CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The head of the neighborhood association was a certified fanboy.

Alan Hughes knew all of Brent’s dirtiest and filthiest bits by heart.

As he held up his fork, preparing to dive back into his steak, the man who stood between Brent and the Big Apple expansion recited more lines from memory. Ordinarily, the entertainer in him would be thrilled to have someone repeating his lines. But Brent was no fool. He knew the polo-shirt and khakis wearing, forty-something father of two tween girls wasn’t quoting him to suck up at this lunchtime meeting at McCoy’s over prime rib and problems.

Brent fixed on a closed-mouth smile as Alan Hughes waxed on from a comedy bit deemed too crude for his late-night show. This joke had only appeared online. Brent tensed, knowing what was coming next.

Alan punctuated the finale with a stab of his utensil in the air. “And that’s why you should never shave your own balls.”

The joke had been beloved by twenty-something guys. Dudes had gone ape-shit over some of Brent’s bits. That one had earned him some serious guy cred online. Trouble was, that was exactly the opposite of the crowd he needed to impress now. Though Alan lived in Tribeca with his wife and two daughters, the man screamed suburbs, which meant he was the kind of guy trying to turn the city into a quiet, calm hamlet at night.

Alan pointed to himself. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of Jackass and that kind of humor. I love the whole filthy, dirty, late-night Comedy Nation style. I watch it myself when the wife and kids are in bed. The problem is, you’re not trying to win guys like me over.”

Brent nodded. “Got it. And I’m glad you liked it. But talk to me about who I need to win over, Alan. Tell me what you see in your neighborhood,” he said, inviting the guy into the conversation, letting him know he cared. Sealing the deal on New York was vital to Brent’s plans, so he had to play ball. New York was mission critical for Edge, but he also didn’t want to let down his friend Bob. He wanted to come through for him with the gig as manager of the club, delivering for the man who’d given him some of his biggest breaks.

But first, he had to deliver for others.

“Everyone else,” Alan said crisply. “The moms. The stroller moms. The soccer moms. The—”

“The moms,” Tanner barked, his coarse voice grating on Brent. He slammed his palm against the table at McCoy’s. It shook. “All the moms.”

Brent nodded several times, then kept his tone light. “Call me crazy, but I’m getting the sense you’re saying... the moms don’t like me.”

“Sorry to bear bad news, but they don’t right now,” Alan said, hanging his head. The guy truly did seem sorry.

“What can I do to win them over, Alan?”

Alan clucked his tongue. “It won’t be easy. How can we say you run a classy joint when you have this kind of history? You were the bad boy of comedy. That’s what your own network called you.”

“They did. But let’s be frank here. I wasn’t some criminal. They called me that because I had a foul mouth on stage. Because I had ink on my arms. Because it was part of a character.” Brent held open his palms. Nothing to hide here. “But at the end of the day, I was just a comedian, telling some dirty jokes. Let’s move on.” He tapped the table with his index finger. “Talk to me, Alan. Tell what I need to do to convince your neighborhood that I can be good for business.”

Alan nodded, and held up a glass. “I like you. You’re a straight shooter. So I’m going to be straight with you. You need to meet the people in the neighborhood. You need to be charming. You need to show them you’re not just the guy who tells filthy jokes that Axe Spray-wearing douche-canoes watch while smoking bongs.”

“I can do that. And I never use Axe body spray, so there you go.”

Alan chuckled again. “See? I knew you’d make me laugh.”

But laughter wasn’t enough. That was Brent’s stock in trade in his twenties. He’d spun laughter into gold on stage. He’d parlayed jokes into a career, moving up the ladder with each chuckle, each laugh, and each hearty guffaw. They’d fed him and made him wealthy. Now, he’d pivoted. He was reinventing himself as a businessman, and in some ways he was starting at the ground floor. He had to prove he was trustworthy, that he was reliable, and that he was worth betting on when it came to this new playground he was playing in.

Playground.

So bizarre that his days of ball-shaving and first-date waxing had been replaced by playground makeovers. Brent saw a bigger opportunity. “Don’t know if Tanner told you, but I’ve donated some money to have some of the parks revamped in Tribeca. Happy to go further. Build a playground, too. You think the moms will like that?”

Alan nodded approvingly. “Moms love playgrounds. The only thing they’d love more would be a coffee shop in a playground,” he said, and now it was Brent’s turn to laugh. “Anyway, that’s a nice start. And we can build on that. This is what I’m thinking. We’ve got a big picnic coming up in the park. Fundraiser for some neighborhood services. Let’s have you at the picnic. You could come by earlier in the day and say hello. Talk to them. Let them know you’re a family guy at heart. Mention your brother and his wife. Mention your mom. Your dad. Don’t talk up the Vegas roots, or the comedy. I know you’re not married, but is there any chance you have a pregnant fiancée or something like that? If you did, that’d be a nice slam dunk,” Alan said, miming stuffing a basketball through the net.

