know, so maybe stop with the ‘he could be more than me’ bullshit. He’d be lucky to be like you, Drew. Anyone would. Second of all, he’s eighteen. And in my opinion, this is a pretty sweet gig for a kid that age. From what he said, he makes pretty good money for only having to work a few hours a week. You’re a great brother. This is Cody’s doing, not yours.”
Drew stared intensely into my eyes for a moment before his shoulders slumped a bit. “You’re right. Thanks for talking me off the ledge. What would I do without you?”
“You’re welcome. And you’d probably be miserable.”
That got a smile out of him. “Very true. But you’d be miserable without me too.”
“Duh.”
He laughed and hugged me tightly to him. “I really wish our housing situation was a little more amenable to me showing you how not-miserable I can make you.”
I sighed against his chest. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
He hummed against my head. “Is Taylor a heavy sleeper?” he whispered.
“No, she is definitely not.”
Both of us pulled away slightly so we could whip our heads in the direction of the kitchen, where Taylor was standing as she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water.
She smirked. “Though she can be convinced to leave for indeterminate amounts of time every now and then. But not tonight, lovebirds. I’m beat.” She gave us one more smile and went back into the bedroom.
Drew and I looked back at one another and promptly burst out laughing.
Chapter Nine
D R E W
“This can be all yours for the summer,” Sean said as he gestured widely with his arms. “What do you say?”
I wanted to say that this was some bullshit.
Sean had had the brilliant idea of adding a deck to Rafferty’s, but now that it was there, he had no idea what to do with it—and clearly no desire to figure it out. Pawning it off on me meant he’d have someone to blame if the deck didn’t bring in any extra money.
He’d asked me to come in a little early with Brody so we could discuss a few things. I’d thought it had to do with me training Brody behind the bar, since he was relegated to barbacking until he got some training, but instead Sean wanted to discuss the new deck and how it was my responsibility.
Beyond having to stay within a set budget, he would pretty much give me free rein to do what I needed to attract a crowd.
I looked around. While the area was spacious—probably even big enough to have a small band perform—and had a small service bar to quickly throw together simple cocktails, it was in no way ready to handle a large influx of customers without a lot of help from the bar inside, which would be incredibly limiting.
There was no doubt in my mind that in order to be a success, we needed a full bar out there. And on top of that, the deck was bare bones. The wood looked like it still needed to be treated, there were no tables or chairs, no outdoor servingware, the small bar it did have didn’t look like it was hooked up to the water line yet, and obviously it wasn’t stocked.
Nice weather had arrived, but the deck wasn’t ready for people to take advantage of it. It felt like we were already behind the eight ball with selling this to the public.
When I didn’t reply, Sean clapped a hand on Brody’s back. “I figured I could give you full use of your buddy here.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Like giving me a guy with no experience and a penchant for mishaps was a selling point. But I didn’t point that out to Sean, nor did I air any of my other gripes.
Instead, I smiled like a schmuck and nodded. “Yeah, man. Sounds good.”
I told myself it would’ve been stupid to refuse. After all, this was what I’d wanted: to run a bar. This was my chance, even if it wasn’t optimal. It would be good experience for when Brody and I ventured out on our own, and it would be something to show off to his dad if it ended up being a success.
“Great. I’ll leave you guys to it, then. Let me know what you need.” Sean hurried away before I could actually ask him for anything.
When we were alone, Brody clapped his hands together. “Where do we start, boss?”
There