6. Rick
Rick
Over the next few days, I shifted into gear, taking over for my dad.
It wasn’t hard. After all, I’d been running my own marketing firm in San Diego for the past few years.
Sure, it wasn’t this large and I only had a handful of employees and clients, but it was still growing.
My dad’s agency operated on a much grander scale, thanks to its reputation and the fact that it had been in business for more than a couple decades, but also thanks to the board members he’d brought on over the years.
Having help running the backend of GSM let my father focus on what he loved best, and that was what really had caused the business to soar.
But marketing was marketing, and the core principles remained the same.
The best part of my week, hands down, was watching Sofia adjust to her new role.
I was incredibly impressed with her work.
She wasn’t just dedicated and smart; she was brilliantly, effortlessly witty.
The unique brand of humor and fresh perspective she brought to each account was exactly what this firm had been missing.
By Thursday, things at my parents’ home were finally settling into a rhythm too.
My dad’s health was improving a little, mostly because he was actually resting on the golf course instead of micro-managing a creative department.
He even took daily naps, according to my mother.
I’d caught up with the family last night during the once-a-week family dinners my mother had required of me since my return.
Being under my parents’ roof again was a little strange.
The house still felt as loud and alive as ever.
My youngest brother, Chris, who was currently home from med school, had spent most of dinner analyzing my dad’s sodium intake or quizzing me about California.
I couldn’t tell if he planned to migrate out West or just liked hounding me about my time there.
My middle brother, Jax, had been working at the firm all along as a senior project manager.
He would have been a massive help with the transition this week, but he was going back and forth to Las Vegas, locking down the deployment logistics for a major new entertainment client we’d just signed.
Besides, Dad and the board had agreed I was the right Mylonas to handle GSM in my dad’s absence.
Because Jax was busy, I was on my own handling the day-to-day running of the business. Not that I was complaining.
“Rick?”
I looked up from my laptop to find Sofia leaning through my open office door. She was wearing a sharp forest-green blazer. Her hair was pinned back in a bun, and she held a stark white foam-core board under her arm like a weapon.
“Do you have ten minutes?” she asked, her hazel eyes flashing with fiery enthusiasm. “Because the printer just delivered the high-res mock-ups for the Clear Creek campaign, and if I don’t show someone right now, I might actually burst.” Her voice rose slightly with excitement.
I smiled, closing my laptop screen on the work I’d been looking over for my California office. “Sure, come in.”
The moment she turned the proof around, my breath caught.
“That is…”
She bit her lip as she waited for my opinion, and I completely lost my train of thought. The sexy move had my body responding so quickly, I was thankful I was sitting down.
“What?” she finally said after a heartbeat, breaking the trance.
“Perfect.” I cleared my sex-starved mind and finished my honest assessment.
She smiled. “You think?” She shifted so we could both look at it.
I took it all in again, focusing on the ad instead of Sofia’s lips.
My first thoughts were focused on the muted, earthy tones. The aesthetic utilized deep forest greens, rich copper, slate grays, and warm amber light.
The text was clean, elegant, and classy, using a high-end serif font that felt both modern and historic—nodding to Golden’s own rich, old-town heritage.
Simple. Beautiful. Enticing. It spoke of class, yet screamed of something so good, you wouldn’t want to miss out.
“Yes.” I nodded. “It’s perfect.”
This proof would be sitting on an easel as we showed the brewery executives the digital versions of everything else Sofia had come up with—website, billboards, banners, digital ads, and anything else they had requested.
Sofia had worked on overdrive, not only on this account, but on the bakery as well. Their website was set to go live the day after tomorrow. I had complete faith that she would meet that deadline.
After Sofia left, my day descended into meeting after meeting. How had my father, a man in his late sixties, kept up? I was just pushing thirty, but damn, by the time I shut down my computer and headed for the door, I needed either a drink or a hot shower to clear my head.
Seeing the light in Sofia’s office still burning bright, I turned in that direction and knocked on her door.
She half jumped and half turned away from her screen toward me.
“Sorry.” I smiled slowly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I thought everyone had left already.” She glanced at her watch and winced.
