6. Shay
Shay
“Your Thursday numbers are terrible.”
I look up from my laptop. Declan is watching me from his stool across the bar, one hand wrapped around a glass of water. The only lights on are the ones directly overhead, trapping us in a pool of warm yellow. Everything else is shadows and the faint, sharp smell of lemon cleaner.
“Thursday is trivia,” he says, his voice quiet in the empty room.
“Thursday is a social club for people who already come here. It’s not getting new customers, it’s a weekly meetup with fries.”
“They buy beer.”
“Not enough beer.”
He leans back, and the corner of his mouth ticks up.
I hate that I know what his almost-smile looks like.
I hate more that seeing it sends a stupid, irritating jolt right through my stomach.
Apparently, getting bitten by a bar owner means my insides are now contractually obligated to be embarrassing about him.
Perfect.
I click over to the next tab on my spreadsheet, forcing my eyes to stay on the numbers. They drift anyway.
His sleeve is pushed up to his elbow, and the dark mark I left on the inside of his forearm is impossible to ignore. My teeth. For a second, I can taste the salt on his skin, feel the low rumble in his chest right before I—
I drag my laptop a few inches closer, like a flimsy metal shield will do a damn thing.
“Okay,” I say, my voice too sharp. “Community engagement. Your loyal customers are the only thing keeping you from being swallowed by that corporate garbage fire down the street.”
“You have a way with words.”
“It was a compliment. You should be worried.” I point at the screen. “Your base is solid, but it’s not growing.”
He takes a slow sip of water, still watching me with that steady gaze that’s deeply inconvenient. I’ve had people stare at me my whole life. But Declan doesn’t look at me like he’s trying to figure me out or win an argument.
He looks at me like he trusts me.
It’s what I’m here for. I did the research. I ran the numbers. I know what I’m talking about. But him just sitting there, listening, makes my skin feel too tight. Trust is part of the deal. That’s all this is.
“The problem,” I say, tapping the bar top, “is that you think you’re competing with them. You’re not. Byrne’s already has a voice. It’s just buried.”
Declan leans forward slightly, his expression shifting from tired to curious. “Buried under what?”
“Under trying to be places you’ll never be.
The spot with the fake ivy wall and the neon sign?
That’s for people who want to take a picture of a cocktail they won’t finish.
The sports bar is for screaming at screens.
The chain wants to turn this block into a beige nightmare with branded shot glasses and inspirational quotes on their Instagram. ”
He makes a face. “Inspirational quotes?”
“It’s bleak,” I confirm. “So you stop trying to be them. You’re Byrne’s. People have stories about this place. First dates. Last dates. The night Jude Park tried to convince some poor sophomore he was a minor celebrity because his thirst trap got reposted.”
A slow, real smile spreads across Declan’s face, erasing some of the lines around his eyes. “I remember that. His version involved a sponsorship deal.”
“There was no sponsorship deal. He just wanted to get laid.”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“Probably for the best.”
“Definitely. The point is, this place has history. You don’t sand that down and make it glossy. You remind people why they already love it here, then you give them a reason to bring their friends.”
He just watches me for a second, then nods. The quiet affirmation lands somewhere deep in my gut, and my throat goes tight. I look away, back at my notes, talking faster because it’s better than silence.
“Weekly events, but not just trivia every Thursday forever. Rotate. Local artists, open-mic nights, but you screen them so it’s not just some guy with a guitar singing about his divorce.”
“Half this town has a guitar and a divorce.”
“Then we have high standards.” I slide a printout across the bar. “And your social media has to stop looking like it’s run by a tired uncle.”
“It is run by a tired uncle,” he says, his voice flat with exhaustion.
I look up. He’s got that bar towel slung over one shoulder, sleeves pushed up his forearms. He just looks… heavy. Not weak, never weak. It’s the kind of tired you get from holding up the world by yourself and pretending it doesn’t weigh anything.
Something under my ribs gives a sharp, traitorous tug. I hate it.
“You don’t have to run it,” I say, forcing my eyes back to the page. “You need someone who gets the voice. Someone who knows when a post sounds like a person and not a landlord trying to be fun.”
“And where am I supposed to find this person?”
I take a breath. “You’re looking at him.”
He smiles. It’s not the polite bartender smile, or the almost-smile from earlier. This one is real, crinkling the corners of his eyes. It changes his whole face.
And for a second, it feels like he’s looking right through my entire business-consultant act, straight to the scared kid sitting here in his shirt. My stomach bottoms out.
