I knocked on the door, then leaned against the doorframe. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed. “We’re going out tonight,” I informed her.
She blinked and propped herself up on her elbows. “I thought you said we’re going out tonight.”
I grinned at her. “I did.”
She sat all the way up. “So you’re going to put Workaholic Elle to bed at nine and let Fun Ellie come out to play?”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
She whooped. “No way! This is going to be awesome. What are we doing?”
“I realized it’s been forever since I’ve heard live music. If I want to find the right property for Miles, I have to get a sense of the different possible layouts he could work with. I want to see how other clubs use their spaces.”
Her shoulders slumped slightly. “So it’s still work.”
“Only kind of. I could have looked this all up online. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do the research with a whiskey in one hand and a live band doing the background music.”
“Yes! Correct! Let’s do this! When and where?”
I shrugged. “How about dinner and music at Snug Harbor, then see what we’re in the mood for?”
“Ooh, I haven’t been there in a while. I heard they added a blackened drum fish to the menu. I’ve been wanting to try it.”
I gave her a wry smile. “So you’re saying it’s kind of a work night for you too?”
Chloe moonlighted as a food critic on a blog she called The Kitchen Saint. No one knew who she was—even the editor—because she insisted that keeping her identity secret was essential to writing honest reviews. I was literally the only person who knew it was Chloe, and that’s only because I’d walked past her open laptop once when she was composing a blog post.
“My food reviews are not work. They are love.”
I snorted. “Tell it to whoever gets your three-star reviews. Don’t think it feels like love to them.”
“Then they should make better food.” She bounced from the bed. “I’m going to shower. I’ll be ready before seven with a couple of whiskey sours for us to pre-game.”
I rolled my eyes. Chloe would do her best to get me into trouble tonight, but that was nothing new. Come tomorrow morning, I might have a slight hangover, but I’d also have a better sense of what to show Miles so I could seal the deal and make my quarterly goal. He’d be so impressed with my understanding of the kind of space he needed, he’d be ready to sign on the dotted line by the end of business on Monday.
Chapter Six
“I don’t know,” Miles said, frowning at the final space I’d booked for us to view.
The bare walls and serviceable floor tile didn’t hint at greatness, it was true. But he wasn’t even trying to take it seriously, and it made me feel kind of...stabby. It was late Monday afternoon and an unseasonably hot day. Maybe the humidity was making me cranky because none of the properties had their air conditioning on. Or maybe it was the fact that he was dismissing the last property I had to show him without considering the possibilities of any of the properties.
“What don’t you know?” I asked. “It’s the right size, it has a generous kitchen, it’s a high-traffic location, and the price is good. I only showed you those other two so you’d see how awesome this one is.”
“A little sales psychology, huh?”
I didn’t like his tone. It sounded judgy. “Why do you say it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m trying to sell you a used car I know will break down tomorrow.”
Miles ran his hand through his hair, a nervous habit I’d seen a few times today. A couple of pieces stuck up, and I wanted to reach over and smooth them back into place. “Sorry. That’s not what I meant. It’s just...” He looked around the wide, empty space, the walls painted dark red, the stained acoustic tiles in the ceiling. “What do you like about this space?”
I mustered my most cheerful sales voice, a tone that sounded like a cheerleader making a business pitch. Perky, perky, perky. “It’s got great dimensions for seating. The stage could go there.” I pointed to an area along the side wall. “You don’t want to face your audience toward the kitchen, so putting them crossways from it lets your wait staff slip in and out unobtrusively. Your bar would go over there.”