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“A beer would be lovely,” he said. “But I actually came here to talk to the whole family, so if you could stick around, that would be great.”
“The whole family?” Mom asked. “Well, that means Lena, too. Lena!”
My starry-eyed sister, who had gone back to helping the tables that were still filled, albeit while shooting glances back at Sean at the bar, perked right up. Mom beckoned her over and the three of us huddled behind the bar across from Sean, who was actively trying not to shove handfuls of fries in his mouth.
“Okay,” he said. “So, I came here to make an offer, actually. On behalf of a small investment group.”
“Does that investment group involve Hunter?” I asked.
Sean smiled, a speck of barbeque sauce on his chin. “Yeah, it does,” he said. “But hear me out. We want to buy the bar.”
“Excuse me?” Mom asked. “The bar isn’t for sale.”
“No, no,” Sean said, wiping his chin with a napkin and taking a big sip of the frothy beer Mom brought him. “Hang on. The idea is we want to buy the bar, pay off the debts, and then sell you back a controlling interest. It’s essentially like a loan, only we would be minority owners afterwards.”
“Minority owners?” Mom asked. “What exactly would that mean?”
“Nothing, really,” he replied. “We’d be a financial backer that made sure things stayed afloat, and we’d probably come in fairly often for some of these fries and to check in, but for the most part, nothing on your end would change. You’d still control everything, you’d still run the bar with no interference. Any money that would be set aside for us as part of our ownership would come back to the bar.”
I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out the catch. There had to be a catch. This sounded way too good to be true.
“Why?” I asked, which earned me a kick from my mom on the shin. “Why are you doing this?”
“Hunter,” Sean said. “He wanted to make amends. This is a personal favor for him, and honestly, I kind of love the idea of partially owning a bar that isn’t in one of my hotels. This place reminds me ofCheers, you know?”
“I accept,” Mom said. “Where do I sign?”
“Mom!” I exclaimed.
“Hush,” she said. “Listen, if this is real, we can afford to hire more people. It means you don’t have to work here anymore. You can pursue your dreams.”
“Wait, really?” I questioned. “You thought I was being dumb for going after journalism.”
Mom shook her head. “I want you to do what makes you happy. If we can afford to find someone to replace you behind the bar, then I want you to do it.”
“Speaking of that,” Sean said, getting our attention. “If you check your email, you might find an interesting one from the Boston Globe.”
“What?” I asked.
“Let’s just say, Hunter has a bunch of contacts, and one of them was looking for a new voice,” he said, grinning, shoving another fry in his mouth.
I pulled out my phone with trembling hands and opened my email app. My sister was looking over my shoulder, which normally annoyed the hell out of me, but this time I didn’t care.
Sitting in my inbox was an email. From one of the editors at the Globe.
Even after my sister started cheering and my mom gasped at what she told her, I was still silent, my heart thumping in my throat as I read the offer.
“Is this for real?” I asked.
“You had included some of your work with your résumé,” Sean said. “Hunter showed it to me, and I showed it to our mutual friend at the Globe. You’re very good. They agreed. It helped that it came from us, but your talent is what got you the job. If you want it, that is.”
“Holy shit,” I muttered, leaning against the wall behind me.
A million thoughts were swirling through my head, not the least of which was that somewhere, Hunter was trying to help me in spite of everything that happened. Clearly, he didn’t hate me. I needed to talk to him. I needed to clear the air before any of this could go through.
Lena took my place taking care of Sean, and had I not been so distracted, I would have been very interested by the banter going between them. As it was, I was already planning what I was going to do.
“Mom,” I said, “I am going to need the rest of the night off.”
