Chapter 21
Chapter twenty-one
Cody – Working for a Living
Lunch time. Yay. I headed out to my car to make a quick fast food run after spending the morning trying to drum up new business.
I sent out email blasts to current customers asking for referrals, then called two potential clients to get their information so I could send them quotes later in the day.
Plus, I had to take several calls from current clients.
That was the worst, but I did get retention bonuses.
I pulled into the drive-thru, wondering why I cared about any of it. When I first started, I liked the idea of helping people while making money, but over the last few years, it became all about making money. There was little to no helping others. So what part of this job did I really care about?
After ordering my food, I drove back to work and parked in the garage. Instead of going in, I sat there in my car to eat. Everything tasted like cardboard.
I called Daddy, and of course, he answered right away. “Hey, babe. What’s going on? You at lunch?”
“Yep, but this food sucks.”
“Watch that language, Cody.”
I huffed. “I don’t want to right now, Warner. I’m having a bad day.”
“I’m sorry. Why? What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t get it.” He sounded as confused as I felt.
“Well…I don’t know. It’s just that.” I took a deep breath.
I needed to explain it, if for no other reason than to understand it myself.
When my emotions were involved, it often helped me to figure it out by explaining it to someone else.
“I’m bored. The Pride Trip was so much fun and now getting back to work, it’s like anti-climactic. ”
“Uh-huh. What else?” He knew me too well.
“I kind of said it before, but I don’t want to do this job anymore. I’d already been thinking I didn’t like it so much and didn’t want it to be a forever career, but more of a for-right-now job, but today solidified it.”
“You don’t have to work, Cody.”
“I know. I know. You’ve said that, but I can’t do nothing. I need to do something. I want to do something. I just don’t know what. And I feel like I’m stuck doing this until I figure it out. I know you can help financially, but I don’t know how that makes me feel.”
“Cody, I will support you any way you need. Emotionally, physically, financially. Or all of the above rolled up in one.”
“Wow. That sounds like where I am right now. A hot mess all rolled up in a mixed-up Cody-burrito.”
Warner laughed his amused laugh. “You’ll be fine.”
“I know that too. I’m frustrated. That’s all.”
“What will make you feel better?” As if he didn’t know.
“Probably little time at your house. I’d like to color and be quiet.”
“Can you take the rest of the day off?”
I needed to get those quotes out, but after that, I could probably take off. “Not the whole rest of the day, but I can leave early.”
“Leave early. Come over. We can color, watch a movie, have some dinner.”
Looking at my sorry lunch made me want something good and fun for dinner. “Can we have hot wings?”
“Yep. I’ll order your favorite.”
“Yay. Don’t forget blue cheesy squeezy.” That’s what I called the salad dressing I liked, which had a bigger hole at the top so the cheese chunks could come out more easily.
“Always the blue cheesy squeezy.”
“Okay, Daddy. I’ll go finish at work, then go over to your place. Love you.”
“Love you too, Cody.”
We hung up, and I cleaned up my mess, having hardly eaten any of it, but before I got to the door of the office, my phone binged with a text. It was Joey.
Why would he want me for that? We had other friends better suited. Royce had a marketing degree, and that’s what he did for Jax’s company.
Well, it was hard to argue with that. We set up a time for me to go to his place on Saturday. After we worked on his thing, we could have lunch together, then maybe play a board game or Uno or something afterward. Sounded like a good day to me.
I tucked my phone away and went inside, finding my quotes waiting for me.
I blasted them off, then sent my boss a message that I was leaving a few hours early.
John didn’t normally care as long as I was hitting my goals, and even with the time off for the Pride Trip, I was at the top of the board.
But before I could get out of there, he showed up.
“Hey, Cody. What’s going on?”
“Nothing really. Got a lot done but need some time this afternoon for personal reasons.”
“I get it, but you just took a whole week off. I don’t want you falling behind.”
That earned a glare. “John, for real? I’m hitting my goals and then some.”
“But—”
“It’s called work-life balance. I need to have the day off and my work is done.”
“Can you come in on Saturday?”
“No. I have plans this weekend. No one is going to miss me for a few hours.” I wasn’t going to stand there arguing.
I didn’t need this job, but maybe John didn’t know that.
A part of me wanted to tell him exactly that, but the other part was afraid he’d fire me.
That wouldn’t be the worst thing that happened, but I didn’t like leaving like that.
I grabbed my messenger bag and turned to leave.
He didn’t stop me, so that was that. “See you tomorrow.” Damn.
It was only Wednesday. How was I going to deal with this boring job until Saturday? Whatever–off to Daddy’s house.
Daddy Warner opened the door for me as I walked up and greeted me with a huge kiss.
“Come on in.” He held his arm out, welcoming me.
It was kind of nice, like he used to do when we first started dating.
Now, I normally came right in and found him wherever he was working, which was mostly in his office but not always.
“I have some coloring stuff set up on the veranda.”
“Oh…that sounds nice.” I followed him out to the back porch.
The covered area overlooked the pool, and Daddy had set out a selection of books along with my crayons on the table.
“Can I change first?” I was still wearing work clothes, and sitting outside would be hotter, even with the ceiling fan going.
“Of course. You don’t need to ask.” He kissed the side of my head. “I can make a cold fruity drink if you like.”
“Yes, please. Can you make it just a little boozy?” I held up my two fingers to show him the little bit I wanted.
“Sure.”
“Awesome. Be right back.” I loved playing little, but there were advantages to being an adult and one of them was alcohol. I didn’t imbibe a lot, but sometimes it was great. A little bit would make me feel warm and nummy.
