Chapter 3

Did you know Booker started closing the bar on Sundays and Mondays?”

“sofia, I haven’t had coffee yet. I can barely hold this damn cellphone up against my ear,” I said, groaning.

“When did he start doing that?” Sofia asked.

“Uh, it’s been a few weeks. Why?” I asked.

“How the hell did I not know this?” she asked.

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the bar was closed when I told you I thought

I worked today?”

“Because we were swamped, and my mother was acting like a drunk maniac.”

“Your mother is a drunk maniac.”

Yes. We’re now closed Sundays and Mondays. Though I think

Booker rents out the place sometimes Sunday nights. Maybe that’s why you thought you were working?” I asked.

“Maybe. I don’t fucking know. All I know is the bar’s closed and I don’t have shit to do. Want to get lunch?” she asked.

“What time is it?”

“Two.”

“In the afternoon?” I asked.

“It’s light outside, so I’m assuming so.”

“I can hear that fucking smirk,” I said.

“I love you when you haven’t had coffee. I’ll come over with some.

Then you can ride with me.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I rolled myself out of bed and dragged my bodyinto the shower. I still smelled like stale cigarettes and expired whiskey. Forthe first time in two years, I had money to spare for a lunch with Sofia, and I was ready to talk shop with her. We could start going through listings of places we could buy to start the clothing store. We had one hundred and thirty thousand dollars to work with for expenses. If we played our cards right, we could put a down payment on a place, get a loan for the rest, then purchase our first three rounds of clothes out of our pockets.

I was ready to make it happen.

“Coffee,” Sofia said.

“Holy shit! How the fuck did you get in here?” I said, startled.

I wrapped my towel around my body as my mother’s snores trickled into the room.

“She didn’t even go anywhere last night. Did she?” Sofia asked.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.

“Everyone knows where your mother keeps her spare key.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “I can’t even get privacy here.”

“All the more reason to talk about the buildings I’ve found for us to buy.”

“Wait, you what?” I asked.

“The alert on the bank account came through yesterday, and I was too excited to go to sleep. I’ve already been looking up some places. Most of them are scattered on the outskirts of town, but a couple of them are in town. I can’t wait for you to see them.”

They’re all online, right? Because I’m starving,” I said.

“Of course. Girl, I got you. Come on. Get dressed so we can go get food.”

I pulled on some jeans and threw on a tank top before I grabbed my leather jacket. Though it was January, southern California never got too cold. My leather would keep me warm. I took my coffee from Sofia hand and started to chug as we walked out to her car. I thought about locking the door, pausing as Sofia comment dawned on me. If everyone knew where the spare key was to our house because of my mother's hookups and drunken tirades, it made no sense to lock the house anyway.

So, I left it unlocked, and we headed to lunch.

The two of us stayed silent as we drank our coffees. That was the rule. When we needed coffee, there was no talking until coffee was finished. We traveled through town and passed by the bar, flipping it off as we went by. I could already feel the freedom whipping through my hair. I was within inches of being able to quit that dingy place and start my own business. I became more excited as the luxurious caffeine made its way through my veins and, as we pulled up to the diner, I was ready to talk.

“Okay, so what are these places you have for me to look at?” I asked.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Sofia said.

She pulled out her phone and opened numerous tabs. All the building she had up ranged from $100,000 to $500,000  our price range for down payments. I wanted to stay away from the ones that were more expensive because I wanted to pay as much out of pocket as we could. The less debt we could go into with this type of venture, the more money we would be able to scrape off the top and take for ourselves. I knew it would take time to build up a devoted client base, which meant we were facing anywhere from six months to one year of not being able to make any significant profit for ourselves.

And I was going to pay Sofia before I paid myself. Since I’d be living in the building, I could afford to do it.

There was one building, however, that caught my eye. It was a roughlooking building and it was boarded up. It was three thousand square feet and was free-standing. It would need a lot of work, at least on the inside.

The outside wasn’t too bad, especially for being boarded up for four years.

The price was set cheap at $150,000 for everything, and it even had the lofted second story I was looking for.

Not only that, but the loft already had plumbing and electricity running through it. Jack pot!

“Holy shit, this place is awesome,” I said.

“I knew that one would catch your eye. And the price is great. We could put thirty thousand down, take out a loan for the rest, and use our remaining one hundred thousand to fix up the place and get the equipment we’ll need,” Sofia said.

“That’s not a bad idea. If we could get approved for the other onetwenty, we’d be set. From the looks of it, it shouldn’t take more than about sixty thousand to do what we need to do inside, which would leave us forty for inventory, and I found a place we can get stuff wholesale for pretty cheap.”

“And you could put some of that into the loft upstairs so you’d have your own place.”

“No, no, no. Outfitting the loft is going to be with my own money.

The business money isn’t gonna touch that place,” I said.

“But you need a place to stay. It has plumbing and wiring for electricity, but it has nothing else. You’d need to put up walls and get shit for a kitchen. It’ll take some money up front for you to move into a place like that.”

“It looks like the main area already has a bathroom. Sort of. It will when we renovate. I can use that to clean up until I can find the money to “bella.”