I read the plans, then stopped and blinked to myself. Their office was going to be located at an address right in our neighborhood, and I pictured the map in my head as I figured out where exactly that was. Concerned, I turned to the computer and pulled up the Ringhouse Theater.
The addresses matched.
I pulled out my cell phone and called the number, which rang five or six times before a man picked up.
“Ringhouse Theater.”
“Hi, I was just wondering—are you selling your building?”
There was a slight pause; then the man cursed under his breath. “Why won’t you people leave me alone? I don’t care what my brother said or what papers he signed. I am going to do everything in my power to stop you from buying this theater. This was our father’s. Don’t you understand that?” he snapped.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything,” I said quickly, but he hung up before I could say anything more.
I sat there with the phone in my hand, totally crushed. I loved that little theater. There weren’t very many like it left and almost none that ran old movies. I could tell that they weren’t making great money or anything, but their blockbusters all sold out, and they seemed to be getting along fine.
Plus, it felt special to me. I remembered stepping out of seeing a matinee and running into Leo at the start of the summer, standing there like he was waiting for me. Going to catch a movie was one of the first ways I’d found to drag him away from work and get him to have a nice time with me.
I set the phone down and sighed. I hated this, but maybe Leo would be able to fix it. One of the owners of the firm was my brother, and the other was my FB, and they should be able to convince the Hank family to change their plans.
Because there was no need to close that movie theater and take it away from the man who ran it, no matter what the building was going to be used for.
It made me feel a little nauseous, like there was a gross underbelly to the work I did for the Hank family.
I managed to focus and get some more work done until Leo and Kai returned to the office. They were both in good moods, and the spring in Leo’s step told me that their meeting had gone well, although a grumbly voice in the back of my mind wondered if that just meant another family was going to lose their business so the Hanks could repair their reputation.
I followed Leo into his office. As obvious as his good mood was, my bad mood must have been written all over my face, too.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I handed over the mail and took a seat across from his desk. “Nothing. I mean, maybe something. The Hank family is planning to buy the Ringhouse Theater and convert it into the headquarters of their new nonprofit, even though the current owner doesn’t want to sell.” As soon as I said it, I felt embarrassed. Maybe he wouldn’t think that was a big deal?
Leo frowned as he took the papers. “Really? I guess I can see how the location is appealing.” I almost scowled, but Leo caught the drift. “Not that they should shut down the theater,” he added quickly.
I knew he saw this kind of thing differently than I did. I was sentimental to a fault, and I tried not to expect the same out of other people. But I still wanted him to express the kind of outrage that I felt.
It was our movie theater, the place we had our first date, or at least something like that. Shouldn’t that matter, even if we weren’t in a real relationship?
“I called the owner,” I stressed again. “He doesn’t even want to sell. I guess his brother is doing it without his consent.”
Leo took a seat behind his desk and glanced through the file. “That’s definitely not good PR,” he mumbled.
“Or good humanity,” I pointed out.
He turned his eyes up to me. The flash of dark silver reminded me it was him, and I softened a little. His heart was in the right place, I knew that. And he was still Leo, even when he was in work mode.
“Definitely bad humanity,” he agreed. “Let me see what I can do about it.”
I perked up in the seat. “Yeah?”
He tossed the papers down. “Sure. There’s no reason they need to pick this location. I won’t try to appeal to their compassion—I know that won’t work. But Roger always defers to me on matters of public relations. I’ll give him a little push, and I’m sure he’ll happily oblige and move the foundation.”
Butterflies fluttered from my gut up through my chest. “I knew you’d be able to fix it,” I said with a wide smile.
“Where else are we going to catch those old movies?”
“It’s one of the places we first started to hang out together,” I prompted. I knew he was still approaching things from a business perspective, but something inside of me demanded that I push. I just needed him to hear that the theater mattered to him for that reason, too. Maybe not in the same way it mattered to me, but more than just a business problem he would deal with among a hundred others that day.
“I thought I was just going to catchThe Matrix,” he said with a wink. “Didn’t know I was going on a surprise afternoon date.”
