Page 45 of Hound Dog
Exactly four minutesand twenty-eight seconds later, Finn and I were taking our bow to a bar full of standing, applauding drunks. And that included Enzo and Addy.
Addy hopped onto the stage and took the microphone from Tim. “Thank you, Haylee and Finn! And if you want to sound as good as that, you can take voice lessons right here in Maple Grove from Haylee! I’ll have her cards at the bar!”
My eyes went wide. “I don’t have cards!” I hissed.
And even if I did have business cards, I didn’t exactly want to give my number out to a bunch of strangers.Drunkstrangers in a town I didn’t know, at that.
Addy sucked her teeth, thinking for a moment, then clarified, “What I meant to say is, come to the bar and leave me your contact information and she’ll be in touch about lessons!”
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help but smile a little. It was sweet that she was trying to drum me up some extra business.
Addy hopped down off the stage and ran back behind the bar to take some orders while Enzo ran over to us, hands raised, awaiting us to high five her. Which Finn did immediately.
Slightly more hesitantly, I lifted my palm in the air and connected it with hers as I said, “On that note, I should probably get home. I have a lesson in the morning.”
“Yeah, me too,” Finn chimed in.
From behind her glasses, Enzo arched her brow. “You have a lesson?”
“No,” he said, “But I’ve got hotdogs to sling.”
“Right, right,” she said, her words only slurring a little. “A Completo hotdog with onions, ketchup, guacamole… and what was it?”
“It’s fresh tomatoes, first of all. Not ketchup.” Finn corrected. “And mayonnaise.”
Enzo huffed and crossed her arms. “And let me guess, I’m going to have to get you those ingredients, too?”
Finn wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug.
“Relax,” Finn said. “I’m not going to make a brilliant computer whiz like yourself whip up guacamole for me. I can prep the food.”
I reached into my purse, dropping twenty bucks onto the table to cover my drink. Slowly, I tried to cross around them, grabbing my jacket off the back of my chair.
Enzo pointed at me, halting me mid-step. “And you! Finn was right. Your voice is fucking killer.”
“Oh… wow… thank yo—mmph.” Before I got the words out, she yanked me into a hug, crushing my face into the lapel of her starched, button-down shirt.
“You’ll call me, right?” she asked. “Because now that the three of us are basically in business together, we might as well get real damn cozy.”
“Oh, I’m not in business with Hound Dog,” I said.
“The hell you aren’t!” she replied. “You’re providing us with dogs for the foreseeable future. As far as I’m concerned, for the next couple weeks, you’re practically one of our partners.”
“Okay, let’s not get crazy. We’re not giving her shares of the company or anything.”
I crossed my arms and turned to Finn. “I don’t know. She’s got a point there.”
I didn’t actually want to own a piece of his company, but he was so easy to tease. And I could tell the moment I got to him by the way his upper lip dotted with sweat when he was nervous.
“Tell you what?” he said. “If you stick it out and come to every meet up with me for the next two weeks, then I’ll give you ten percent of the shares… of Hound Dog, the hotdog stand.”
Smirking, I nodded. “You’ve got a deal. But in that case,I’llmake the guacamole for tomorrow. If it’s my investment, I want to make sure it tastes good.”
Chapter Thirteen
Haylee
“Wait,wait, wait! You two sang together?!” Maisie shrieked over Facetime.
