Chapter 6
Morgan
Hunter is being secretive. He made a new group text with a bunch of us, titled it Super Secret Meeting, and suggested we meet up at my place—most likely so everyone could play with Princess—but won’t tell us why.
He’s in my living room now, leaning against the wall.
There are eight of us here, my closest friends.
These are people I see almost every day, people I’ve grown up with.
Herevians.
We’re just waiting on Kit. Hunter’s anxious, though. I’ve known him since first grade, and he’s peeling the label off his beer and barely listening to the conversation.
It’s Monday, so the bar is closed. It’s also the week between visits from Rory. Last week, she didn’t even have a second beer, she just ate her tots, drank the one beer, and left early.
Who can blame her? I wasn’t any fun to be around and, as much as Rory pretends, she likes the flirty, fun me.
And I just wasn’t in the mood last week.
Silas and Bailey, the only couple, are sharing the oversized armchair.
Silas is a white guy with a hipster vibe—complete with the glasses.
Bailey, Hunter’s sister, is curvy and has chestnut hair and freckles that are fading into her pale skin since summer’s over.
Tuan, whose family is Vietnamese and owns the best restaurant in town, shares the love seat with me, running his hand over his closely cropped hair.
Jared, a scruffy, dark-haired white dude and heir to the Golden Voice Brewery, perches on the arm next to me, his daughter at her grandmother’s house.
Quinn, a lithe blond woman and the town’s best electrician, had pulled in a kitchen chair and is sitting on it backward.
Princess is on the couch in Leo’s and Jared’s laps.
They’re talking about Leo’s latest construction project, each with a hand on Princess’s belly.
She’s in doggy heaven. They’ve saved room for Kit, because they know wherever Kit sits is where Princess will be, and the couch is the only piece of furniture big enough for people and a seventy-pound dog.
At least, she was in doggy heaven. Princess gets up off the couch and darts to the window so fast that if you’d blinked, you’d have missed it.
She knocks Leo’s beer over, and it’s on the couch and in his lap, so there’s a kerfuffle of cleaning up while my dog stares out the window, tail wagging once, then stopping, then wagging once again, and stopping again.
Then I hear a car door slam and I know Kit’s arrived. Princess knows too, and she goes bananas, barking and jumping and whining.
I swear she’s well behaved for me. Kit just brings something out of her.
Probably because he lets her do whatever the fuck she wants. As soon as he comes in the door, she’s all over him. “Princess,” he laughs while she pogos up to try to lick his face. “Down, girl.”
He has no authority, so she ignores him, and I leave Kit to manage the trouble he inspires. By the time we get Leo and Jared cleaned up and Princess calmed down, Hunter’s pacing, too strung out to sit anymore, apparently.
“Okay.” He sets his bottle down. “I have a proposal for you all.”
“You’re a handsome man but I’m not marrying you,” Kit jokes.
Hunter rolls his eyes.
“I have an idea. It’s not a plan yet, but it could be.
I just thought we should talk about it first. But I feel really good about this.
I’m totally certain that between all of us, we can figure this out.
It’ll take a lot of work. But we’re good at that.
Morgan, you’ve always wanted your own bar.
And Kit, your parents have already invested so much into this town. And Leo—”
“Leo’s wondering what the hell you’re talking about,” Leo says.
“Right.” Hunter makes a rewinding motion with his hands. “We should buy Sirens Valley Lodge.”
There’s a moment of silence, and then Jared growls, “Fuck. Off.”
Kit laughs. Hard. Tuan and I make eye contact and chuckle.
Bailey and Silas are quiet, but Bailey watches us all with wide eyes.
I’ve known her since she was a kid too—as Hunter’s older sister, she was always on the outskirts of our group.
But a few months ago she moved back to Here to be with Silas, occasionally driving into the city for work.
“I don’t get the joke,” Leo complains.
“It’s not a joke. I think we should buy Sirens Valley Lodge.”
Kit’s still laughing, but it’s tinged with hysteria now. “How the hell do you think we can do that?”
Hunter holds up his hands. “Okay, think about it—”
“We are,” Leo says.
“I mean for more than thirty seconds.” He holds out a finger. “The property is for sale but the closing won’t happen until April, the end of the ski season.”
“How do you know that?” Quinn asks.
“I talked to Meredith about it.” Meredith’s one of the other real estate agents in the area. She’s Silas’s main competition, but like him, it’s only one of her jobs.
Hunter holds up another finger. “That gives us time to save up and apply for loans. If we can get a bank loan, we probably only need twenty percent or so of the deposit. We may even be able to talk the Schaefers into self-financing.”
“Okay, but twenty percent is still . . .” Leo trails off.
Hunter opens up his phone. He doesn’t type anything, but he reads the number off. I bet he’s got a spreadsheet started already.
“That’s a lot of money,” Leo says faintly.
