7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Jesse

I contacted Victor and let him know I needed the two of us to have a sit-down meeting after the mess with Sebastian at the last Daddy Night.

We'd been discussing whether we needed to add a second night to the monthly schedule, and I didn't want the problems with that asshole to make him think it was a bad idea, but we did need to address the issue.

We'd agreed on Monday morning, so I stopped on the way in at Buttercup's Bakery and picked up some pastries for us to eat while we talked.

Victor's car was already at the club when I arrived because I swear that man was early to every damn thing. I pulled my huge truck in and parked next to his tiny little sports car. I paused at the door to the club and glanced back at our vehicles sitting there side by side.

They pretty much summed up the entirety of my friendship with Victor. He was all class and money and fancy cars, while I was… well, I wasn't any of those things. I was cowboy boots and beer and pick-up trucks. We shouldn't have worked as friends, much less as business partners, but from day one of our freshman year at college, we'd been inseparable.

I didn't know whose crazy idea it was to pair us as roommates, but I was grateful to them. I was a small-town boy far from home and totally out of my element. I probably wouldn't have made it through my first year without him, and I'm positive I wouldn't have come back the second. I owed him a lot. He wasn't just my best friend. He was family.

I pushed open the door and locked it behind me before heading down the hall to the office we shared. He was doing something on the computer, but he looked up when I walked in, his eyes going from my face straight to the bakery box.

I chuckled and put the box on his desk. "I got your favorite, don't worry. Did you make coffee?"

"I did."

"I was hoping you would. I'll be right back."

I went down the hall to the kitchen area, poured myself a cup of coffee, and came back to find Victor already halfway through a cream puff. They were big and filled with Italian pastry cream. They weren't my favorite, but he loved them. I grabbed a lemon-filled one for myself and took a seat.

"So." Victor popped the last bite of his creampuff into his mouth, and I waited while he chewed and swallowed. "Last Friday was Daddy Night, so I assume that's what you wanted to talk to me about. Are you ready to add another night like we discussed?" he asked.

I started to interrupt him to say that was only part of what I wanted to discuss, but he tapped a stack of papers in front of him and continued, "I pulled some numbers, and you were correct. It's become one of our more profitable nights."

"That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about," I agreed. "But that isn't all. I do have another concern, as well."

Victor put down the papers and looked up at me, his brows furrowed. "A concern?"

"Yeah. You remember the guy I told you about? Sebastian Demarco?"

He thought for a second, then nodded. "Right, he's the guy you had to chat with about inappropriate behavior?"

"That's the one. It seems our first conversation didn't do the trick, so I wanted to talk to you about the steps needed to ban him entirely."

Victor shrugged. "We don't have to take any official steps. Just tell him he's been banned, then notify the bouncer that he's not allowed inside. It doesn't mean he won't manage to get in again, but it will make it difficult. Is that what you want to do?"

"Maybe." I hesitated. "The problem is, he hasn't crossed any actual lines yet. But I'm worried about the safety of the boys."

Victor nodded. He knew that when I came up with the idea of Daddy Night, safety had been one of my main concerns. That was why we'd hired Paul. We were one of the only clubs in town that had a bouncer, but I wanted to make sure we had backup if things got out of hand.

"Makes sense to me, Jesse. The question is, do you think banning him will be enough? I'm sure he isn't the only one who isn't on the up and up."

"That does worry me." I sighed. "We could consider making Daddy Nights invitation-only or making our theme nights private and requiring membership. Hell, you know my favorite club back in the day was private, and the boys there never had to worry about someone being there who didn't belong."

"I remember," Victor said. "But that was a place three times the size of Vesper. Do you really think the Daddy Night crowd is big enough to support a private club membership?"

"Probably not," I admitted.

"That club wasn't just Daddy Night, either. They catered to the entire BDSM community."

"True, but do you think there's a large enough BDSM community for a private club here? Besides, we're the only gay club in town. I'd really hate to make everything private. That wasn't my intention when I took over Kirby's." I sighed and shook my head. "I don't know what the right answer is, man."

"I'd have to do some research and gauge the interest levels before we take any of the theme nights private, but I agree, Kirby's is too important to the community to make it all private."

I smiled at him. That right there was why he was my best friend. Because he understood what I was trying to do here. When I left Vesper to go to college, there wasn't a gay bar or club within an hour's drive, but when my dad decided to retire and sell Kirby's, I brought Victor in, and together, we'd changed that.

