Page 6 of Hot Shot

“Right, right. Okay, August 6. Does the happy couple know about this yet?”

“No. I thought it should be a surprise.”

“Oh. Okay, then good thing I asked. So we don’t say anything to either of them about it.” He squints. “How will we get them here that night?”

Marco grins. “That can beyourcontribution.” I clap a hand on Cade’s shoulder.

“Great.” Cade grimaces. “Guess I can come up with something.”

More sounds from the back of the restaurant announce the arrival of staff showing up for work, since the bar and restaurant open for lunch shortly. Not that things are ever that busy for lunch. It seems most of our customers prefer to come in the evening, and if they order food it’s mainly the bar snacks.

“Hey.”

We both turn to see Beck stroll into the bar.

“Hey. You dragged yourself out of your girlfriend’s bed to join us?” I lift an eyebrow.

Beck frowns. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I work here, remember?”

I sigh and resume wiping glasses. “Yeah, yeah. We need to have another talk with Sid about fixing our menu. We need to be busier at lunchtime. That would solve some of our problems.”

We’ve been talking to Sid, our cook, about trying to improve the food menu, and he’s made some changes, but it hasn’t helped a whole lot. We’re feeling pressure to increase our food sales because of city requirements to sell at least fifty percent food and fifty percent alcohol. The laws are not in our favor, though, because we sell top-shelf drinks at premium prices, making it hard to meet that ratio of food to alcohol.

The last thing the three of us want is to be shut down because we’re not selling enough food. Their manager, Danny, doesn’t think that’ll happen, but you never know. We also just want to be better; it’s in our nature to strive to be the best at whatever we do.

This business is everything to me now. We three became family when we met in the Navy SEALs. Now Beck, and Cade, and I are living a civilian life, and they’re still the only family I have. I’d do anything to make sure we don’t lose this. Wehaveto succeed. For Navy SEALs, failure is not an option. The SEAL maxim is: the person who will not be defeated cannot be defeated.

We’re all determined and hardworking, but none of us are experienced at running a restaurant. Sure, we know tequila. We drank enough of it. That was the joke when we were trying to figure out what to do with our lives when we were no longer SEALs—the one thing we know a lot about is tequila.Let’s open a tequila bar,I said.It’ll be fun.

But running a business requires a lot more than knowledge about reposado,añejo,and extra añejo. We rely heavily on Danny. We trust him and his advice. When it comes to the kitchen, Sid’s our man, but we’ve all been having doubts about his ability to get us through this. Using frozen burgers, jugs of mass-produced salsa, and generic packaged chips isn’t cutting it.

“He made a few changes,” Beck says. “They seem to be working.”

“It’s not enough,” Cade says. “Marco’s right.”

I gasp. “What did you just say?”

Cade grins. “Don’t get used to hearing that. But in this case you are. Improving our lunch business would help. People don’t come to drink tequila at lunchtime.”

“Well, some people do.” Beck grimaces.

Cade laughs. “True.

“And there was more vandalism last night,” I add with a frown. This is the other issue that’s chapping my ass lately—the acts of vandalism that are occurring in the neighborhood, one of which was graffiti spray-painted over our back wall. We were all pissed about that, although happy at least it wasn’t on the front of the bar. We spent hundreds of dollars to hire someone to paint over it to get rid of the colorful image.

“More graffiti?” Beck grabs a glass out of my hand and heads to the refrigerator.

“Yeah. At the coffee shop down the street. Fuck, that pisses me off.”

“Relax, man.” Beck pours orange juice into the glass.

“Easy for you to say, the guy who’s getting laid on the reg.”

Beck grins. He’s definitely a happier guy lately.

“Come on,” Beck says. “Dealing with issues like our food menu and a little graffiti should be a piece of cake after dealing with everything we went through.”

“Hell week,” Cade says. “Combat deployments.”

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