Winning His War

50

"What do you think Andrew?"

"It's nice I guess," he said with a small shrug.

"He's lying to you," Patrick said as glared at the worn out building. "Are you seriously saying we drove all the way down here for this? What was the point of that?"

"No you see why I was so frustrated yesterday," I teased as I looked back up.

"Why do you even need a new building? Putting a warehouse in the middle of a crowded city like this is just asking for trouble anyway."

"It's not going to be a warehouse," I dismiss. "This isn't a Jem King building, it's Jesse Hayes'. Word is he's got a new restaurant in the works, which wasn't true until some gossip channel made it up and people went crazy over it. Now I'm just feeding off the drama, it's good for business."

"Imagine having the money to just drop on an old ass building in order to make some pristine restaurant in the middle of some random city," Andrew scoffed but a laugh escaped me before I had the chance to stop it. "I hope you find much humor in knowing we will always be dirt poor compared to you." His words were harsh but thankfully the smile on his face showed he didn't mean it.

"So are you going to buy it or not," Patrick asked, still looking up at the building with distaste.
"Yea," I said with a sigh. I didn't even really want to be doing this. I didn't have the time right now to baby a project like this but Ramsey pushed for it and Dev backed it so clearly it needs to be done. "I'll have someone finalize the details later this week and appoint someone to head the management of it because I sure as hell won't be the one doing it. With luck it will be ready to go in a few months. You won't even recognize it." I turned on my heels without another word and before long we were on the road again.

"Where are we going," Patrick asked from the passengers seat this time. They had agreed that they would switch places on the drive back. "We didn't come this way earlier."

"I have a surprise."

"What kind of surprise," Andrew asked, clearly trying to hide the smile on his face.
"Something small," I promised when I saw the skeptically look that crossed Patrick's face. "Just something to make your trip worth coming to."

"The last surprise you gave us was a restaurant that an average person would have to take a loan out for just to eat at."

"And you loved every minute of it so stop acting like it was bad thing," I said with a frown of my own. "This one actually is small so shut up."

Patrick grumbled something that sounded like 'I'll believe it when I see it'.

The next time we stopped a smile was plastered on Andrew's face while Patrick nodded in approval. Like I said, it wasn't much, just a bar with a damn good menu with a club upstairs.

The bar was loud to say the least but I had managed to get us a quieter table in the back, thankfully secluding us from the frat boys taking body shots off of each other.

The meal passed quickly but it had honestly been a while since I laughed so hard. Patrick and I took turns making fun of Andrew's innocence every time he caught eyes with the rowdy crowd making crude gestures or doing something less than work place appropriate. There was even a time that Andrew was bought a drink from some guy at the bar.

His face turned so red as he turned away from the man while Patrick held steady eye contact with him as he downed the drink in one go. The man's eyes had gone wide; clearly surprised that Andrew was already taken before moving his eyes over to me.

I couldn't blame him. In a table of three, if two people are going out you naturally assume the last person is simply a third wheel. With him just trying to get lucky tonight he was willing to move onto the next available guy.