Chapter 23 Ewan #2
“Sure did!” Milo responds, working his way out from behind the bar. “I tried the plunger and nothing. Didn’t feel like messing with it after that, worried I’d make more of a mess…”
His voice fades as the two of them walk toward the men’s room, having about as casual a conversation about a clogged toilet as possible. A problem I’d gladly face right now rather than dealing with this. Seems like that one has a much easier solution.
“Have you talked to Maisey about this?” Gus asks, pulling me back to our conversation.
“No. And don’t go saying anything to Margeaux either.
” I point at him, hoping it comes off as a threat.
I know it doesn’t work, the eight years between us even as adults too much of a distance for me to ever be anything other than baby brother.
“I need to know what the options are. What this would look like. How it could all play out.”
Gus nods, his face softening with understanding. “If you move forward with this, I’ll have to talk to someone in legal. Margeaux’s our IP specialist, but depending on how quiet you want to keep it, she might be the best one to draw up the contract.”
“I just need to find a way to make it all work. Let her have her dream of taking this contract, while not losing everything I’ve worked for here. Somehow still getting this partnership with Auburn off the ground.”
“Auburn?”
I grin sheepishly. Guess I left that detail out earlier.
“Yeah. They’re looking to expand one of their programs and, in doing so, partner with me. It’d give me the ability to expand, as well as a steady stream of qualified people. Err, well, in theory qualified, if that’s what they’re getting a degree in.”
“Ewan!” Gus is up and off his stool in no time, arms encircling me in a bear hug. I squeeze him back, thankful for his love and enthusiasm. “Proud of you.”
“Thanks. But, this stays here. It’s not official, and…”
“Everything’s confidential, you know that,” he assures me, letting go and sitting back down.
Time for real talk though. Because my brother being excited for me isn’t solving anything. If nothing else, it’s making this tougher.
“But I need to find a way to make it all work, so that—”
“You need to talk to Maisey about it.”
I shake my head. No. That’s not the answer. Not yet.
“She knows.” It’s not a lie. She does know about the opportunity.
Not all the details, since last night’s conversation got derailed with the bomb she had to drop, but still.
She does know about it. So what she doesn’t know is that I’m here, having this conversation.
“It’s fine. But if she chooses Reykjavík, am I able to make it all work? ”
Gus pauses, watching Milo as he slides back behind the bar. “You know you can’t do all that from overseas, right? That you’re going to have to be here to get that partnership up and running and off the ground. Maybe if it were more established, you could risk it, but…the first year? No way.”
Swallowing hard, I look away, hating hearing those words from him, the reality of it hitting me all over again.
I wasn’t kidding when I said I didn’t get much sleep last night.
I was up all night running every possible scenario through my head.
Not a single one of them ended with me being able to establish the expansion I want—and that the university would require—if I’m not in Hickory Hills.
My hope that Gus would have a suggestion that I couldn’t come up with is dwindling by the second.
“Distance isn’t an option?” Milo asks, cutting in.
I turn to him, more serious than I’ve ever been. About anything.
“I chose this town over her once. I can’t…won’t do that again.”
My brothers nod, their expressions telling me they get it.
That they understand exactly what I’m feeling when it comes to Maisey and my unwillingness to back down on that point.
Both of them know what it’s like, having experienced their own moments when it came to their partners that they chose not to back down.
Milo’s resulting in an actual fistfight, while Gus almost walked away from Hayes altogether.
“So, back to my original question, what does it look like if I sign The Booby Trap over to Hayes? How much control do I get to keep?”
“What do you mean?” Gus looks confused.
“I need the store to stay mine. I need to retain control. I don’t want someone else coming in and changing everything.”
Gus looks to Milo then back to me. “It’s never not going to be yours, Ewan.
All this would do would be to bring the store under the Hayes umbrella.
You’d no longer be sole proprietor, but The Booby Trap would still remain fully under you and your control.
Just like Southern Brothers belongs to Milo and Brandt, but is under the umbrella. ”
“You think we don’t run this place?” Milo sasses. “We don’t listen to this guy just because he thinks he’s the boss.”
“I am the boss,” Gus reminds him. Milo shrugs, not completely convinced.
“The Booby Trap would have Hayes Industries backing from a funding, payroll, and insurance perspective, which would change the overall financials, and we’d want to look at the property ownership and potentially create an LLC if that makes more sense, but that’s what we have Ernie the tax guy for. ”
I blink, trying to take it all in. Because this is actually sounding like a decent option.
Especially the insurance and payroll part if I have to work on finding someone to run the place in my absence.
Another part of this I don’t want to think about.
But then again, if it’s under the umbrella, it doesn’t all fall to me to figure that out. I think.
It still means giving up the Auburn partnership though. Gus is right there. No matter what we do, there’s no making that work unless I stay put. And the only way I’m staying put is if—
Bang!
The sound of the slamming door reverberates through the room, making me jump, almost knocking over my beer. I catch it in time, avoiding a mess, then turn to see what is going on. Jace’s voice gets to us first.
“Gus! Unhire her now.”
Jace barrels toward us, madder than a cat dunked in a bathtub. His eyes are trained on Gus as he weaves through the tables seamlessly, clearly on a mission.
