Page 2 of Daddy's Rule

"I'd like to propose a new plan," Bain said with a grin. "We rent a beach house in Miami and throw the most epic graduation party ever."

"Ugh. You're such an ass, Bain.” Nyla chucked a pillow at him. “Of course partying is the only thing on your mind. The rest of us have to be realistic. I have student loans to pay off."

"Who's not being realistic, Nyla? You'll be able to pay off your student loans like tomorrow. And buy a house, and do whatever else you need to do, and still have literal millions to play with."

Nyla blinked at Bain, seemingly unable to comprehend the reality that the money problems she had always been consumed by no longer existed.

Lennon grabbed a six-pack from the fridge and handed them out, one to each of us. "I don't know. I kind of like the beach house idea. Only, I think we should buy it. We'll be able to go back and live out our spring break glory days even when we’re old and gray."

"It might be nice,” Theo agreed, “to always have a place we can go to meet up. We can vacation there, and someday we'll have spouses and children to bring."

"I'm totally down for a beach house. A big one, though. Like a total McMansion," I agreed, smiling as I pictured the six of us congregating there a decade from now, each of us happily married with children underfoot.

"Split between us that's still only a drop in the bucket," Archer said. "Apparently we weren't dreaming big enough."

"No kidding. Maybe we should each get our own McMansion," Lennon joked. "Buy a huge piece of property and build six ginormous houses right next to each other."

As the finance major in the group, I stepped in, taking Archer's usual position as the reasonable one. "I think one McMansion is enough. What we need to do is find a way to make our money work for us. C'mon, what were the other ideas?"

"Start a business?" Nyla, as always, was sensible. Too sensible.

I shook my head. "No, not just a business. Something easy, like an investment. Rental property or something.”

"I agree. That Airbnb shit is blowing up right now,” Theo said. He was almost always the first to agree with me on anything. "It's inconceivable. Do you know how many rental properties we could buy with fifty million dollars?" he added, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

"Two."

Bain gaped at me. "Dude, aren't you a finance major? We can buy a lot more than two."

"We could, but we don't need to. You know that pair of brand-new high-rises downtown? The ones selling for half of what they’re worth because the people who commissioned them died in a plane crash and their families don't want to be left holding the bag?"

"Oh yeah!" Nyla exclaimed. "Those things are gorgeous. Could we really afford that?"

"Just barely, but yes."

"Dude," Lennon scoffed. “What are we supposed to do with two high-rises?"

I smiled. This was the question I had been waiting for.

Before I could answer, Nyla frowned. "I don't know Bas. If we spend all our money on one thing, we'll be cash poor. I didn't spend four years playing the lottery every week to be cash poor."

"Nyla, I promise you this is the perfect plan and you'll never be cash poor again."

"Let's hear him out, Ny," Archer interjected.

"Thank you." Stepping to the front of the room, I addressed them all. "Between the six of us we have a finance degree, a marketing degree, two business degrees, a law degree, and an art degree."

"One of those things is not like the other," Bain interjected, never missing a chance to take a stab at Lennon.

"It's not, but they can all be useful." I waved my hands excitedly. "Think of it. We purchase the buildings for a cool fifty mil. Hell, if we can make the offer before the news gets out that we won the lottery, we might even be able to offer forty-five. We use the remaining five mil to deck out some offices on the ground floor. We rent those to businesses, starting at 5k a month. There's probably 200 offices in both buildings and a hundred apartments, not including the penthouse. We can get hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in rent. We can all live in the apartments. Archer can do our contracts, Theo, Bain, and I can run the numbers side of things, and Lennon and Nyla can combine their skills to do our marketing."

"So we're renting office buildings and apartments?" Bain scowled in disgust. "That's smart and all, but it's kind of boring."

"I'm not done." I smiled evilly, knowing I had saved the best for last. "On the penthouse floor of one of the buildings, we open a BDSM club and call it The Penthouse. Very upscale, hush-hush, exclusive, just like we always talked about."

They fell silent and I knew I had them. It was the dream that had always seemed just out of reach. It was the perfect way to spend our money as a group.

There was nothing that represented the six of us and our friendship better. Even though Archer, Bain, Theo and I had all pledged the same fraternity, we had all met, including Nyla and Lennon, on our second night in Philly at a BDSM club called The Tower.

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