Brent laughed deeply, and shook his head. “Nope. I’m not opposed to either, but I don’t have a woman in the family way.”

“That’s okay. I’m sure you’ve got plans to have a big family some day soon since you love kids, right?” Alan said, in a leading-the-witness tone.

Brent nodded. He got Alan’s drift. He got it loud and clear.

* * *

“Let me see if I got this straight. The neighborhood association only wants to approve your plans to move Edge into the space if you seem less like the guy you were on TV and more like a clean-cut family guy. So you want my daughter—my precious angel princess—to be your prop?”

Clay raised an eyebrow as he pushed Carly lightly in a bucket swing in a park in Greenwich Village. The one-year-old giggled and kicked her feet.

“My niece who adores her uncle,” he said, stepping in to push the sweetie-pie and elbowing Clay aside.

“Watch it there. That’s my baby girl.”

“And she’s the sweetest, cutest, most adorable baby in the universe,” he said, and Carly leaned back to smile at Brent. He cooed at her and made animal sounds. First a monkey, then a duck, then a chicken, and Carly scrunched her baby cheeks and laughed, the kind of infectious laughter only a child possesses. He shot Clay a sharp-eyed stare. “Told you so. She loves her uncle.”

Like a hawk, Clay swooped in and rescued his daughter from the swing, cradling her against his chest. “Clearly, she’s suffering from temporary insanity. I better get her to the pediatrician right away.”

Later, as they walked through the Village, the baby strapped to her father in a Baby Björn, his big brother relented. “Obviously, you can bring her to the picnic. I’ll just be the guy hanging by the fence, watching my kid. Ready to grab her if I need to.”

Brent clapped him on the back. “Excellent. I knew eventually you’d be good for something.”

“Or maybe I won’t be so generous,” Clay said as they neared a bustling coffee shop, spilling over with Sunday afternoon foot traffic.

“Nah. I have faith in your generosity. And I have faith in caffeine, which I need right now. Red-eye and all,” Brent said, pointing to the shop. “My treat.”

Clay shook his head, and crossed one finger over another, as if he were warding off evil spirits in the cafe. “Not that one. That shop has bad luck written all over it. That’s where Julia practically had my head when she found out I’d done something she wished she knew about sooner.”

“I’ve told you, man,” Brent said, because he was privy to the details of what had nearly split up the two of them before their happy ending, back when Julia had been in trouble with the mob, saddled with debt owed by an ex. “You need to be upfront with women. Just in general. Look at me. I’m a goddamn open book.”

Clay stopped in his tracks, scratching his head. “Wait. I’m sorry. Did I hear that right? You’re trying to give me relationship advice?” he asked, rubbing his thumb against his wedding band.

“Whatever, man. All I’m saying is women want you to lay it all out for them. Be open. You know that. Secrets are almost what ripped you and Julia apart.”

His brother nodded seriously as they resumed their hunt for coffee. “That they did, man. That they did. And I learned my lesson.”

“You ever hear from that guy? Charlie? The one she was forced to play poker for?”

“He called me once,” Clay said as they reached the corner and stopped to wait for a walk sign. A cab blew past them on the street, and a pack of Sunday afternoon runners whipped by on the cobbled sidewalk.

“What did he want?”

“Tried to get me to come work for him. Said he needed a good lawyer.”

Brent scoffed. “I bet he does. Mob bosses always need someone to bend the rules for them. What’d you say?”

Clay’s mouth twitched in a smile and he spoke in a wry tone. “I told him that my client list was full. But I appreciated the offer. Always be a gentleman with men like him. You never know when they’re going to reappear, and you need to make sure you haven’t pissed them off.”

“And you didn’t piss him off, I trust?”

Clay adopted a who me look. “I never piss anyone off. But you? You’re another story. If memory serves, you were pretty skilled in pissing off Shannon back in the day. You learned your lesson on that front? You’re treating her well now?”

Brent flashed back to last night and Shannon’s cries of ecstasy. To the past week, and how her eyes lit up with happiness over their lunches. To the sadness he saw in them, too, when she shared all her fears. All of it. Everything. He desperately wanted to be the man to make her happy. To give her hope.

“Like a queen,” he said. “Like a queen.”

“Excellent. That’s the only way to treat a woman.”