It is a lot of money. Money none of us have, except maybe Hunter, though he hasn’t actually said if he has enough. Bailey might have the money too . . . she works for a firm in the city—New York, that is—as some kind of manager . . . in renewable energy, maybe?
“Split nine ways with all of us in the room,” Hunter points out.
“Or more if we invite other people to buy in. It’s not that much.
” He gestures to me. “Morgan’s already saving for his own bar.
Well, you could buy the bar you already work in.
” He gestures widely at the room. “I already have some money in the bank. Kit’s saving up for a house.
Now I’m not saying he has to spend it on the lodge, obviously, but it’s an option, right? ”
“I will be saving up for a house someday,” Kit interjects. “I’ve only been in business two years. I’m barely profitable, living at my parents’ and trying to pay back the money they lent me to start.”
“Okay, well. Leo? Silas? Quinn? I’m sure you all have a bit of savings.” Hunter’s shoulders are sagging under the weight of our objections.
“Uh, no,” Leo says. “I don’t have”—he counts on his fingers—“five figures of extra spending money lying around.”
Silas rubs his hands over his face. “I work three jobs, man, and I’m saving . . . I’m saving up for some renovations. Do you think I have a ton of money?”
Close one, Silas. We all know he’s saving for an engagement ring.
Bailey squeezes his bicep, concern etching her brow.
Hunter gentles his voice. “I know you work three jobs.” He peers at his notes.
“Another option is that you can contribute work instead. So Silas, you could use your buyer’s commission toward your stake.
Leo, Morgan, and Quinn, you could donate your labor.
Kit, Jared, and Bailey . . . I’m not sure about you yet, but we can work on that. ”
“But . . .” Leo scratches his head. “How is that paying the Schaefers?”
“It’s not. We’d have to figure that out. But hang on. I have more ideas.” He scrolls down on his phone. “We can hold a fundraiser. It could be beforehand, but I think after closing would be better, because then we could use the property and have the fundraiser onsite. People love meat raffles.”
He looks up at us, and we don’t say anything. He consults his phone again. “We could structure the lodge like a co-op.”
“What’s a co-op?” Leo asks.
“It’s like REI,” I say. But, just because I have a membership at the outdoor supply chain doesn’t mean I understand how it works.
Kit snaps his fingers. “Alex’s farm is part of a dairy co-op. But I don’t think it’s that great for him?”
“I’ve only done some cursory research,” Hunter says. “But there’s a few places we could use as examples. They are really popular with local grocery stores—there’s one in Albany—and, of course, REI. I’d have to consult with a lawyer, but it means people buy ownership of the lodge.”
“Who?” Leo asks.
“Anyone. We would incentivize it. A lifetime membership of . . . I don’t know . . . five hundred dollars? It gets you twenty-five percent off lift tickets for life, or invitations to owners-only events or something.”
“It’s a way to quickly raise cash, I guess,” I muse. As to raising my own up-front money, there is one thing I could do. I’ve been putting it off because it sucks, but . . .
“Yes!” Hunter grabs on to the positive thought.
“I’m sure if we put our heads together we could come up with a solid plan and find the money.
We could be partners. Plus!” He’s really gearing up now.
“Think about it. This is an opportunity for us to shape the town. We’re the next generation of Herevians.
” He drops his phone on the armchair and plants his hands on his chest, looking each of us in the eye.
“Think of every time the town has done something we hated. Like when they vetoed that food truck festival Tuan planned. Or when the old-timers voted against Picture Main Street to make downtown prettier and more functional. And we could get the adventure park back open again, bringing more business into the town in the off-season.”
“How would we do all that?” This is from a completely bewildered Leo.
“I’m not saying that we’d instantly have the power to do it.
But we would have influence in the town.
We could hold events of our own, support the community in ways we haven’t even dreamed of because we simply haven’t thought of them yet.
We could hold a Pride festival in June, expand the summer programs for kids, host the food trucks on our own property .
. . Tuan, you’ve been wanting to get a food truck. ”
Tuan twists his mouth to the side. “We’re always running on fumes in the fall before business picks up in the winter. And I can’t afford both a food truck and the lodge. I can’t even afford the food truck yet, and that’s less.”
“Okay,” Hunter continues, not deterred enough, IMHO. “The point is . . . we could do whatever we want.”
Kit laughs nervously. “Okay, someone’s getting power hungry already.”
“Why not? Why not?”
No one says anything for a few long moments.
“Let us think about it,” I hedge. “You’re asking a lot and I should look into some things.” Some things like a debt owed. But still, if I add what my brother owes me to my savings, I’m only halfway there. There’s no way we can get the money together.
“It’s not a no,” Silas says. “But it’s a big risk. I have to think about it.”
“That’s all I ask for now,” Hunter promises. “Just think it over.”