“Oooooooh,” came the obnoxious chorus.
“I hate you guys.”
“No, you don’t,” Jeremiah assured me with a grin as he finished the fade.
“Fuck off.”
“Don’t forget, you’ve got a cut at two and a staff meeting at three,” Stasia called after me.
I swore under my breath and headed to my lair. I handled the business end, so my client roster was smaller than Jeremiah’s or Anastasia’s. I’d have thought that by now most of my clients would have been scared off by my excessive scowling and lack of small talk. But it turned out, some people liked having an asshole cut their hair.
“Going to my office,” I said and heard the thud of Waylon’s body hitting the floor and the tip-tap of his nails on the floor following me.
I’d already owned Honky Tonk when this building went up for sale. I bought it out from under some shiny-loafered developer out of Baltimore who wanted to put in a chain sports bar and a fucking Pilates studio.
Now the building was home to my bar, the barbershop, and three killer apartments on the second floor. One of which was rented by my jackass brother.
I headed past the restroom and the tiny staff kitchen to the door marked Employees Only. Inside was a supply room lined with shelving units and all the shit required to run a successful salon. On the back wall was an unmarked door.
Waylon caught up to me as I fished out my keys. He was the only one allowed in my inner sanctum. I wasn’t one of those “my door is always open” bosses. If I needed to meet with staff, I used my business manager’s office or the break room.
I headed into the narrow hallway that connected the salon to the bar and punched the code into the keypad on my office door.
Waylon bolted inside the second it opened.
The space was small and utilitarian, with brick walls and exposed ducting in the ceiling. There was a couch, a small fridge, and a desk that held a state-of-the-art computer with two monitors the size of scoreboards.
Over a dozen framed photos on the walls depicted a haphazard collage of my life. There was Waylon as a puppy, tripping over his long ears. Me and Nash. Shirtless, gap-toothed kids on mountain bikes in one. Men on the backs of motorcycles, adventure stretching out before us on the ribbon of open road, in another.
We two became three with the addition of Lucian Rollins. There, on the wall no one else saw, was a photographic time line of us growing up as brothers—bloody noses, long days in the creek, then graduating to cars and girls and football. Bonfires and Friday night football games. Graduations. Vacations. Ribbon cuttings.
Jesus, we were getting old. Time marched on. And for the first time, I felt a niggle of guilt that Nash and I no longer had each other’s backs.
But it was just another example of how relationships didn’t last forever.
My gaze lingered on one of the smaller frames. The color was duller than the rest. My parents bundled up in a tent. Mom grinning at the camera, pregnant with one of us. Dad looking at her like he’d waited his whole life for her. Both excited for the adventure of a lifetime together.
It wasn’t there for nostalgia. It served as a reminder that no matter how good things were in the moment, they were bound to get worse until that once bright, shiny future was unrecognizable.
Waylon deflated on a sigh, pancaking onto his bed.
“You and me both,” I told him.
I dropped into the chair behind the desk and fired up my computer, ready to rule my empire.
Social media ad campaigns for Whiskey Clipper and Honky Tonk topped my list of things to do today. I’d been avoiding them long enough because they annoyed me. Growth disguised as change was, unfortunately, a necessary evil.
Perversely, I shuffled the ads to the bottom of my stack and tackled the schedule at Honky Tonk for the next two weeks. There was a hole. I rubbed the back of my neck and dialed Fi.
“What’s up, boss?” she asked. Someone grunted obscenely next to her.
“Where are you?”
“Family Jiu-Jitsu. I just threw Roger over my shoulder and he’s looking for his kidneys.”
Fi’s family was a shaken cocktail of weird. But they all seemed to like life better that way.
“My condolences to Roger’s kidneys. Why is there a hole in the server schedule?”
“Chrissie quit last week. Remember?”
I vaguely remembered a server with a face and hair scurrying out of my way every time I stepped out of my office.
“Why’d she quit?”
“You scared the shit out of her. Called her a tray-dropping gold digger and told her to give up on marrying rich because even rich guys want their beers cold.”