Savior
Afew days later, Coal and I were in Copper’s office, at his request, when he delivered news neither of us was expecting. “I’m putting you two in charge of running the gym. I’ve had our lawyer look over the paperwork and everything’s in order. You start tomorrow.”
I gaped at him. “I don’t know anything about running a business, Prez.”
“I’ll handle the business side of things. All you two need to do is work out a schedule so that at least one of you is there to open and the other is there to close. Once Grant is back on his feet, he can help cover the hours in between. Oh, and two of the staff members contacted me about continuing their employment. After Spazz ran background checks on them and I personally interviewed them, I agreed to let them continue working at the gym, but you’re probably going to need to hire a few more people,” he said.
“Okay. Wow. Um, thanks, Prez. What time do we need to be there tomorrow morning?” I asked.
“It previously opened at five and closed at eight. Let’s keep the same hours for a week or two and see how it goes. If you’re not doing a lot of business during the early hours or the later ones, we can readjust the opening and closing time.”
“Got it. Thanks again, Prez,” I said.
“Thanks, Copper,” Coal added.
“You’re welcome. Coal, you’re good to go. Savior, I need a minute before you leave.”
Coal nodded and left the office. As soon as the door closed, Copper leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “What’s going on with your girl?”
“She’s not my girl, Prez,” I corrected.
“She’s carrying your baby.”
“Yeah, she is,” I agreed. “She’s home from the hospital. She still gets sick several times a day, but the medicine they gave her seems to be helping.”
“And how are things between you and her?” he asked.
“Less fucked up than they were.”
“Well, I suppose any improvement is better than none. Is she going to let you be a part of the baby’s life?”
“She says she is.”
He nodded. “Good. You let me know if that changes and we’ll get Tina to handle the custody agreement.”
“Thanks, Prez.”
* * *
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
I groaned when my alarm clock went off at four o’clock in the morning. I wasn’t one to sleep extremely late, but I wasn’t one to rise before the sun was up either. I stumbled into the kitchen and managed to get a pot of coffee going before I made my way back to the shower.
When I returned to the kitchen, Coal was standing at the counter with two mugs in front of him. Without a single word, he shoved one in my direction. Yeah, it was going to be a long day for both of us. After our meeting with Copper, we’d agreed to work open to close for the first few days to see how things went.
“I don’t know about you, but my ass is going to be taking a nap in one of the offices sometime today.”
He laughed. “Yeah, same here. This ass crack of dawn shit is going to suck.”
“Maybe the place won’t be busy and we won’t have to do this much longer,” I mused.
Coal and I arrived at the gym fifteen minutes before it was supposed to open. I was a little on edge when we first got there, but everything was fine. We disarmed the alarm, turned on all the lights, and sat there for almost two hours before anyone showed up.
For the next two days, no one showed up before seven o’clock, but people were rushing to get out the door at eight o’clock when we closed. Coal and I discussed it with Copper and we decided to move the gym’s opening and closing time two hours forward.
