Page 16 of Three Little Words

“Like, midnight.” He yawned. “You look like shit, too. Maybe Kenzie will give you a drink and a muffin.”

Not a bad idea, really. Maybe I’d walk down to the bakery in a little bit, once I’d done some of my opening work.

Ryker continued. “What’d you get up to last night? More fun than painting the new shop, I hope.”

I laughed and shrugged. “Dak took me to The Depot and drank me under the table.”

“Lightweight.”

Hardly. Dak was just capable of holding an unreal amount of liquor.

“I was there until they closed down. Don’t give me shit. Especially if you’re gonna bitch about painting some walls.”

Ryker scoffed. “I don’t see why we can’t just hire somebody to paint. It would probably be a hell of a lot faster than me and Logan doing it.”

“You wanna be an owner, you gotta do the work.” I shrugged, moving around the shop to check it out.

It wasn’t as clean as I liked it to be in the mornings.

“Who closed last night?”

“Zoe, Garrett, and Bradley, I think. I cut out a little after you to go paint.”

I nodded. I’d have to say something when they all got in. “Anyway. If you don’t wanna paint, you can give up your share. I’m sure Garrett would love to get a shot at being co-owner.”

“Nah. I’m good. I’ll do it, you just gotta listen to me complain a little.” He grinned, taking another sip of his coffee.

“Sure thing, dude.” I laughed, shaking my head. “C’mon. Help me clean this place up a little. They did a piss-poor job last night. I can tell everybody wanted to go drinking.”

Ryker got up, stretching and shaking his head. The dark circles under his eyes made them look greener.

He really was putting in a lot of work. I was proud of him. Logan, too. Since Bradley and I had decided to make them co-owners and put them in charge of No Regrets East, they’d stepped up bigtime.

“Oh—meant to show you!” Ryker approached, grabbing his phone from his back pocket. He tapped on the screen a few times. “The sign went up on the glass. It looks amazing. Here.”

He turned the phone toward me, showing me the photo he’d taken. The lighting was dim, but he was right—the sign looked amazing. Our logo was on the glass of the front window, huge and beautiful. A temporary sign was underneath—‘Opening Soon!’

“Soon is looking like six weeks or so.” I looked at Ryker and grinned. “The chairs we want are on backorder, and Bradley and I decided it was worth the wait to get the best equipment.”

“Absolutely. We want to be the best, right? Top of the line.”

“Exactly.”

We moved around the shop together. I swept while Ryker tidied up Bradley and Garrett’s stations. Zoe could do the front when she got in, since she hadn’t last night.

In time, the front door opened, then closed. Heavy boots thudded on the tile as somebody walked in.

Zoe. She was dressed all in black, like usual, half of her head shaved bald and what was left dyed in layers of pink and yellow. She smiled. Her lips were painted purple this morning.

“Morning, boss. Bosses, I guess.”

“Morning,” I replied, holding the broom out to her. “You wanna take over and finish this up, since it didn’t get done last night?”

She nodded and put her bag down on the front counter. “Sorry. We got to talking and everybody had to go all of a sudden. Lora started blowing up Bradley’s phone, and Garrett said he had to go do something. I did some of it. Bathroom’s clean.”

That was good, at least.

I put the broom in Zoe’s hands and sighed, turning toward my own station. I’d cleaned before leaving with Dak, so I was ready to go. I’d take the first client that came in, I guessed. Everything looked in order.

Except one of the pictures on my wall.

The illustration of a lotus blossom was crooked, almost to the point of looking like it would fall.

I started up the steps to fix it, but the front door opened again.

I turned back to our first customer of the day. That was more important. “Hey man, welcome to No Regrets. What can I do for you?”

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