“I meant to leave like an hour ago.” I leaned against the door frame. “Phone calls and meetings kept me behind all day.” I nodded toward her screen. “Ready to shut down?”
She glanced back. “Yeah.” She saved her file and shut her system down.
When she stood up, I blurted out, “I was going to hit the Nugget for a beer and some of their really greasy nachos.”
I watched her eyebrows shoot up. “I could go for some grease and beer.” She threw her purse over her shoulders, and I stood aside to let her pass me in the doorway.
God, she smelled good.
I cleared my head as we headed toward the elevators.
“Thank you, by the way,” she said when we stepped inside.
“For?”
“Fixing this.” She motioned toward the elevator doors as they closed behind us.
I chuckled. “It would have happened eventually anyway. I just made a few calls to make it happen faster.”
“Don’t be modest. Elizabeth has spread around the office just how many calls you had to make to get this to happen.”
I shrugged. “My dad should have handled it long ago.” I wanted to rattle off how many other things my father should have dealt with over the years, but then I remembered just how busy I’d been all day.
It was a short walk to the Golden Nugget Mexican Bar and Grill. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d eaten at the historic restaurant just a few blocks away from our building.
The Golden Nugget was exactly as I remembered it: loud, warm, and thick with the comforting aroma of sizzling fajitas and toasted corn chips.
It was a Golden staple. There were exposed brick walls covered in vintage mining equipment and neon beer signs, and the place was absolutely packed for a Friday night.
We managed to snag a small high-top table in the bar area that was tucked into a corner beneath a rusted old ore cart wheel that hung on the wall.
“I have to admit,” Sofia said, setting her bag on her lap as she slid onto her barstool, “when you said greasy nachos, my soul instantly screamed, ‘Yes!’ I feel like it should be a requirement at least once a month.” She rested her elbows on the table and put her chin in her hands.
I laughed, leaning my forearms on the table. “Remind me to add ‘mandatory nacho intake’ to the employee handbook. No one should be forced to pitch marketing strategies on an empty stomach.”
When the waiter arrived, we ordered a giant platter of the supreme nachos—extra jalapenos for me, none for her—and a pitcher of a cold CCB amber ale.
When the beer arrived, I poured us both a glass and raised mine slightly. “To surviving my first week without any more flying spear tackles.”
Sofia clinked her glass against mine, a brilliant, genuine smile lighting up her face. “I promise to keep all wrestling maneuvers restricted to gym mats from now on.”
I wanted to tell her that would be a shame, but I took a large sip of my beer instead.
The drink was ice cold and hit the spot perfectly after the grueling ten-hour day I’d just pulled.
I watched her take a sip, her shoulders visibly relaxing as the tension of the week finally began to melt away.
Up close in the amber glow of the bar’s neon lighting, she looked incredible.
The forest-green blazer she’d worn all day was gone, leaving her in a simple black top that made her hazel eyes look impossibly bright.
“So,” she said, leaning back and cradling her glass in both hands. “You run your own agency in San Diego. Why come back here? I mean, besides your dad’s health. Was it hard coming home again and leaving the beach for the mountains?”
“A little,” I admitted, shrugging. “I didn’t realize just how much I’d grown to love California.
I built my firm from scratch, but family comes first. When Jax called and told me how bad Dad’s blood pressure was getting, there wasn’t really a choice to make.
Jax is great with logistics, but I think he hates the executive side of the business, and my brother Chris is buried in his medical books.
When the board decided I was the one to take over temporarily, it fell on me. ”
“It’s really admirable,” she said softly, her gaze holding mine with a sincerity that caught me off guard. “A lot of guys wouldn’t just drop their life to play savior for a few months.”
“I’m not a savior. I’m just a son trying to keep his dad from collapsing at work,” I murmured, my voice dropping an octave as I looked at her.
The noise of the crowded bar seemed to fade into a dull hum.
“And honestly, finding talent like yours in the building has made the transition a hell of a lot easier.”
Before she could respond to the sudden shift in tone, the waiter put a massive, sizzling platter of nachos between us. It was a mountain of tortilla chips smothered in melted cheddar, black beans, guacamole, and sour cream, with jalapenos on one side of the plate. I shifted that side toward me.