I followed her out of the club with my eyes. The minute I saw her sitting at the table, my mind jumped back to that day I nearly ran her over in the club. Or, at least I was ninety-five percent certain she was the woman. Back then, she had her hair in a ponytail, but tonight it was flowing down over her shoulders. Yet, the same green eyes that had me captivated back then, still remained. It just had to be her.

I shook my head and headed back to the back of the bar to get in my office. I sat down at my desk and pulled up the computer. We had gone through the beer that the other bars had loaned us, at a price, and were now working on the cases that were delivered on Tuesday. They wouldn’t last forever and I surely didn’t want a replay of the past weekend. I had to do something to figure this all out and that something had to be fast.

I skimmed through pages and pages of resources that I could have possibly utilized, from other suppliers that might be a little cheaper, to corporations that would start buying out parts of the business. That part made me sick. I didn’t want to lose the bar that my dad and grandpa had worked hard to build up.

I was busy scanning pages and pages of information over the internet, when there was a knock on the door. I looked up to find Brayton standing there.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“There’s a rowdy table out there and they’re asking for the manager.” He shrugged. “Sorry, Trevor.”

I groaned and pushed myself away from the desk.

“What’s their problem?” I asked as we left my office and headed back out to the bar.

“I’m not sure,” Brayton said. “Something about their service not being up to par with other bars around the town.”

Just what I needed was to have to respond to some negative feedback, when I was trying to get the bar back to the success it once was. He pointed me to a table and I rolled my eyes when I saw who they were. “Gee…thanks a lot.”

Brayton laughed. “They wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

I had no doubt that was the case. I moved away from the bar counter and to the table of the so-called rowdy table, where a few of my friends were laughing and carrying on. They looked up.

“Hey hey…the man of the hour has arrived,” Dylan yelped. “Whoop whoop!”

I rolled my eyes and then glared at him. “You do realize I have work to do, right? I can’t just come out here and jump at your beck and call.” I scanned over the table. There was Dylan, the real estate broker, Marcus, the banker, Damon, a professional football player, and Daxter, a firefighter turned professional model. Each man had passed through my life at some point when I needed a friend to talk to and through the years that brought us all together. I couldn’t imagine them not being my friends, but I was going through some tough things right now and really needed to focus on that.

“Come on, Trevor,” Marcus said. “Sit down and take a load off. You work way too hard.”

I glanced at him, then chuckled. Marcus, more than anyone should know what I was going through. He’d been on the ride of mergers and acquisitions with his business of banking. He was always on the hunt for a good deal and hoping things didn’t go bust, so it was interesting to hear Marcus being so light and carefree.

“Brayton, my man, give this boy a beer,” Dylan called out.

I groaned. The last thing I needed was to waste the beer on me. I almost objected, before Damon grabbed my arm and pulled me into a waiting chair.

“Just one beer,” I said, finally conceding.

The men laughed and they started eagerly chatting about their days past. Brayton brought me a beer and I thanked him with my eyes and then took a long sip. Then the chatting turned into women and I shook my head and tried to stay back from the conversation.

“You should have seen the hot babe I had last weekend. Ahhhhh…” Dylan said. “Doesn’t get much better than that.”

“Dude…you’re always finding the hot ones. Leave some for us.” Marcus laughed as he took a drink.

I chuckled and took another drink. All the guys, with the exception of Daxter were on the prowl. Daxter had a live-in girlfriend and I was interested to see how that was going. It was still pretty new. So, I switched the conversation from women that were only looking for sex to the woman that Daxter nearly shared his life with.

“So, Dax…how’s things going with Jenna?” I asked, taking a drink.

He shot me a look and there was pride in his eyes. Jenna and he had been high school sweethearts; their worlds revolved around one another. So, she was with him, when he switched his career from firefighter to modeling. I had always questioned why they didn’t just get married, but it seemed like their relationship was one to be holding strong.

“Well, things are going quite well. In fact, there might be wedding bells in the near future.”

The table went nuts.

“Are you serious?” Dylan asked.

“That’s great, man,” Damon said.

I smiled. “Good for you two. I hope it all works out.”

