Her Dirty Bartenders (Men at Work #5) - Mika Lane Page 0,16

to massive success—the biggest night club Denver has ever seen—and he wants to pull the plug? It doesn’t make sense.”

Welcome to the world of my father.

Jax squirmed in Robbie’s arms, looked around my living room where we always met, and went right back to sleep. He was a cute little bastard. I hadn’t been around babies much until Robbie knocked up the woman he was banging. I wasn’t ready for one of my own, but it was nice to see my friend be a man and step up to the plate.

I continued. “As you know, Dad sent Marni and me out here to Denver to sow our wild oats as he put it. He set her up with the gym, and me with Tableau. He wanted us to see what we could do as entrepreneurs.”

With a big cash infusion from him.

Robbie frowned. “What I don’t get is why is he asking for his money back from you, but not Marni?”

The answer to that was probably the most distressing of all.

“He doesn’t expect her to take over the family business like he does me. In his warped, sexist mind, he’s giving her something to do before he marries her off and she starts squeezing out babies.”

Maze dropped his head back and laughed. “I bet Marni takes really kindly to that way of thinking.”

He wasn’t kidding. My sister was a masterful businesswoman. She could probably run circles around Dad with the family business. But he didn’t want her.

He wanted me.

Which was a problem.

I had no intention of leaving either Denver or the club.

That left me—and the guys, really—no choice but to find a way to pay Dad back. Get him out of our hair and out of our business.

“So, he actually said pay him back or he’ll sell the club right out from under us? How can he do that?” Robbie asked.

“Dude, you know he’s listed as the majority owner. We had to do that to get him to front us the money.”

Maze rose and began pacing, running his fingers through his hair. I’d seen that before. The man was troubled.

I was too.

Robbie, Maze, and I had put every last bit of our blood, sweat, and tears into Tableau. The last few nights running up to its opening, we’d actually slept at the club on bench cushions so we didn’t have to stop working on its build-out, which we mostly did ourselves in order to save money. Our dedication had paid off in spades.

Which I suspected was part of why Dad was being such a dick. He was jealous. He’d sent me to Denver to teach me a lesson, and show me how tough the world of business was. He’d never counted on my being successful.

“It’s his passive-aggressive way of forcing me back to Philly to work for him.”

Robbie shook his head. “So, he doesn’t care about Maze or me, or how hard we’ve worked to make Tableau a success?”

I didn’t answer. It wasn’t necessary.

“All right. We’ll just raise the money to pay him back. Let’s book more parties in the Playroom. We make a shit ton of money from that. And we can bump up the cover charge. We can also start being open on Mondays. Even though it won’t be busy, that could provide some revenue we aren’t currently getting,” Maze said.

Robbie leaned back on my sofa and Jax snuggled into his neck. “Man, that’s our only day off all week. Shit. But if we have to do it, I guess we have to do it.” He closed his eyes and for a moment I thought he’d fallen asleep.

I didn’t know anything about babies, but I could see via Robbie’s recent experience that they seemed to sleep when they felt like it, and to hell with the rest of the world.

“We’ll go over the numbers with Deb. She’s great at that shit,” Maze said. “Hey, did Robbie tell you about the new barback named Stell?”

Stell? Did I know someone named Stell?

Robbie’s head popped up off the sofa back. “Piece of work, that one,” he said.

Maze slapped his thigh. “Not only did she come in with no idea of what a barback did, but she also realized, the moment she arrived, that Robbie was the guy who hit her car last week. And now his insurance is trying to get out of paying for it.” He smacked his thigh and started laughing his ass off.

Robbie didn’t think it was funny.

“What a mess,” I said.

“It will all get straightened out. She just