over and take me through things a bit less…frantic this time.”
So I did. I spent the next however many minutes recounting the story, not leaving out a single detail that I could remember. When I was done, I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed. But when Drew got up and started pacing, I didn’t think going back to bed was an option.
He was also aggressively raking his fingers through his hair, and I was about to voice my concern for his follicles when he came to an abrupt halt.
“So a famous football player stole our name?” he asked.
“Yeah. Well…he was kind of given it.”
“By someone who didn’t have the right to give it.”
“Right.”
“Why is this our problem?”
My eyes narrowed in confusion because I wasn’t sure how someone could not see how this was a problem. But before I could relay that sentiment, he continued.
“I mean, it’s not like there can’t be two places with the same name. Our place isn’t even its own bar. It’s just a deck.”
“It would probably be fine if the other place you were sharing a name with wasn’t owned by a local celebrity who hired sharks to help make his place a success. But I’m scared of what the people at Margot Nathan might do if they find out, and that doesn’t only affect you. It affects Sean too.”
“What are we supposed to do, then?” he asked.
“You said yourself the deck isn’t even its own bar. Does it even need its own name?”
“You said it did,” he challenged.
“I said that so the deck would have novelty, but it’s not a requirement.”
“But we printed up all those materials and even passed out a bunch of promotional stuff already. And ordered shirts and menus and glassware. Not to mention the sign. Everything has the name on it. That was money Sean invested in the deck because he wanted to support my idea. I can’t just throw it all away.”
“You’ll be throwing it all away regardless if you move forward and get shut down,” I argued.
“What are the odds of that?”
I shrugged, more in frustration than anything else. “I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s a chance worth taking.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth before saying, “I don’t know that I agree.”
“You don’t agree?”
“No. Rafferty’s is a neighborhood place. Granted it’s not far from Margot Nathan, but no one would really notice the deck if they weren’t looking for it.”
“Jake may be looking for it.”
“Who cares?”
I laughed, but it was humorless. I wanted to say that I cared. If Jake told them that a bar I helped open on company time had the same name as a bar owned by their biggest client, they could ruin me. Sure, they were a bunch of bloodsucking demons from the bowels of hell, but they had a lot of clout in the city. A bad reference from them would kill my marketing career before I even had a marketing career. And from what I’d seen so far of Jeff and Carole, they weren’t above blackballing someone who crossed them.
But I couldn’t say any of that to Drew. I couldn’t make it all about me when I’d gotten us into this mess.
Thankfully Drew was still ranting, so he didn’t notice that I hadn’t answered his question.
“And Daily’s place isn’t opening until the end of the summer. Even if someone told him, we’d have already been up and running for months and be closing the deck down due to weather soon after he opens. It wouldn’t even be worth making a thing out of it. Right?”
I shrugged, feeling like I was lifting five hundred pounds with the motion. “I guess.”
He moved to the door and put on his sneakers. “I’ll run it past Sean in the interest of full disclosure. But I think he’ll be on board with just moving forward and letting the chips fall where they may.”
He came over and pressed a kiss to my temple. “Thank you for being so worried about me. But I think everything will be okay.” And with that, he turned and left.
And I remained…unsure of how to tell him I was also worried about me.
Chapter Nineteen
D R E W
“Thanks for coming to help out,” I said to Taylor. “We definitely needed another woman’s touch.”
Brody and I had gotten mostly everything done the last few days, from painting some tables we’d repurposed to stocking the bar with glassware. But every time we thought that was it, more small tasks