Chapter 2
Finn
The Columbia Café was busy, packed with tourists in their Buccaneers and Lightning gear and locals who knew good Cuban food when they tasted it.
I spotted Mark immediately. He was hard to miss.
Built like a brick wall with a smile that could charm a nun into sin, Mark Delgado took up space in the best possible way.
His salt-and-pepper beard was neatly trimmed, and his tatted arms poked out of the rolled sleeves of a button-down that had probably been ironed that morning but was already showing signs of rebellion.
He sat at a table on the patio, already halfway through a café con leche, and waved me over with the enthusiasm of a man who’d been waiting for hours.
“You’re late,” he said, grinning.
“I’m three minutes late.”
“That’s three minutes I had to sit here alone with my thoughts, Finn. It was terrifying.” He gestured to the chair across from him like he was presenting a throne. “I started spiraling. Thought about getting another tattoo.”
“Please don’t.”
“A full back piece. Very tasteful. Maybe some dolphins or one of the dragons from Game of Thrones—”
“Mark, no.”
“—or like a phoenix rising from the ashes, very symbolic—”
“Absolutely not.”
“You didn’t even let me finish!”
“I didn’t need to. The answer is no.” I slid into the chair and felt the familiar comfort of being around Mark.
It was easy. It had been easy from the moment we’d met, that first night at the bowling league when we bonded over being the only two people under forty who actually wanted to be there—and our mutual inability to bowl above a seventy.
If there was a Mendoza Line in bowling, we’d figured out how to limbo under it.
The server appeared, and I opened the menu even though I already knew what I wanted. My eyes went straight to the prices. The Cuban sandwich was fourteen dollars. The medianoche was sixteen. Even the basic ham-and-cheese was twelve.
I’d checked my bank account that morning. After rent, utilities, and my car payment, I had about eight hundred dollars to my name. I needed to be smart about money.
“Just water for me,” I told the server. “And maybe the—” I scanned for the cheapest thing on the menu. “The side salad?”
Mark looked at me like I’d announced I was joining a cult. “You’re getting a side salad at the Columbia Café? Are you feeling okay? Did you hit your head? Should I call someone?”
“I’m not that hungry.”
“You’re always hungry. You have the metabolism of a beaver on cocaine trying to build a hydroelectric dam.” Mark turned to the server, ignoring my protest. “He’ll have the Cuban sandwich and a Materva. I’ll have another coffee and the ropa vieja.”
“Mark—”
“It’s a business expense,” Mark said, waving me off like we were discussing the weather.
“What business?”
“The one we’re about to start . . . which I’ll explain after we order. Stop looking at me like I just kidnapped your dog.”
“I don’t have a dog.”
“Well, if you did, I wouldn’t kidnap it. I have six already. There’s no room.”
The server left, probably grateful to escape whatever our conversation was becoming. The moment he was out of earshot, I leaned forward. “Okay, so what’s this mysterious business you’re talking about?”
“Let me ask you something first.” Mark settled back in his chair, his expression turning more serious. “How was work last night? Still terrible?”
“A woman called me ‘the help.’”
“Jesus Christ.”
“In front of my infant manager, who then proceeded to throw me under the bus and make me serve her a mojito with a plastic mint garnish.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I wish I was. She waved it around like a sad, limp—” I stopped myself. “Actually, you know what? I don’t want to relive it.”
Mark snorted. “Riley’s is the worst.”
“Riley’s is the worst.” I rubbed my eyes, feeling the exhaustion of seven years of bartending hell settle over me like a weighted blanket.
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Mark.
I’m twenty-nine. I’ve been bartending in chains for seven years.
What do I have to show for it? An encyclopedic knowledge of well liquor and a developing eye twitch. ”
“You don’t have an eye twitch.”
“Give it time.”
Mark leaned forward, his biceps flexing as his elbows landed on the table. “What if you didn’t have to do it anymore?”
“I’m not becoming your boy toy.”
“I don’t play with toys.” He grinned, then his tone turned serious. “I mean, what if there was another option?”
His eyes had that light in them, the one that appeared whenever he got excited about something.
I’d seen it when he’d decided to learn carpentry from YouTube videos and ended up building a bookshelf that was more art installation than furniture.
I’d also seen it when he’d adopted his sixth dog despite the fact that his house already smelled like a kennel.
Mark was great with big ideas.
Terrible with execution, but great with ideas.
“Mark,” I said carefully. “What did you do?”