Daxter seemed happy and that was what truly mattered. Things got back to talking about more women and I was about to get up, when Damon spoke. “How are things going with you and the love of your life, Trevor?”

I looked at him and then frowned. I was confused by what he meant by love of my life. However, the rest of the table snickered and chuckled, fully aware of his words.

“I’m sorry. Not really understanding,” I said.

Damon rolled his eyes and held out his arms. “Your namesake, man. How’s business?” Damon looked around. There were some full tables, but there were also lots more empty tables. He looked back at me. “Doing alright?”

He was looking at me, like he truly wanted an honest response and wouldn’t believe me if I said that things were amazing, so I shrugged.

“You know, business can slump at times, but I’m holding in there,” I said.

“Tell me about business slumping,” Marcus stated. “There were times that I would acquire a bank building, only to find that it was already nearly bankrupt. That was when I went to J & E Consulting Firm.”

I frowned. “What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a place that comes in and works their magic to help build a business back up. They check numbers, run plans, organize anything they see is failing, and eventually your business is back thriving.” He shrugged. “Or, at least mine was.”

I hadn’t considered going to an outside facility such as a consulting firm to have them look over my business. I supposed it was an option.

“J & E Consulting Firm?” I asked.

Marcus nodded. “I can get you the number if you want it.”

I was holding onto my pride and really didn’t want them to know that I was struggling like that, so I quickly shook my head.

“That’s quite alright. We’re doing well. Really!” I said, smiling at them. I grabbed my beer bottle and stood up.

“I really should get back to work. Good seeing you guys!” I tipped my beer bottle and headed back to the bar. I pushed the beer bottle to Brayton and he discarded it, and then I went back into the backroom to get to my office.

I was at my computer and typing in J & E Consulting Firm before I forgot the name and had to go back to him and inquire about it. Immediately the website was pulled up. I looked it over and contemplated my next steps. I didn’t want to ask more people for help, but more importantly I needed to do what was best for the company. Monday morning I would give them a call and hope that they could help me out of this slump.

It was the only thing I could do.

 

***

 

I had written the number down for the company, so Monday morning when I woke up, that was the first thing I did. I placed a call into the company.

“Good morning, you have reached J & E Consulting Firm. This is Jasmine, how may I help you?”

“Good morning, Jasmine. I need to speak with someone in regards to maybe helping out my business. It’s not entirely going under…yet. I just want to make sure it doesn’t.”

“Sure thing, sir. No problem. Will you be able to hold for a minute? I will get you with someone that can place the perfect consultant in your hands. He’s on the phone right now, so it will be just a moment.”

“Okay, no problem. Thank you so much!”

“It’s my pleasure and as always…thank you for contacting J & E Consulting Firm. Please hold.” The sound of music played over the phone as I waited. I sat down at my kitchen table and started to hum along to the song. Then a man’s voice came on the line.

“This is Roger. I’m a partner of J & E Consulting Firm. How may I help you?”

I, once again, told him what I was looking for, this time going into a little more detail and providing my name, the company I own, and the problems we were facing. After I finished off rattling, I took a deep breath. “Do you think you can help?” I asked.

“Just a minute, I’m entering all your information into the database.” There was some hesitation, before he finally came back. “Okay, I have you in my database and I will certainly see about pairing you off with someone. Unfortunately, all our representatives are assisting other customers.”

He sounded like a voice recording you got when you had to wait for the next available person. “It could be weeks, maybe months before someone becomes available.”

My jaw dropped. I didn’t have weeks and I definitely didn’t have months. I didn’t even know if I had days. I couldn’t wait that long.

“Oh…I see.” I mumbled. “I appreciate that, but I can’t wait that long. I might have to find someone else.” I was expecting to then hang up the call, but Roger was quickly assuring me.

“I understand that that would be an inconvenience. I will look some things over and try to get someone to your business by tomorrow. Would that be sufficient?”

“Well, that would save me the trouble of contacting another consulting firm.”

I gave him my phone number, in case they needed to call me for anything and then hung up with the understanding they would text me to let me know what time the consultant would be there. I was glad that I had made the call and was one step closer to getting my business in better conditions. I was desperate and this most likely would be my last resort.