I wait.
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about…whether I should still be here long-term,” he says at last. Nothing in his voice sounds casual.
“I’ve had something else come up,” he continues. “My uncle’s been trying to pull me into his security firm for a while now. South Carolina. Mostly private contracts, corporate work, some executive detail.”
This is the first time I’ve heard of it.
“He wants help training new guys. Operations eventually.” Carter rolls the water bottle once between his palms. “I kept putting him off, because of the shop.”
“Okay,” I say, a little slow out of the gate, like it’s not fully clicking yet but it will.
“Man, I don’t know how to tell you that I might…need to go.”
The office goes unnaturally quiet after that.
I sit there for a while. Eight years we’ve known each other, most of those spent together as co-workers as much as friends. Met him at a flight deck, then years later carried on working with him in a shop neither of us was sure would survive its first winter.
I know I have to say something at some point. I sigh.
“Hey, whatever’s going on with you, I support that.”
Carter gives me a tight smile, his shoulders loosening slightly at that.
“Can’t say I’m happy about this—” I continue.
“I’m not trying to dump this on you out of nowhere, and I’m not saying I want out because there’s something wrong here. There isn’t.”
He means that part. Carter’s never lied well.
“I just…” He pauses, jaw tightening once before it smooths back out. “I think it’s time for me to go, George.”
What he’s saying is simple enough. He wants out. And I’m the thing standing in the way of that.
The financial side of it isn’t simple.
When I came back from eight years in the Navy, my father’s shop had already been gone for years. Building leased out. Equipment sold off piece by piece. The only things left were the tools from his workbench and the idea that maybe I could still build something with the name.
The building on Fourth Avenue had been sitting empty when I found it. I got the startup money through the Small Business Administration’s Veterans Advantage loan program, set up for honorably discharged vets starting businesses. Lower fees, better terms. For me, it was $150,000 over ten years.
Four years in, I still owe about $95,000.
Our partnership agreement has a standard buyout clause. If one partner wants out, the other gets sixty days to purchase the share before it can move outside the business.
Carter’s thirty percent currently values at around $120,000, based on what he put in plus a market adjustment clause we added so neither of us could get bought out cheap if things took off.
If I can’t come up with his share within sixty days of Carter filing notice, we have to move to an outside sale. The buyer who’s been circling is ProMotive.
Right now, the shop appraises at about $400,000. My 70 percent comes out to roughly $280,000. Take off the $95,000, I still owe on the SBA loan, and I walk with about $185,000.
I’ve run the numbers before. More than once, usually when I should’ve been sleeping.
What leaves with it is everything that actually makes this place what it is. My father’s name above the door, the sliding scale repairs for families who can’t pay all at once, veteran Saturdays, the youth program, the customers who come here because they know they’ll be treated like people, not numbers. ProMotive would strip it all within months. Rebrand it, standardize it, make it profitable. The sign would come down. The programs would go. And whatever’s left wouldn’t be Torres Auto anymore.
“Carter,” I begin, “The SBA loan has ninety-five thousand still on it. I can’t apply for a second veterans’ loan while the first is active. I looked into the federal community business grant program six months ago when the first ProMotive letter arrived, and that takes ninety days minimum to process. I’ve got sixty.”
Carter gives a small nod. He already knows the numbers.
“You know what happens if you pull out and I can’t cover the buyout.”
