Loyal [boyxboy]

Fail to Succeed

Lucas waved it off. "I'm just curious."

Joshua gave him a disbelieving look but let it slide. "Tom says one of the leases in a different property will be up soon. Nick can move in there in the next month or two."

"Oh." Lucas tried to hide a bit of the dejection in his voice, aware that Joshua was watching his reaction very carefully. "That could work." He couldn't really say he wanted Nick to stay, could he? And he would feel guilty for subjecting Nick to sleeping on the couch for the rest of who knew how long.

"Come back down here after close, I'll show you how to do a bug sweep," Joshua changed the subject then. "We've got a sensor, so it's fairly easy, but you want to keep an eye out for anything out of place as well."

Lucas gave a nod of agreement and went back to Tom's office. Tom was tapping away at his computer, and Lucas sat to the side and pulled out his laptop to do some of his own research.

***

"What are we doing here?" Nick asked impatiently. "It's cold."

"It's fine, just, give me a second." Lucas tried peeking around the side of the bank again. He'd finally gotten an estimate number on what the cost of club renovations would be from Tom.

Nick eyed the bank and then Lucas. "What do you want with this place, anyways?"

"I'm trying something out," Lucas said vaguely. "I'll explain it later. Wait here for me, and afterwards we'll go to the bookstore."

Nick let out an impatient groan as Lucas slipped inside the bank. He went for one of the desks, awkwardly trying to figure his way around acting business-like. "Hi, I'm... here on behalf of my boss. We're looking into a few different places for a business loan. I was wondering if you could just give me some information on your loan options."

The woman gave him a suspicious look but had him sit down anyways. She explained all of the interest options, loan sizes, and a lot of other things that Lucas didn't really understand. "And so the loan has a monthly payment plan," Lucas probed slightly. "We can pay more than the minimum back, right?"

She nodded and went into all of the details of paying a loan back, and what happened if they didn't pay. When they were finished Lucas asked where there was a bathroom he could use. He wandered his way there, glancing at each of the desks along his way. He rinsed his face at the sinks and showed himself out of the bank then.

Nick was still outside, giving him a confused frown. "What was that about?"

"I think I have something," Lucas muttered. "An idea, for us to get some money."

"Loans have to be paid back," Nick pointed out.

"Yeah, but," Lucas hesitated, dropping his voice. "If the bank has already taken out a lot of bad loans, and we're just another one of those... the bank gets shut down."

Nick fell silent for a moment, thinking it over. "Would the owed money go away then?"

"I'm not sure; I have to figure it out. I've been doing research on the federal bailouts. But if it works like that, it means free money for us. We have plenty of shell companies, businesses... we could take out a lot in loans, but only if it's for-sure that the bank would go under before we came under any suspicion."

"That sounds complicated as fuck," Nick decided.

"I know. I don't even know if it would work." Lucas flicked it off with his hand. "Now come on, you wanted to go to the bookstore."

Nick brightened and lead the way to a little local bookstore. He went off into the fiction section, and Lucas circled a shelf of manuals and how-to books. He found a guide for bartending and mixed drinks, so he pulled that out and would use it as a surprise for Nick. He also found some on finance that he decided would be good for him, if he was doing anything like Tom.