Boss Daddy: A Secret Baby Romance by Black, L. (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

“So you finally gave in, eh?” he mumbled.

“Yeah, well, we’re seeing each other. And it’s been really great. She’d been over at my house for the night multiple times, and something was starting to happen for us,” I said, realizing that emotion was starting to take over. I paused and took a deep breath. “But that had to get put on pause. I came here because we’re brothers, and we’re doing this together. I had to pack up and leave an extraordinarily rare chance for me to find someone and come here to be with you and open this bar. So shut up and help me do that.”

“Your fault for getting involved,” Matt mumbled and then walked away. It was a good thing, too. I was liable to grab his head and put it through the extremely cheap glass windows that let in all the cold and let out all the heat.

Choosing to ignore Matt for the rest of the day, I went to work on back of house. The kitchen was in pretty decent shape, and aside from restocking food in the pantries and doing some general cleanup, there wasn’t much that needed to be done. The office, on the other hand, that was going to need some work.

We had rented a large dumpster for anything we didn’t think we could sell and a pod storage unit for the stuff we did. I began emptying the office and finding all sorts of trash and treasures hidden inside. A map of Portland from the early 1900s was rolled up in a corner, and I immediately envisioned it behind the bar in a frame. Several old flags from both the state and nation were kept reverently in a cabinet in the corner, along with a plaque that had the very first owner’s first dollar bill in a glass case on it. At that time it had been called “Maddow’s Pub.”

Slowly, an idea for how to decorate the bar came into shape. Something that would acknowledge the history of the space while giving way for evolution. Putting up the Maddow’s Pub plaque behind the bar would serve as a good-luck charm in a way. I felt good about the sudden idea, and if I wasn’t annoyed with Matt, I would have pulled him inside to pick his brain.

As I was bringing some stools out to the dumpster that I was pretty sure were used in a riot at some point, my phone rang. I tossed the stools in and opened it up, seeing the call was coming from Tom.

“Yo,” I said. He hated when I did that, which was precisely why I did it.

“Jordan,” he said, completely ignoring my greeting, “how are things? Any updates on the space?”

“Well, things are moving along,” I said. “I have a decent idea for what I want to do for décor. I found some really neat old stuff from when the bar had other names, and I was going to go for a whole nostalgia thing, while freshening it up and making it modern. Kind of like Cheers meets home-brew CBD hippie beer.”

“Please don’t serve home-brew CBD hippie beer in our bar,” Tom said wearily.

“It was an example,” I said. “For the mental image.”

“Good,” Tom said. “Did all the furniture arrive?”

“It did. All at once.”

“Good. I was hoping they wouldn’t send them in two blocks. I asked for one but wasn’t sure they would do it.”

“Well, it’s a mess in the front left room of the bar. Just chairs and tables and stools everywhere while we figure out where it all goes,” I said.

“That’s fine.”

“You might want to talk to Matt, though.”

“What’s going on with Matt?”

“He’s being a real dick.” “What’s he being a dick about?”

“Just being here in general, I think,” I said. “He’s pitching a fit and kicking boxes and muttering to himself. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he didn’t like it here.”

“Very funny,” Tom said. “Tell him he needs to shape up and deal with it. You guys have another six months in there before I’ll be able to hire a manager to run it, and then he can come home. You too if you wanted.”

“You think we could get someone in that fast?”

“I believe so. The bar was pretty much fully equipped when we bought it, and most of that stuff is salvageable, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Almost all of it,” I said.

“Well, then. All we need to do is hire a competent manager, work them long enough that we feel comfortable with them having the responsibility and know they won’t bolt on us, and then you guys can come back to Astoria. Why you would want to do that is beside me, but you could.”

“I’ll tell him,” I said.

Hanging up, I felt a lot better. Six months wasn’t a year. A year was what I guessed when I moved out to Portland. Maybe Hannah would be okay with only two days of spending time together if it was only for six months. Maybe.

24 Hannah

It seemed like forever when I finally got the phone call from Jordan I’d been waiting for since he walked out of his house and got in the car to head to Portland.

“Hey,” he said when I answered it. “I’m on my way home.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Really?”

“I’ve hit the highway, which means I was being totally accurate. The car is gassed up, and I am officially en route to Astoria.”

“I’m so glad to hear that,” I said.

“Where are you?”

I dried my hands on a dish towel and draped it over the faucet. “In my kitchen. I just finished up doing the dishes. Nothing but excitement and revelry going on over here. I did, however, make a mean apple crumble today. It was the highlight of my week, so I probably shouldn’t go bragging about it.”

“I like that it was the highlight of your week. That means nothing else happened,” he said. “Have you been at your