“I was unaware you were holding office hours in my bar today, August,” Milo jokes.
“Me either,” Gus replies.
“I mean it; unhire her right now. You’re executive vice president, so you get final say on every hire. So do it—unhire her. Right now.”
He stops just short of the bar, letting out a huff so loud I half expect fire to fly out of his nostrils as his hands land on his hips. Jace is clearly channeling his inner Willa.
“I'd have to know who you were talking about first,” Gus responds, leaning back to avoid being collateral damage.
“Presley Callahan. You can't hire her.”
“Who even is that?” Gus asks, looking to me and Milo.
“You're kidding, right?” I ask, unsuccessfully trying to hold in my laughter.
Jace glares at me. “Do I look like I'm fucking kidding you?”
“Who are you talking about?” Gus asks again, this time his voice raised and annoyed at not getting his answer.
“The new social media manager. I just heard Bronwyn talking about it.”
“Oh, I didn't realize that she decided.”
“Apparently on Presley Callahan,” Milo snarks, his shit-eating grin taking over.
“Yeah,” Jace mutters. “And you can't do that.”
“Who is she? And why can’t we?”
Jace’s eyes bulge and his nostrils flare, and I lose it. There’s no holding back my laughter anymore. This is too good.
“Ohh, this is gonna be good…”
“Shut up.”
I continue to laugh, loving this way too much. If there’s one thing in life that’s gotten under his skin, it’s Presley Callahan.
“What am I missing?” Gus asks, clearly becoming impatient. “And why do I have to unhire someone that we may or may not have actually hired?”
“She’s the one who displaced Jace.”
“What do you mean displaced him?”
“Ohhh…” Milo comments, everything suddenly clicking. His smirk grows even bigger and I can tell he’s about half a heartbeat away from joining my laughter.
“Ohh, what?” Gus looks between us, his grumpiness becoming more and more solidified on his face. “Someone please fill me in.”
“Do you really not remember?” Milo quips.
The bar door opens again, Hux sliding in.
“Hey, is the keg for tomorrow all set…” He stops, halfway to the back room, taking the scene in. “What’s going on? What did I miss?”
“Apparently Bronwyn just hired Presley Callahan,” I call out.
Hux stares back blankly for a moment, then his face lights up, the light bulb over his head coming to life. “Well, no shit…that chick from high school?”
“Yup!”
“Oh, that’s… This is gonna be good.”
“Seriously, fuck all of you!” Jace exclaims. “Gus, please.”
Throwing up his hands in surrender, Gus turn to face Jace. “Maybe once someone explains who the hell we are talking about!”
“Otis Callahan's daughter,” Milo answers, knowing that the fastest way to get Gus there is to connect her to Hayes’s compliance officer.
“They moved here when we were in high school, the summer before Jace’s senior year. She’s the one who made it so he wasn’t valedictorian,” I continue. “And then continued to beat him at everything after that.”
“The reason he was no longer the golden child in town.” Hux laughs.
“Ohhhh…” Gus mouths, understanding dawning on him.
We’re all so close now that it’s sometimes hard to remember that the number of years between us mattered a lot more when we were younger.
There’s just under a year separating Jace and me, with a little over two between him and Hux.
The three of us were all in school together, while Gus and Milo were all but out of college at that point.
Actually, by Jace’s senior year, they were both out of college.
Hickory Hills is a small town, with a strong rumor mill, but two twenty-something dudes were not paying attention to their younger siblings’ high school woes.
Unless that woe is what gets you knocked off the top spot of the honor roll.
“You can't hire her,” Jace insists again.
“I can do whatever I want,” Gus claps back.
“No.”
Gus raises an eyebrow, the bull clearly poked. Nice job, Jace.
“Yes. More importantly, this is Bronwyn's choice. If this Presley is who she wants, then I trust that she’s the best fit for the position and I’m not going to stand in her way.”
“Are you—”
“C’mon.” Hux slaps Jace’s chest with the back of his hand. “Come help me with this keg. Put your anger to good use.”
Jace follows, still muttering about how he’s going to talk sense into Bronwyn, because this just can’t happen. We wait until they’re gone, the swinging door to the back room as shut as it can be, before Gus turns back to me.
“You need to talk to Maisey; you know that, right?”
I heave out a sigh, my mind clicking back to the heaviness weighing on me. Jace’s tantrum was a nice distraction, but it doesn’t change anything. In fact, it only proves to me that I know what I need to do. Because where Maisey is concerned, there’s only one thing that matters.
I made the mistake once. I won’t make it again.
I will need to talk to her. It’s just not the conversation that Gus thinks we need to have.
“When can you have the paperwork drawn up?” I ask.
“Ewan,” Milo chides in the same tone he usually reserves for Gus. It’s his warning tone, but I’m not going to heed it. I know what I’m doing.
“Can you have them ready by Munch?”
“You need to talk to Maisey,” Gus repeats. “Take it from the guy who tried to make a decision about his professional future without talking to the woman he loves. Talk to Maisey.”
I shake my head. “Gus, draw up the paperwork. I need to make sure everything is in place so that no matter what she decides, she can make her dream come true. And there’s only one way to do that.”