Chapter 21

“Cha-ching!”Briar called from her seat in front of my computer.

I glanced over from where I was adding inventory to the record bins. “Cha-ching?”

“We just sold that huge Beatles set,” she said, eyes bright. “The one that was over nine hundred dollars.”

“Holy shit.” I went to look over her shoulder so that I could see it for myself. “That’s the second sale this week.”

“Mm-hmm.” She grinned up at me. “We’ve gotten great feedback on this new marketplace. I think this might really take off!”

The thought was an alluring one. With stronger online sales, I wouldn’t have to rely on walk-in traffic and stores like Fox Entertainment wouldn’t be such a threat.

“I really should have started working on this sooner,” I mused.

“Well, it’s not like we just started,” Briar pointed out. “It just takes time to build up.”

“True. Uncle Charlie never got into online sales, but he didn’t need to. His customers loved him.” I chuckled. “I remember, he used to sell albums not only at the store, but at swap meets. Hell, he even sold a few out of the back of his car once. He loved sharing music so much.”

“And now you’ll be sharing it with even more people,” Briar said.

She put my thoughts into a different perspective. Uncle Charlie really hadn’t cared about money or profits. He’d run his store successfully, but he’d weathered a lot of tough times, too. What kept him going was his love of music and the connections he made.

That was the true legacy he passed on to me, and one I could carry forward no matter how I ran my business.

No big-box store could ever compete with that. If I’d seen that sooner, I’d have realized the amazing guy Chase was a lot sooner.

“Do you have some more records you want me to add?”

“Heck yeah, I’ll go through the bins for the albums that will have the most appeal.” Online shoppers were more likely to go for hard-to-find records, like the Beatles set that had a limited production run. I didn’t have any other gems that impressive, but I had some relatively rare vinyl that you couldn’t find just anywhere. “I’m going to have to hit more auctions if all these sell though.”

She laughed. “Sounds like a good problem to have.”

The door chimed, and I turned to see Chase entering. He was dressed immaculately, in full business attire for his grandmother’s meeting. He always looked sharp, dressing in a blend of business and casual that gave him a young but sophisticated air. But today, he was in navy blue suit that fit his body like a glove.

I wanted to peel him out of it and lick him all over.

“Hey, you,” I said, my voice warm. “How did your meeting go?”

He smiled tightly, and my alarms instantly went off. That meeting had not been good news.

“It went,” he said. “Can you spare time to grab a coffee with me?”

“Sure.” I glanced toward Briar. “Can you hold down the fort?”

“Yeah, I’ll just slave away here, adding content to this online site for you. We can talk about giving me a raise anytime you like.”

I chuckled. “We can see how these records sell and then talk about that. For now, though, how about a coffee from Muddy Waters?”

“Deal!”

Chase held the door open for me, and the moment we stepped outside, his smile fell. We walked down the block in tense silence, but I could only take the suspense for a few minutes.

“What happened?” I prompted.

“Fuck, Austin,” he rasped. “It’s over.”

My heart jumped at his words. “What do you mean?”

“Fox. My store. All the stores. Gigi is going to sell if she can find a buyer, and if not, we’ll close the stores one by one, liquidate all the assets. This is the end.”

“But you’ve put so much work into the store, and it’s doing great!”

He nodded. “Too little, too late, she says.”

I slipped my arm around his waist and moved in closer as we walked, trying to offer support. “Surely, there’s something we can do?”

He barked a laugh. “That’s what my sister said too, but Gigi’s made up her mind.” He sighed. “At least, there’s one upside.”

“What’s that?”

“We won’t be business rivals,” he said.

I scoffed. “You’re the one who always says we’re not really rivals now.”

“Eh, you didn’t really believe it.”

“But I do now,” I said.

I’d just come to that conclusion in the store, hadn’t I? Maybe I’d been too slow to adapt because I’d been stuck on the idea of preserving Uncle Charlie’s memory, but he wouldn’t care about my business model or a brick-and-mortar building. He’d given me a path to follow, but where that path went was my choice.

“I’m just sorry I can’t say what will happen with Fox Entertainment. If a buyer rebrands it and keeps it open, it could be worse for the neighborhood.”

I pulled him to a stop and turned to face him. “I don’t care about that, Chase. This isn’t about me. You’ve worked too hard to go down like this.”

