Chapter Three
Marisol was on pins and needles as she waited for her brothers to say something—literally anything—just to break the staring contest they were trapped in. Each of them was a varying degree of pissed. It was easy to see on their faces and in their posture. MJ and Luis were taking up her entire couch, both staring at the floor between their feet. Freddie was sitting in her worn-out recliner with his fingers so tight on the arms of the chair that she was a little worried for her favorite piece of furniture, and Ricky paced to and from the kitchen.
She stood in the middle of it all with her hands on her hips.
“What do we do now?” Freddie asked, finally breaking the silence.
They all looked to her for answers. It sometimes drove her crazy, but she couldn’t really blame them. The family had sent her to college with the specific goal of handling the business side of things after graduation. So, basically, this was her responsibility to figure out.
“We don’t have that much money…do we?”
“No, we don’t,” she told him with a shake of her head. “At least, not right now.”
“Thirty days isn’t long enough for us to raise that much money, Sis.” Luis rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he stared at her.
Ricky snorted. “Not unless we start charging a hundred dollars a taco.”
“What if we sell the trucks?” MJ proposed, speaking up for the first time, his expression hopeful. “I might know a guy that would be interested if we’re looking for a buyer.”
“That won’t work,” Marisol said with a shake of her head before he could get too excited about that idea. “For one, they’re not worth enough.”
“Hey now,” Freddie interrupted with his hands out. “Let’s not insult The Flying Tacos. I don’t know about Luis’s truck, but other than needing new tires, new AC, a little bit of exhaust work, and an engine rebuild, my truck is top-notch.”
The siblings were completely silent for a half a second before they all burst out laughing.
“Exactly.” Marisol chuckled, grateful that they were still able to find one thing a little funny about the shit situation. “We couldn’t sell them even if we wanted to though, you guys. The business plan only works if we have the trucks’ income from summer festivals and lunch rushes over at the convention center. We’re counting on the money coming in from them to pay for the remainder of the reno we’ll need done.”
“The renovation for the building we can’t afford to buy?” MJ asked, his flat tone of voice bringing her back to the problem at hand.
“Yeah, MJ,” she snapped, her temper getting the better of her after such a turd of a day. Not only had her day started out pretty craptastically, but it had also ended the same way. She was both mentally and physically exhausted. All day long she’d been running through scenarios to figure out how to fix this , and she was more than a little on edge. She loved their family business just as much as her brothers, but she wasn’t about to let them get lippy with her when she was just as upset as they were.
Medina’s Tacos was her life.
Literally. She didn’t date. She didn’t have hobbies. She ran the restaurant. That was it. It was what she lived and breathed for. She couldn’t remember a time when the shop wasn’t her sole focus. She’d been working there since she was old enough to wipe down tables, graduating to counter service and then liquor service once she’d hit legal age. There wasn’t a part of her family taco shop she didn’t know like the back of her hand. She was practically married to the place.
“Do you think I don’t feel like shit about this? Do you know what kind of pressure I’ve been under these last few months to finish my degree while also working on plans for the shop?”
“I know and I’m sorry,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m just frustrated.”
“Me too.” Marisol handed him the beer she’d been sipping so he could take a swig. She knew he loved the restaurant just as much as she did, which was why she wasn’t smacking the back of his head right now.
“That’s it then? We give up?” Ricky asked, getting a few more bottles out of the fridge to pass around.
“No,” she answered after another swallow of the cheap beer her brothers had left the last time they’d visited. She needed something stronger, but it would have to do until she restocked her tequila supply. “If any of this is going to work, we need that space.”
“How are we going to buy it if we don’t have the money?” Luis tipped the bottle he was holding in her direction to point at her. “What’s your fancy degree say we should do now?”
Marisol snorted at his use of the term “fancy” when it came to describing the classes that she’d taken the last couple of years at the local community college. The only thing fancy about her college diploma was the fact that she’d gotten one, unlike her brothers who’d barely passed high school and opted for marriage and babies two seconds after they graduated.
“I’ve been looking into ideas for pulling in the amount of cash we need and—”
“Nobody is going to pay a hundred bucks a taco,” Ricky interrupted after draining his beer.
“You’re right,” she said with a roll of her eyes when he belched. “Nobody is going to pay a hundred bucks a taco, but maybe we can sell enough tacos to make a dent in all those G’s.”
Opening her well-loved Star Wars tote, Marisol pulled out a stack of papers. “I have a few ideas, but for this to work, we’re going to need some major hustle.”
“What’s the plan?” Luis asked, reaching for the papers she was shuffling around.
Marisol handed him the numbers she’d run down for the food trucks. “I know we’ve been leaning on truck number two to handle the overflow at the end of the block, but I think it’s time to switch things up a bit. Here is a list of business centers I think we should start parking at over lunch.”
“You want us to take The Flying Tacos into KC?” Freddie flipped through the papers.
“Just the one taco because the other one is definitely not flying,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s going to stay right where it broke down. We can’t afford to put any money into it. Plus, we need it for the overflow.”
