Page 61 of Stepbrother Dearest

“What kinds of changes?” someone asked.

“A complete overhaul of the business model for one. We’re still going to be open on weekends, but we’ll also have some weeknight events. We also want to make this place more inclusive and do LGBT nights.”

Nick glanced at me over his shoulder. I shrugged.

“And we’re going to restructure how employees are compensated.”

The tension in the room was palpable.

“We’re still working on numbers, but our plan is to increase wages and completely overhaul the pricing structure at the bar. The markup for drinks is insane. It’s one of the reasons we can’t keep bartenders. Having expensive drinks on the menu benefits the house because they get the profits, but the bartenders aren’t getting tips because people are rationing how much they drink. It also takes away from dancer tips and makes people leave sooner.”

I nodded, along with a few others. I’d always wondered why the drinks here cost more than double what they did at Scarlett.

“And again, we don’t have any numbers yet, but we’re looking to pay a basic wage to dancers.”

“Really?” River asked.

Biggs nodded. “It’ll be a per diem. If you work, then you get a base pay.”

“What about tips?” Dash asked.

“Those are yours. Same with bartenders.”

“What’s the catch?” Knox asked shrewdly.

“The catch is we’re going to have to stay closed for three weeks.”

The silence and tension hung over us like fog.

Hazel took a small step forward. “We need to get everything set up, get our licenses, and do some work in here,” she told us. “We’d love to open sooner, but things aren’t that simple when you’re dealing with this kind of business.” She peered back at her husband.

“All of your jobs will be here when we open, but we understand if you don’t want to come back,” Biggs added.

“It’s not that we don’t want to come back,” Nick said. “But not all of us can wait that long for a job.”

My chest became so tight I could barely breathe.

Three more weeks? Even if I managed to find another gig, there was no way I could survive that long without money coming in.

Biggs nodded. “I get that. But we have an offer we hope will help.”

Everyone glanced around.

“We want to give everyone a severance of sorts. It’s not as much as you would have made working, but we hope it’ll ease the burden while we’re transitioning.”

A low rumble of voices rose, but my mind was spinning. Depending on how much they offered, this could stop me from ending up on the streets again.

I listened carefully as Biggs outlined what he could offer. He was right, it wasn’t as much as I would have earned dancing, but it was enough to get by on until the club reopened.

“What do you think?” Nick whispered as Biggs moved to talking about bartender and bouncer wages. “Is this a good thing?”

“I think so,” I said quietly. “Biggs will be a way better boss than Corey ever was. Butthree weeks…”

“I know. There needs to be a word for when something is great but also sucks.” He leaned back against me. “Like overall, this is a yay. But it’s summer. That means missing almost a month of bachelorette and birthday parties.”

Right. The summer was our most lucrative season. People were on vacation, it was wedding season, and customers tended to be more generous because they were in party mode.

“The timing blows.”

---