I clear my throat, forcing myself back to the screen. “You need a content calendar. A promotion schedule. Partnerships with campus groups. The goal is to drive weekday traffic and get people ordering something besides the cheapest beer on tap.”
He’s quiet for a moment, just watching me. “You like this part.”
It’s not a question. “I like fixing things that are broken.”
“Right,” he says, and his voice is neutral, but his eyes aren’t on the spreadsheet. He looks from the printouts to my face, and his gaze snags on my mouth for a fraction of a second.
It’s barely anything, but it’s enough.
A sharp, inconvenient pull low in my stomach. I’m just sitting here. On his barstool. In his shirt. My fingers find the frayed cuff and start picking at a loose thread, anything to do besides acknowledge the way the air just changed.
“The launch campaign needs a budget,” I say, my voice tight.
“Of course it does.”
“I know money is tight.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“But you have to spend something to make something. You can’t just post a couple of blurry photos and hope the rent has a crisis of conscience.”
A quiet, humorless laugh escapes him. The sound gets right under my skin. “Damn. That was the whole plan.”
“It was a bad plan.”
“Clearly.”
I spin the laptop around to face him. The budget tab is open, all neat rows and clean columns. Thank God for spreadsheets. They don’t panic. They don’t have scents. They don’t run away before dawn and then show up wearing the other person’s clothes like an absolute idiot. They just add up.
“Okay,” I say, my voice steadier now. “Here’s where we cut.”
I point with my pen. “Liquor costs are manageable if you renegotiate with two of your distributors. Your waste is high, but that’s fixable. You’re over-ordering food for weekends based on last year’s traffic, and you’re eating the loss because everyone else has a themed patio now.”
“I hate themed patios.”
“I know. Most of them are ugly.”
“Most?”
“Some are ugly on purpose. It’s a whole aesthetic.”
“I’m going to trust you on that.”
“You should.” I move on before he can give me that look again. “And you can reduce the live music budget, at least temporarily. Shift to lower-cost local acts while the campaign builds. And cut the print ads. Nobody reads the local paper anymore.”
“He’ll be pleased to hear he’s an exception.”
Declan’s gaze doesn’t move from my face. “Tell him I said hi.”
The words hang in the air between us. Casual. Easy. Something from a world outside this bar, and I feel like I’ve just accidentally leaned on a door I wasn’t supposed to know was there.
I tap my pen on the laptop. “Okay. Staffing.”
The shift in the room is immediate. The hand resting beside his water glass curls, knuckles going white against the dark wood.
“Staffing,” he repeats. His voice is flat.
“It’s your biggest fixed expense after rent,” I say, keeping my eyes on the screen. “I know you have loyal people, and that’s good. But you’re scheduling based on what feels fair, not what the numbers support.”
He’s silent.
I hate this part. I hate the way his face goes still, because I know exactly what comes next. It’s always the same. Friends, coworkers, classmates who think I’m an asshole for telling them their idea is bad before it costs them a grade.
Somebody has to be the one who says it.
“Fridays and Saturdays are fine,” I say, forcing myself to sound detached.
“You need the coverage. But weeknights, you’re carrying too many people.
Tessa can handle the bar, and Diego’s only essential on high-traffic nights.
And if Diego’s cousin only gets shifts because he needs them, that’s not a business decision. ”
Declan’s head comes up. “Diego’s cousin?”
“I don’t know his name. The point stands.”
“His name is Mateo.”
“Okay. Mateo,” I say, waving a hand. “He’s working three nights a week you don’t need him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I have the sales reports.”
“You have reports from the last eight weeks.”
“It’s enough to see the trend.”
“Seeing a trend isn’t the same as knowing the floor on a Tuesday.”
I sit up straighter. “I know what I’m looking at, Declan.”
“I’m sure you do.” He doesn’t raise his voice, and that’s somehow worse. It’s the quiet, careful tone people use right before they say something they can’t take back.
I close my laptop halfway. “Look, if you want me to tell you everything’s fine, I can do that. It’ll just be expensive and pointless.”
His jaw works. “Shay.”
“No, seriously. You asked for my help. This is me helping. You don’t get to hire someone to analyze the data and then get mad when the facts are inconvenient.”
“I’m not mad the facts are inconvenient.”
“You’re mad about the answer.”
“I don’t like firing people.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then stop talking about it like you’re just moving numbers between columns.”
The words land like a punch.