After changing into swim trunks and a tank top, thinking I might swim later, I raced downstairs. “Daddy! I ready to color!”
I sat at the patio table and colored while enjoying the afternoon breeze.
His backyard was perfect, with lots of potted flowers and plants and, of course, the pool.
For an hour or so, I didn’t think about anything except color-color-color.
I stayed in the lines and picked fun colors, making the dinos purple and orange instead of green.
The plants around them were green, so they would blend in too much if they were too.
The orange was for dipy-dacus, and the purple for T-rex. “Rawr!”
Of course, Daddy walked out to the patio just then. “What are you roaring at there?”
I held my coloring book up. “Dinos. Rawr.”
“Ahh…I see. Nice. I like the T-rex.”
“Me too.”
“I came out to see if you’d like something different for dinner, or if you still want wings.” He sat beside me, examining my picture.
“Nah…I want meatloaf and mashed tatotes. Can we order a DoorDash from Metro Café? They have the best meatloafs.” I’d totally changed my mind, opting for comfort food.
“Sure. That sounds good.”
“And heavy. We may need to swim afterward.”
Daddy pulled me into a hug and kissed me. “Anything you want.”
Saturday at Joey’s
The project didn’t take all that long, and I didn’t know if I actually helped, but it was fun. He had a great strategy planned out. “Colin will love this. I’m sure he’ll go with you on it.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I did my best. Thanks for helping me sort some of this out.”
“It was fun.”
“Best part, we got done early, so we have time to swim before lunch. You brought your trunks, right?”
“Yep. Let’s go change.” I hurried and changed in the guest room, then cannonballed into the pool.
Their place was so nice. You could even see the Bay from the pool.
Joey jumped in and splashed me. We chased each other around for a while.
Then we got the noodles out and hung onto them as we floated around the pool.
“This is fun. Thanks for having me over.”
“You’re welcome, Cody. With Daddy gone all day, I thought it would be a good idea. I didn’t want to be alone, and my other friend, Tucker, couldn’t come out. He’s been busy a lot lately.”
“Is he little?”
“No. He likes BDSM and shit. He always tries to find a Dom when we go to Afterglow.”
“Oh. Well, I guess that could be fun.”
Joey rolled his eyes. “I’ve known him since we were kids, so it’s weird to think about, honestly.”
We laughed at that, and soon enough, it was time for lunch. We made PB&J sammies with apple slices and juice boxes. After that, we played Sorry, but Joey beat me twice, so when Daddy showed up to get me, I was ready to go.
That night, I was so tired after playing all day that we had dinner and went to bed early.
When I got up the next morning, the things that I needed to sort out were ruminating in my head again.
I got up and went downstairs to clean the pool.
It was a little cool but refreshing. I grabbed the skimmer and scoop-scoop-scooped the leaves, knocking them into the yard.
It was very satisfying to clean while I thought about my life.
Soon enough, Daddy showed up. “You know I have someone who comes to do that.”
“I know.” He paid them to come out like every other day, and then they did a big vacuum job on Thursdays, at least in the summertime. “But I like to do it when I’m thinking thinky things.”
“I see.” He sat on the edge of the pool and put his bare feet in the water. “What kind of things are you thinking?”
“Mostly, what I might do other than insurance sales.”
“Oh? Well, that’s something worth thinking about.”
“Yeah…” I put the skimmer on the side of the pool and swam up to Daddy, getting between his legs. “Just thinking about the project I helped Joey with. It was for a friend of Levi’s who used to work with him at Koffee Kraze.”
“That Andy guy?”
“No. His name is Colin and he started a car wash business. You know the kind where they go to your place and clean the cars. He specializes in the fancy ones. Anyway, his daddy helped him get started, and he’s doing well, making lots of money.”
“You want to wash cars?”
“No. Silly, Daddy.” I splashed him, but only a little bit, because I really wanted to have this conversation. “I’m just thinking that he took something he loved and made it work for him. And honestly, so did Joey.”
“He did. He wanted to be a social media influencer but he’s making more money doing marketing for others.”
“Right. And Jax. He could have just bought and sold yachts or something, but instead he found a niche renting them for vacations.”
“What is all of this leading to, Cody?”
“Maybe I have an idea. The one I mentioned during our Pride Trip, but then I thought I was being stupid, so I put it out of my head.”
“No way. You should at least thoroughly vet the idea. Maybe it’s like your friends. It might not be quite right, but some aspects of it could be. You have to at least try and work that out for sure.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“So what’s your idea? You know, I’ve invested in a lot of businesses. I can help.”
“Right. You or Daddy Hudson. Oh, or Daddy Larry, that’s what he does, right?”
“Well, he buys and sells businesses along with investing, like Crow.”
“Yeah. That’s where Daddy Vince was today.”
“Out with Larry?”
“Yeah. Doing investing stuff.”
“He’s looking into a lot of different things. He might be bringing something for me to invest in with him. But now you’ve changed the subject. What’s your idea?”
“Well. I love Florida, and if I didn’t live here, I’d probably want to.
Or at least I’d want to visit a lot. So I thought other people would too, and I know there are like vacation houses they can rent, but maybe there’s something there that I could do.
” I shrugged. “If I’m gonna sell things for a living, I might as well sell things for me, the way I want to do it. ”
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea at all, Cody. Let’s do some research and make a plan.” He stood and grabbed a towel off the patio. “Come on. What are you waiting for?”