“Relax, Sam. I really do like it, but I think it would be incredibly time intensive to organize
everything,” he told me. He pulled out a pad of paper and started making notes of his own. “What
would you say if we do a vendor fair the weekend of Pride? We don’t have much time, but I can make
some calls and I think we can get enough vendors to make it worthwhile, and it will bring people into
the club. But for something more ongoing, I’d like to try a concept I haven’t seen many places, but it
worked well for a friend with a club out west.”
“You can try whatever you want.” I didn’t mean to sound snarky, but at the end of the day, this was
Jack’s club, not mine. He didn’t need my permission to do anything.
“True, but this is something I want you to take ownership of. With William managing the back, I
wanted to talk to you about shifting your focus to take over some of the day-to-day operations,” he
explained. It was exactly what I wanted, but I still doubted my ability. Even after the incident with
John, I couldn’t get the staff in the back to respect me as an authority figure, and I wasn’t sure there
was anything Jack could do to fix that. They rarely called me by name, thinking it was cute to call me
Kidwhenever they saw me. Maybe they didn’t mean anything by it, but it felt like an insult. “I see a
lot of myself in you, Sam. You’re ambitious and you have amazing ideas. Eventually, you’re going to
realize you’re better off building your own dream, but until then, I don’t want your talents wasted
overseeing the staff.”
“Thank you for having that much faith in me.” I swallowed around the lump of emotion forming in
my throat.
“Of course, this will also come with a pay increase.” He pulled a sheet of paper out of the top
drawer of his desk. I gaped at the salary he was offering, shaking my head when I saw the bonuses
that would be available to me. I opened my mouth to tell him it was too much, but he silenced me.
“Don’t argue. The club is doing well, thanks in large part to the ideas you bring to the table, and
you’re officially a college graduate. The salary is more than fair, and the bonus structure is something
I would offer any manager taking on the responsibilities I’ll be placing on you.”
God, I still couldn’t believe I was done with school. I’d walked the stage a week ago and it was
still surreal. My parents and siblings had come down for the day, and after the commencement was
over, Daddy had insisted on taking all of us to dinner at Marino’s. I’d been tense at first, expecting
one of the brothers who ran the restaurant to make a comment that would clue my family in that we all
knew each other from the club, but Daddy promised they were nothing but professional when they
