week completely. We still have half the tickets left for opening night.”
My stomach clenched. That didn’t sound good. Opening night was only three weeks away.
“You know how to fix this,” Aaron added.
But Miles shook his head. “Drop it.”
“No, I won’t drop it. Because you’ve dragged yourself back here to do this, and it’s not working. My job is to make sure you’re making the right business choices, and this is a bad one.”
Jordan caught my eye. “Hey, Ellie, want to go look at the...kitchen with me?”
“Yep.” I jumped at the chance, already turning to follow him, but Miles said, “Don’t leave, guys. You can hear this.”
He faced Aaron, his arms crossed, his jaw tight. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this. I won’t put my name on the club. I don’t want my name in the PR. It’s not the draw you think it is, and I want the Turnaround to succeed because of the talent we bring in and the food we serve. So I’m going to say it one more time. Drop. It.”
Aaron made a disgusted noise and grabbed his keys from the table. “Whatever, bro. I’m going to the gym.”
He walked out, and Miles blew out a frustrated breath. “Sorry, y’all. I just need him to hear me, and so far he hasn’t.”
“No problem,” Jordan said. I didn’t know what to add to that.
“I’m going to go check on some paperwork. Catch you after work?” Miles asked me. I nodded and he gave me a quick kiss before he headed into the office.
When he was gone, I turned to Jordan. “How bad are ticket sales?”
“Not good,” he admitted. “It’ll pick up as we get closer, but I’d hoped we’d be sold out right now. We haven’t even gotten RSVPs from some of our VIP invites. The mayor, a couple of the social club presidents. Stuff like that.”
“Would it help if Miles used his name? If they knew he was backing it?”
He gave a slow nod. “Yes, but I understand why he won’t. He thinks his reputation as an artist is so different from what we’re spotlighting here that it’ll only confuse people about our brand. If they come here expecting one thing and get another, then we risk bad Yelp reviews. Stuff like that.”
“What can I do to help?”
He gave me a small twist of his lips, like he wasn’t sure whether to smile or frown. “Tell your friends.”
“I will,” I said. “I don’t have a huge social network, but I can start putting out the word in my professional ones.”
“Everything helps,” he said. “Then tell your friends to tell their friends.”
“You got it.”
I went to work, but I worried about it the rest of the day. The worry didn’t ease over the next two weeks either. Everything was on schedule with the club. Tanya had the wait staff hired, Chef Le Anh had put together a killer menu, and we all got to sample her dishes every day for dinner as she trained her line cooks.
Intense energy crackled through the staff and crew, but every few days, I quietly checked in with Jordan on ticket sales, and the news didn’t get better. New sales were coming in at a trickle, and it lent all the pre-opening energy an edge of desperation, like we were collectively holding our breath and leaning forward, hard, as if we could psychically tip the balance toward more ticket sales.
Miles and I spent most of our time at the club. I came home from work, changed, and met him downstairs to eat whatever Anh was working on, then we’d each work on our separate stuff at a table in the center of the floor. Emails, vendor orders, other paperwork. But when the kitchen staff cleared out and it was only us left, sometimes I’d sit at the piano or Miles would pull out his guitar, and we’d take turns playing. He was always working out new music, rarely working on the same song two nights in a row.
I’d finished “Let Me Love You” and lately had been noodling around on a new one. I had a melody but it hadn’t found words yet. That was fine. I liked just being on the piano. I was getting better at it by the day, my muscle memory coming back.
Tonight, when Anh popped her head into the dining room to tell us she was leaving, Miles thanked her and went to get his guitar. Instead of joining him on the