Big Dick Energy - Cindi Madsen Page 0,36

viewing boxes, and offer upscale food and top-shelf alcohol.

“Allow those who pay extra a certain level of backstage access to the Pythons. A meet in greet with the coaching staff and some of the players. Give them a chance to schmooze and eventually, pump them for support, donations, and all that other type of stuff that makes the rich world go round.”

Damn it. As far as ideas went, it was a good one. Which yay, since Archer was technically my partner and the execs were nodding, obviously impressed. But I hadn’t come up with it, and it felt like a punctuation mark to the meeting. People always remembered that final touchdown, the earlier scores fading in favor of that last moment of glory.

“I know the perfect whiskey vendor. The owners are newer to the game and looking to expand their brand and gain recognition.” Volunteering Luciana and Bianca Serrano before running it by them was a risk, but in my defense, this was my chance to land the extra point that would prevent us from going into overtime. “It won’t break the bank, and they’ve got the best whiskey I’ve ever tasted. Las Hermanas Distillery and Restaurant even serves a margarita that’ll have you saying ‘tequila who?’”

The restaurant and bar was the biggest project I’d been allowed to design solo, at the sisters’ request. Although Mr. Bishop constantly stuck his head into my personal space with obnoxious questions like “Will women go to a restaurant with exposed distillery equipment?” and “That looks more like a bar than the Mexican Restaurant my wife likes.”

As if a company run by Hispanic women needed to cater to females and have a stereotypical design. I’d had to be careful about passing on the ignorant comments to Cat, who threatened to give Mr. Bishop a piece of her mind. She said she’d just deliver it in Spanish so his bigoted ass wouldn’t understand it, but she’d never been good at hiding her giant metaphorical dick, language barrier notwithstanding.

“I can arrange a tasting,” I said, “and if you love it as much as I do, you can talk contracts.”

Mario was already nodding, showing his support of the idea. “Mayor Gonzalez would appreciate the effort to add more diversity to the project.”

Full disclosure, I was well aware. One of the many reasons I respected our mayor was due to how hard he worked to fill staff positions and work with companies that reflected the makeup of our beautiful city.

Scott slapped the desk. “Done. Whiskey tastings are my favorite type of meetings.” His guffaw didn’t cover Archer’s snort-laugh over how high I’d jumped at the desk-slapping. My nerves had always run more on the coiled slinky side of the scale than the steely one.

He’s just jealous. “If everyone will please email me dates and times you have openings for next week, I’ll line it up.”

Luckily, the Serrano sisters adored me. I remained fairly confident they’d be down, and since I didn’t want to forgo celebrating this minor victory, I’d let Future Penelope worry about that.

Scott stood, and Mario popped up, too, as if they’d been in a standing competition. While the councilwoman gave a quick glance at her watch. “Archer,” the club president of the Pythons said, “you mentioned you’d like to meet some of the players if we had the time.”

Oh, did he now? When? Where? How? Why? At the accusatory look I leveled his way, he merely shrugged, as if he hadn’t gone behind my back to ask Scott about meeting the Pythons’ players.

“I emailed Scott the other day. I thought it’d be helpful to meet some of the players and get their input on what they liked about the current training facility, as well as other complexes they’ve played at before.” Archer casually raked his hands through his brown hair, loosening the hold his gel had on it. “I guess I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“In what the players would enjoy having in the complex where they’ll be playing soccer for the next several years? Oh, I’m interested.”

Scott waved us toward the door. “Then let’s go see who we can find.”

The Councilwoman and the mayor’s chief of staff had ducked out due to busy schedules and prior engagements.

During our walk from the offices down to the field, my anger had been boiling faster and hotter, until it was all I could do to keep a lid on it.

I nearly plowed right into Scott when he abruptly paused at the door to the locker room. “Give