I could work straight through.
Or I could take a break.
Then my addled mind saw both of the Morrisons glaring from the doorway. They weren’t actually there, of course, but the ghost of their disapproval haunted every corner of the office. So, rather than chasing dreams of a tasty dinner and an even tastier bar owner, I settled into my chair and forced myself to focus.
Chapter 12
Finn
It was Saturday. I’d been wandering aimlessly around the bar for two hours. It wasn’t even one o’clock.
The door rattled, keys jingled, then Mark stepped inside.
I was slumped over the bar, staring at a blank legal pad like it held the secrets to the universe.
It held three words: “GET MORE CUSTOMERS.”
“You texted our emergency code. Did something catch on fire?”
He tossed his phone onto the counter, the text from me bright on his screen.
Blarney Boy: 69. STAT. I’m at the bar.
Ordinarily, I would laugh. The preteen boy living rent free in my head would snicker at sixty-ninebeing our unique abbreviation for 911. The adult adolescent would chuckle at the nickname Mark had given me on our one and only failed date.
But in that moment, I barely had the heart to cock an eyebrow.
Mark flopped down across from me at the bar.
“I smell coffee.”
I looked up from my phone to catch him staring at me, his “concerned father” face taking up far too much rugged real estate.
Without so much as a nod, I turned, snatched a mug from below the back bar, and filled it with hours-old coffee. Then, because Mark and I knew far too much about each other, I dropped in two spoonfuls of sugar, about a gallon of half and half, and one Werther’s Original.
Yeah, Mark was weird like that.
He caught the mug when I slid it toward him, took a long sip, then sighed.
“I think I just caught diabetes watching you drink that shit.”
He grinned over the rim. “You can’t catch diabetes.”
“Says the guy drinking an entire island nation’s sugar output in one mug.”
He took another long pull, his eyes dancing at our familiar banter.
“Okay,” I said, leaning across the bar and pulling my pad toward me while simultaneously clicking my pen about a thousand times. “We need a plan.”
“We have a plan. Open the doors, serve good food and drinks, and let word of mouth do the work.”
“Word of mouth takes months. We have maybe six weeks of operating capital before we’re in trouble. We didn’t even net enough last night to pay for Rod’s salary, much less the others.”
“So we speed up the word of mouth.”
“How?”
Mark shrugged. “Marketing?”
