Tyler and Mason exchanged a glance at that and then at me.
“So, what’s the plan there?” Tyler asked.
“I’m getting a loan,” I said.
“Christ, seriously?” Mason said, frustrated.
“It’s only for a short time,” I said. “Look, the insurance money will be back to us in a week or two. But I don’t trust that Realtor as far as I can throw her.”
“Yeah, she seemed a little weird,” Jordan said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Not just weird, untrustworthy. I don’t for one second believe she won’t go trotting to her phone to call anyone who might be interested in this property and try to jack the price up at the last minute. So, I’m getting a loan and when the insurance money comes in, I can pay most or all of it off, and the rest can go to building the interior, okay?”
“And you’re sure we can’t just drive by Danny’s and throw a few rocks through his windows?” Jordan asked, getting a big laugh from the rest of us. I was struck in that moment that no matter how annoying some of them could be sometimes, or how it always seemed like one of them was getting on my nerves at all times, I loved them, and our bond was like steel. Each one of us would go to bat against the devil himself for any of the other ones. The least I could do was foot the bill for the loan again.
“Not today, but I am reserving the right to change my mind at a further date,” I said, getting another laugh.
“Alright, fine, so what do we do now?” Matt asked.
“For right now, I’m heading back to the hotel. I need to chill out and get some work done. Tomorrow morning, I’ll swing by the bank, sign the paperwork, and have a meeting with the relevant people to get this done,” I said.
“You’re going to go see Danny, aren’t you?” Jordan asked.
“I won’t lie, I want to,” I said. “But right now, the priority has to be on getting the money together and solidifying this place as our new spot. Then we build it. Then, maybe, we have time to tell Danny which barstool leg he can sit on and spin.”
“Trick question; the answer is all four,” Tyler said, and we laughed.
22
Amanda
I was just finishing up a snack when the hotel room door opened and Tom came in. I wiped my fingertips off with a napkin and tossed it in the wire trash can set beside the desk. Standing as I swallowed my last bite of cinnamon crumb cake, I started toward him. He looked stressed, his expression drawn and uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Did something happen? Is there something wrong with the new property?”
I might have sounded a bit unhinged in that moment, but I was realizing how important this whole thing was to me, too. It mattered so much to Tom, and that made it matter to me.
“I guess you can say that,” Tom said, dropping down onto the end of the couch and starting to take his shoes off. “The real estate agent decided it would be a good idea to wait until all of my brothers were falling in love with the property to let us know other people were looking at it.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, that isn’t so unexpected, right? You saw that place. And you said it yourself. lt’s perfect. The area around it is really building up, and there’s a ton of potential for expanding the business and making it even more successful than it already was. I would think that there would be other people who might be interested in putting a bar or restaurant there. You’ll put in a bid and it will be just fine.”
“One of them is Danny,” he said.
I was all prepared to continue to reassure him and build him up, but that statement made me feel like all the words had been sucked out of my mouth. I stood there silent for a few seconds, and Tom looked up at me with a nod as he tossed away his second shoe.
“Danny?” I asked. “He’s interested in the property?”
“That’s what the real estate agent said,” he said. “She said there were a few different people who had come to look at it, but that Danny was particularly interested.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he be interested in that property? I’ve seen his bar. It’s nothing like that place,” I said.
“You’re right about that,” Tom said. “But it seems that’s exactly why he was looking into it. He wants to move up in the world and appeal to a better demographic.”
“So what does that mean?”
“Well, it’s a really shitty situation. Even though we’re absolutely interested and told the real estate agent that, it’s not like we can put the place on layaway. Unfortunately, buying property doesn’t work that way,” he said.
“You can’t just call dibs?” I sat down beside him with a smile.
“If only it was that easy,” he said, leaning over for a kiss.
“So, what are you going to do? The insurance money from the other bar should be coming soon. Is the agent going to be able to wait long enough to use that?”
Tom shook his head. “We can’t wait for the insurance company to get the money out to us. By the time it gets here, Danny could have already scooped the place out from under us. I’m going to put a hundred thousand dollars of my own money down tomorrow. This way we can secure it and not have to worry about it. When the insurance money comes in, we can just use it to do improvements around the property.”
I nodded. “That sounds like a good idea. You were already intending on doing some modifications and renovations, weren’t you?”
“Absolutely. We want to make it perfect for the new Hollow. It will be easy enough to adjust shift around what money is used for what thing. I just don’t like the stress of not having it taken care of yet,” he said.
“Well,” I said, standing up so I could massage Tom’s shoulders, “I highly doubt Danny is going to come up with that much money in the middle of the night. Everything is going to work out just fine.”
Tom reached up to his shoulder and picked up one of my hands, bringing it around in front of his face to kiss it.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’m so glad you’re here for me.”
My conversation with Emily loomed in my mind, and I was just about to ask him what this all meant when he pulled me around and started kissing me again. I couldn’t resist it. To be honest, I didn’t try very hard.
We sank into the couch, our lips locked on one another, tongues sliding to meet each other. Tom molded over me, and I wrapped my leg around his hip as his increasing bulge pressed into my core. I could feel how hard he was getting, and my breath hitched, and all my thoughts melted away. I wanted to know where we were, where we were going, but with his hot breath on my neck as he trailed kisses along the vein and his hand cupped my breast, the worries disappeared into a fit of unyielding passion.
Tom’s hand kneaded into my breast and then slid down to where my blouse hem sat above my hips. I shifted so it wasn’t pulled so tight around me, and he slipped his hand inside, brushing across the soft skin of my stomach. His thumb searched for the center of my bra, and finding the clasp there, unhooked it. The pressure of the garment released, and he filled his hand with my now unencumbered breast.