“Nothing . . . yet.” His gaze locked onto mine. “I want to open a bar.”
Well, fuck me runnin’.
“Um, okay,” I said.
“And I want you to do it with me.”
“A bar.” I gaped. “You want me to help you open a bar?”
“A gay bar.”
“There are already gay bars in Tampa. Lots of them. Right down the street.”
“Not like this one.” He was starting to get animated now, hands gesturing as he talked.
“Picture this: a neighborhood spot, not a club, somewhere people can have a conversation without screaming over the music. We’d serve good food, good drinks, and play sports on TV.
I want it to be a place for the community that’s not just about hooking up or getting wasted. ”
Our food arrived, and I stared down at my Cuban sandwich while trying to process everything he’d just thrown my way.
My mind wouldn’t stop calculating the cost of the meal before me—fourteen dollars of food I hadn’t budgeted for.
Mark said it was his treat, but that didn’t stop the guilt from snuggling up next to the anxiety in my stomach.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “That’s . . . not the worst idea you’ve had.”
“Right?!” Mark was bouncing in his seat. “I’ve been thinking about it for months. Tampa has clubs, sure, but where can you just grab a beer and watch the Lightning game with your friends? Where’s the neighborhood spot?”
“It doesn’t exist,” I admitted. “Not a gay one, anyway.”
“Exactly! I’m going to create it.” He pulled out his phone and started swiping through what looked like notes. “I’ve got the money from selling the company. I found a space—edge of Ybor, perfect location, good foot traffic.”
Mark had sold his construction company six months ago to a larger firm that had been circling for years. He’d made good money—really good money, the kind that meant he never had to work again if he didn’t want to.
The problem was that Mark loved to work.
He was the kind of person who couldn’t sit still, who needed a project the way plants needed sunlight.
I watched him try retirement for two weeks before he started adopting dogs, decided to learn German for some ungodly reason, and generally drove himself insane with boredom.
By month three, he’d switched his language lessons to French, learned to make pasta from scratch (his kitchen still had flour in places flour should never be), and started an ill-fated carpentry phase that was sure to end about as well as the house that fell on the wicked witch.
But the man was incapable of doing nothing, which meant this bar idea wasn’t just about business—it was about Mark’s desperate need to build something before he combusted from lack of purpose.
A thought occurred to me. “Mark. Did you already sign a lease?”
“Last week.”
“Mark Carlito Santa Maria Delgado!”
“Aw, you used my Christian name. In that Irish accent, you make me sound so sexy.”
“MARK!” I sank into my seat as diners around us turned to stare.
“I know, I know, I jumped the gun.” He at least had the decency to look sheepish. “But Finn, I’m losing my mind. I need . . . something. I need to build. And . . . I can’t do it alone.”
Of course he couldn’t. That was for damn sure.
Mark was brilliant with vision but hopeless with details. When he’d owned his construction company, he’d been the guy who could walk onto a site and see the potential, the guy who could talk a client into doubling their budget because his enthusiasm was that infectious.
But actual project management?
Permits? Schedules? Budgets?
He’d had people for that. He’d needed people for that.
Now he wanted me to be his “people.”
“What exactly are you asking me?” I said, even though I already knew.
“I’m not asking anything. I’m offering you a partnership with a salary and twenty-five percent ownership. You’ll be Head Gay in Charge or whatever title makes sense. You’ll run day-to-day operations, hire staff, build the drink menu, and keep me from doing stupid things—”
“That last one’s a full-time job and probably impossible.”
“Which is why I’m offering you twenty-five percent.” Mark grinned. “Look, we both know romance wasn’t our thing. You kiss like someone following instructions from IKEA, and I kiss like—”
“A golden retriever who just discovered peanut butter.”
“Exactly.” He leaned forward, his expression turning serious.
“But business? Business, we could be perfect at. I’ve got the capital and the vision—admittedly terrible vision sometimes, but vision nonetheless.
You’ve got the bartending experience and the brains to make things work.
More than that, we trust each other, and we already know each other’s worst qualities. ”
“That’s true. You’re disorganized, impulsive, and you once tried to fix a leaking pipe with duct tape.”
“It worked!”
“For three hours.”
“Still counts.” Mark pulled up photos on his phone. “But seriously, I can’t do this alone. I need someone who’ll tell me when my ideas are stupid, who knows how to run a bar, and who can keep me on track. That’s you more than anyone I’ve ever known.”