He'd received a sizable inheritance when his parents passed away, and he'd put up most of the money to expand my father's old bar into the club it is now. It was my dream, but I owed it all to him. He'd already made most of his investment back, but I would never forget that he stepped up when I needed him.

He placed a finger against his chin, adopting the thoughtful expression I remembered from college when he was deep in study. So I knew there was a plan of some kind brewing up there in that brain of his.

"If we made the theme nights private, it would make them seem special and exclusive. That alone might attract attention. But on the other hand, do we really want to take Queeraoke, Drag Night, or Trivia private?"

"Yeah, probably not the best idea. Those are barely even pulling in enough people to make them worth the time. Well, except for Drag Night."

"Let's start by adding that second Daddy/boy Night and see if it gets enough people both nights to make it worth doing before we make any other decisions. We can bring on some extra security if you think that will help. That will give me some time to do a little research. I've been thinking about planning a few special events, maybe, say, one a quarter, something to really draw a crowd. Maybe a bigger drag event, pulling in people from around the state. I was also thinking about a bachelor auction as a fundraiser."

"Those are some serious undertakings, Victor. Are you sure you want to do that?"

"I was thinking we could let Andy organize them. I wasn't joking when I said that was what he went to school for, and he would've kicked ass at it. He's super organized, and people love him."

"Would he do that with his job at the fire station?" I knew Victor hadn't been thrilled when Andy announced that he'd decided to become a firefighter. Not that he told him that at the time. Back then, he was just happy to see the kid excited about something. But now that some time had passed and Andy seemed to have his shit together, Victor seemed to think the firefighter thing was just an experiment that Andy would grow tired of. I, however, wasn't so sure that was the case.

"Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. He has so many days off between shifts he should have plenty of time, especially since he'll be doing what he really loves."

"Okay, well, I'll get everything rolling for the second Daddy Night, and you can talk to your brother about the events."

"That works for me, but as far as that snake Sebastian goes, you do whatever you need to do."

"Hopefully, this last talking to will get the point across. It just pisses me off because he's at the club for Daddy Night, and that man is no Daddy." Just thinking about it made me so angry I was practically growling. Nothing pissed me off more than an asshole taking advantage of his role as a Daddy. The boys deserved better than that, and I hated that our club might play a part in him being in a position to mislead them.

Victor chuckled and shook his head. "My friend, you need a boy of your own to take care of. You're seriously wound tight."

"I have enough on my plate with the boys at the club without having one of my own. Speaking of enough on my plate. I need to go clean out my truck and do laundry. I've been letting it pile up since our camping trip."

"That's not like you. You're such a neat freak."

"Normally, yeah, but things have been crazy. I was helping my dad build a new deck on their house because apparently the old one was good enough for us kids while we were growing up, but not big enough for him and my mom for their retirement years." I grinned at him. He knew how much I loved my parents and how excited I was for their retirement.

"Alright, well, you go clean, and I'll get to work on this plan."

A couple of hours later, I'd cleaned out the truck and was finishing up the laundry. I'd opened up the bag I'd taken with me and just turned it upside down, dumping it all in the washer, which was why I hadn't noticed the lacy bikini briefs that had somehow gotten mixed in with my clothes. They were bright red and sexy as fuck. I knew they weren't mine, and they were too small for Vic so that only left one option. They had to be Andy's.

Like it wasn't bad enough that I couldn't get the image of him in those firefighter pants and those sexy suspenders with no shirt on out of my head. Now all I could picture was him in that outfit leaning against the firetruck with that fucking pout on his face, and these lacy little bits underneath.

Of course no one would know about the lacy bits but me, and that made it twice as sexy. He would look up and see me watching him, and that adorable little pout would morph into a smirk because he knew that I knew what he was wearing underneath.

Oh, fuck that . I was not, I repeat, I was not standing in my laundry room fantasizing about my best friend's little brother.

Hell, I didn't even know if I was supposed to dry the damn things or not, but if he cared one way or another, he shouldn't have left them behind now, should he?

I tossed them in the dryer with the other clothes, slammed the door, and reached over to push the start button. But then I hesitated. I huffed out a sigh, opened up the door, and pulled them back out. They felt delicate, so they probably shouldn't have been in the washing machine, much less in the dryer.

I took them to the bathroom and hung them over the shower rod. I felt guilty enough that I couldn't stop thinking about him. No need to make it worse by ruining his sexy underwear.