“You think one lunch truck is going to make us the money we need?” Freddie scoffed.
“No,” she answered quickly before he could get any more worked up, “but if we hit the convention center and those other business parks, I know it can make at least two to three times the amount it would normally bring in just sitting on our block. Hell, it might even make more than that if we can figure out a way to stock the trucks with T-shirts that aren’t splattered with grease. At twenty bucks a pop, we can turn a tidy profit—”
“Which still isn’t anywhere near fifteen grand, Sis.”
“That’s because it’s not the entire plan, Luis.” Marisol rubbed her aching eyes. She’d been staring at numbers so much today, it was starting to hurt to keep them open. “I swear to God, the next one of you that talks to me like I’m an idiot is gonna get nut punched.”
“Hey now,” Ricky said, covering his crotch with both hands. “No need to go after the boys.”
“It’s times like these that I feel bad for your wives,” she mumbled, pulling out the newspaper she’d snagged at the grocery store earlier. She made a mental note to apologize to their women the next time she saw them. “They have to be saints to put up with you guys.”
“What’s that?”
“This,” she announced, holding up the paper like it was the holy grail, “is the other part of my idea.”
“You want to advertise in the paper?” MJ guessed.
“Not exactly,” she said, flipping it open to the page that had caught her attention earlier. The puff piece she’d read about the local MC had given her a couple of ideas in how they might be able to make up the difference. The club had been around longer than a lot of other businesses in this town and had become beloved to the community. Not only did they do a lot of outreach work, but their semi-famous garage also brought in bigwigs from all over the country to their little college town in Kansas. The waitlist to get one of their custom bikes was about a decade long, and from what Marisol had seen, they’d earned every bit of that success. The bikes that rolled out of their shop were nothing less than pieces of art.
“The Iron Seeds Celebrate Thirty Years…” Ricky read the headline before giving her a look. “What does that have to do with us?”
“Well,” she began, handing the article over to the closest brother. She’d let them read it themselves for the deets while she gave them a general rundown. “According to that article, The Iron Seeds are planning to have a big bash to celebrate not only the anniversary of their garage opening but also the thirtieth wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Iron.”
“And?” Luis asked, obviously having trouble picking up what she was trying to lay down.
“People get those types of parties catered, you big dummy.” Rolling her eyes at her thick-skulled brothers, Marisol attempted to make it a bit clearer. “Think about it. They’re having a big party that’s going to need lots of food and liquor. What better food to have brought in for an MC shindig than tacos and tequila?”
“Hey!” Ricky snapped his fingers, looking excited. “Do you think Elena would hook us up now that she belongs to the Iron Seeds?”
She nodded, although she wasn’t quite sure if Elena belonged to anyone. Despite the fact that her friend was dating a couple members of the MC, Elena would take exception to Marisol’s brothers inferring that someone owned her sassy ass.
“I’ve already called and left a message to see if she can suggest us for the job,” she relayed, summing up the gist of the conversation she’d left via voicemail on her bestie’s phone. “I don’t know how much pull she has with Vincent and Archer Iron, but considering they’re at our place once a week for lunch, I’m thinking we have a good chance of at least getting a sit down to talk. They love Medina’s tacos.”
“They’re not the only ones though,” Luis added with a nod. “My truck is always busy with their guys when the counter is too busy inside.”
“You think we can make enough money off the party for it to work?” MJ asked, holding out the article for her to take.
“No, but if we add it to what we get from moving the truck to hit the hottest lunch spots, and then combine that with what we bring in from the shop, back-up truck, and merch sales—” She paused to look at the numbers she’d figured out earlier. “I would say that we’re close enough that I can probably cover the rest.”
“We don’t want you to throw your car fund into the pot, Sis,” MJ repeated once more, with a firm look on his face. “You’ve already put in more than your share.”
“I know, but times like these call for drastic measures, and if it means we’re back on track then it’s worth it. We’re in this together, right?” she asked with a smile. “It’s not that big of a deal anyway. I can handle catching the bus for another year, as long as one of your punk asses promises to pick me up if I miss it every now and then.”
“We got you,” Luis promised with a nod.
She knew her family had her back; it was one of the reasons why she was willing to go all in when it came to her savings—and even backup savings—to make sure their dream of Miguel’s Taqueria came to life.
“It’s going to take some major hustle to pull it off. I’m talking about all hands on deck. We need to get in touch with Uncle Chewy for his liquor connections and see what kind of break he can finagle. If we price things right, we could turn a tidy profit on the tequila and beer alone.”
“I’ll have Giselle give her brother a call. Benny’s been getting a killer deal on produce, and I’ll see if he could hook us up.” Luis’s brother-in-law ran an Italian restaurant and had used his contacts to help them in the past.
“That’s the plan?” Ricky asked. “We bank Elena’s party to fix things?”
“It’s not Elena’s party, but yes, that’s what I’m banking on. You got a better idea?” she asked, not hearing a peep out of any of them once she’d lain down the invite. “Okay, then. Sounds like we’re going with my plan.”