“It’s out of my control, Austin. Gigi has made up her mind. The revenues are down further than expected, so our deal went out the window. There won’t be a future for Fox Entertainment because Fox Books will be gone. All of it. Our entire family business, years of work and dedication, just done.”

He sagged forward, as if that speech had taken his last bit of composure, and I opened my arms to catch him. He pressed his face against the side of my neck, breath ragged.

“Maybe if I’d acted faster,” he mumbled. “Maybe if I’d convinced her sooner.”

“Sweetie, no,” I said. “Stop beating yourself up. You did everything you could.”

“Did I, though?”

I hesitated. “Well, no.”

Chase looked back, a wounded expression on his face. “No?”

“What did Wash972 tell me when I was freaking out over a new business rival?”

“Gigi is not my rival.”

“She is now,” I said firmly, “and I’m going to tell you what you told me. It’s time to go to the mattresses.”

A surprised laugh burst from him. “Seriously?”

“You have to fight for what you built, Chase. Maybe the Fox chain is Gigi’s, but she didn’t launch that store.” I jabbed my finger across the street. “The concept was yours. The planning and execution. She told you it was a test, and you passed, and now she’s changing the rules? No. Fuck no. You can’t give up so easily.”

Chase looked skeptical, but some life was returning to his eyes. “I don’t know how to change anything when she has all the power.”

“How did you convince her to let you launch a store with a whole new concept?”

“By being very, very persistent.” He smiled at me, a more genuine one. “You might recognize the trait.”

I grinned. “I might. So go take that persistent ass back to Gigi and annoy her into giving you what you want.”

He laughed. “I don’t know that it’s that easy.”

“I know.” I cupped his face and kissed him. “But you’ll regret it if you don’t even try, won’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess I will.”

“Good, because your store is too successful to be collateral damage, and so are you.”

“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

I laughed and smacked his arm. “Come on, let’s get you that coffee. You can use the caffeine boost to brainstorm some ideas for how to change Gigi’s mind.”

“Will you strategize with me?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Nope, sorry. Pretty sure you don’t have time to screw around with me. Call your sister, put your heads together. Think out of the box for solutions you haven’t considered.”

“Go to the mattresses would be a lot more fun if it involved screwing around with you, though.”

“Well, consider it a reward for later. No matter what happens, I’ll be here, okay? You have me. I’m yours.”

Chase blinked. “Sorry, did I fall asleep? I thought you actually just said you were mine.”

“Shut up. I already said it last night.”

“Yeah, but only after I asked. I thought you were just placating me because I was stressed. If this is pity—”

I grabbed his face and kissed the stupid words off his lips.

“I love you, idiot. I’m in love with you. I’ve been falling hard for weeks, and yeah, okay, I had to wrap my head around some things, but I want this, us. I want us to be boyfriends, okay? There. I said it.”

The wide smile spread slowly across his face. “How painful was that to admit?”

“Very,” I said shortly.

He kissed me, taking his sweet time even though we stood on a sidewalk in plain view of three shop windows.

“I love you too,” he said.

“Well, I knew that.”

He laughed. “And you were doing so well, too.”

I grinned. “Confidence is sexy, right? But…I still like hearing the words. This is the real deal, Chase. You and me. We can get through anything together. No matter what your future holds, I’ll be here.”

“That means a lot.”

“But I still want you to go kick Gigi’s ass.”

Chase laughed and pulled me close. “And this is why I love you. You’re so damn feisty.”

“I’m not feisty,” I said. “I’m a rebel.”

He laughed. “Right, sorry. Wouldn’t want to tarnish your street cred. You’re so rock-n-roll, babe.”

“Damn right. I’m metal.”

Chase laughed at me, so I shut him up with another kiss, got him a coffee at Muddy Waters, and sent him on his way to do battle. Gigi was a formidable opponent, but Chase was smart, resourceful, and hella charming. If anyone could change her mind, it would be him.

And if he couldn’t, at least he’d always know he did everything he could.

Because no matter what happened, Chase was anything but a failure.

He’d find another way forward. He’d rebuild and prove himself in new, amazing ways.

But I knew how much this family business meant to him. How much he wanted it, not just for himself, but for his sister, too.

Family legacy could inspire us, but it could also break us down. Nothing lasted forever in its exact state. Sometimes, to survive, you had to change.