THE DAY ANTONIS TSAGKARAKIS WENT OUT OF COMMISSION WAS THE DAY NIKOS DRAKOS’S LIFE TURNED TO HELL. It had spun out of his control, and no matter how many times he tried to grab it, it escaped his reach. Nikos’s life had quickly turned into something he couldn’t recognize the moment he accepted taking over his uncle’s position while he was in a coma.
His life was no longer his own as it became his duty to manage over fifty clubs in the tri-state area. Over the past few weeks, Nikos had been in many business meetings, speaking to other managers at clubs or his uncle’s business partners who wanted to see who would be running things in his stead. Nota day went by without his time being taken by things he didn’t want to do.
The relaxed life he had adopted here had vanished before his eyes, and now he sat at his uncle’s desk, trying to manage his club, which he had thought would be the easiest thing to do, but it wasn’t. Nikos let out a deep sigh as he looked at the mountain of work piled on the desk. He was overwhelmed to the point that he didn’t know what to work on first.
When he heard a knock on his door, he looked up to see Honey stepping inside Antonis’s office, and Nikos realized he hadn’t properly spoken to Honey in weeks. He hadn’t had much time too.
“Hey,” Nikos said, and usually, he would follow up his greeting with a flirtatious line, but he found that he just didn’t have it in him, which was a first. And it seemed that Honey thought the same as her eyebrows rose in shock because he hadn’t thrown a one-liner at her for her to shoot down. But he was exhausted, and his exhaustion made it so that he couldn’t come up with clever flirtatious things to say to a beautiful woman.
“I’m here for my pay for the day,” Honey announced, and Nikos nearly slapped his forehead. Of course, that was why she was here. Unlike the other girls, Honey hadn’t come to him asking for favors yet. Every time he stepped into the building, the girls asked him for favors, whether it was taking a day off, switching schedules, receiving a payment earlier, or more. Though it didn’t seem like it, it was hard managing so many people, and he wondered how his uncle had managed to do it.
“Give me a second,” Nikos said as he looked around the desk, fumbling through things to find her envelope. But the desk was nothing but a mountain of paperwork, and soon he found himself frustrated, blowing out a gust of air.
“It’s here,” Honey said, taking pity on him as she opened up the bottom drawer, and Nikos saw the envelopes with the girls’ payments. Honey grabbed her own that had her name on it.
“Dammit,” Nikos said, wondering how he had forgotten that those were there. “My bad.”
“It’s fine,” Honey said as she went to leave. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you,” Nikos said, and the thought crossed his mind to ask her how Kai was doing, but he thought the better of it. Honey never lingered around the club, and she would probably immediately leave to go home and be with her son.
Nikos waited for her to leave the office but was surprised when she sighed and turned back on her heels, facing him.
“This place is a mess,” Honey stated bluntly, and Nikos blanched, not quite expecting that even if it were true. The club was not running in tip-top shape the way it had before, to the point that they weren’t bringing in customers like before. He was certain that if his uncle were awake, he would have his head for ruining his precious club.
“If you don’t get your act together soon, this club will be in complete chaos,” Honey said.
Nikos sighed, tamping down his annoyance. Even if Honey were right, he didn’t really want to hear it when she wasn’t in his shoes. “What should I do then, since you know so much?”
Honey ignored his sarcasm. “First, you can stop being so nice to the girls. They’re taking advantage of you and doing things they would never do with Antonis. Over the last two weeks, Allison has missed six of her performances when she would have never done anything like that before. Candy goes on stage when she pleases, and it messes up the entire order. I wasn’t even supposed to go on this early tonight, but it’s been a free for all,and that messes up my bag when most of my regulars don’t even know what time I’m going to perform.”
Nikos glanced at the clock and realized that it wasn’t even nine yet. He hadn’t been paying attention to the time at all.
“I will admit. You’re definitely not Georgios. If he were in charge right now, he would have taken another cut of our pay on top of the cut we’re supposed to give to the club.”
Nikos’s eyes widened, not realizing Georgios had done something like that before. It was no wonder that most of the girls had been happy when they realized he would be the one in charge of the club, so happy to the point that they were taking advantage of it now.
“Georgios won’t help me,” Nikos admitted, and Honey arched a brow. “He’s still upset that I was chosen to run this place, so to spite me, he hasn’t shown me how to manage this place. And you’re right. I have been too nice.”
“That doesn’t mean to be an asshole either,” Honey quickly said, and Nikos chuckled.
“I would never take an extra percent from anyone here, let alone you girls. Hell, we’ll probably be in a deficit soon because I’ve been giving too many advance payments,” Nikos said as he wiped his face, thinking about the sob stories some of the girls had told him to receive an advance payment. Sweetie had already come to him two times, telling him about her mother’s health, but he was starting to realize that though some of the girls weren’t lying, they were playing heavily on his kindness.
“I know I need to be more firm, but I’ve kind of been avoiding it,” Nikos admitted. He hadn’t wanted to be too hard on the girls, but if he didn’t start, the club would fall apart along with everything else.
“Do you have anything else to add?” Nikos asked.
“You look like shit, and you need to sleep,” Honey said sympathetically, and Nikos cracked his first genuine smile today.
“You’re going to help me sleep better?” Nikos asked, and Honey rolled her eyes.
“I see you’re back to your old self now. See you tomorrow,” Honey said as she tried to make her exit, but Nikos stopped her.
“What is it?”
“I want you to help me out with this place,” Nikos said. “Since Georgios hasn’t been updating me on anything, it’s been hard to manage this place and know the rules my uncle set.”
Honey frowned, and Nikos added, “It won’t be for free. I’ll pay you for your time.”
