arms around my waist and holding on like I'm her only tether. She needs this. She's my anchor, and I'll gladly be hers. But I need more than just to feel her against me. I want to push her up against the kitchen island, kiss her, and drag my mouth down her body until my face is between her legs before carrying her to my bedroom and burying myself inside her until she moans my name. And I need to put a stop to that train of thought immediately before my cock stands up and takes notice that the girl we want to be ours in every way imaginable is wrapped around us. So I give her one last squeeze and let her go.
“Get your stuff, Hallie girl. You have a family to make.”
Her brilliant smile before she goes to grab her bag burrows right into my chest where I’m sure it will stay for the rest of the day.