The door shut, and the last of the lunch customers made their way out, a cab waiting by the sidewalk to take them home, and Mason locked the door, watching to make sure he got in the cab okay. As soon as the car drove away, he turned to the bar, a grin stretching across his face, and nodded to Matt.
“Get the shots,” he said.
A cheer broke out from the three of us, and we gathered at the bar, myself and Jordan taking a seat and leaving one in the middle for Mason. The only one of us missing was Tom, who was back in San Francisco, working at his software company and being so blissfully in love that he barely seemed to be paying attention during the video conference we’d had earlier that morning.
“To a hell of a first quarter,” Mason said, raising his glass.
“Our bar might have burned down, and we might have had to move,” Jordan added, “but we’re back and better than ever.”
“Hear, hear,” Matt said.
“And,” I said, causing all three of my brothers to look over at me, “to even more success in the future.”
“Bottoms up,” Mason called, and we all downed our shots.
“Christ, what was that?” Jordan asked, coughing.
“We had to empty that bottle of the Japanese tequila,” Matt said.
“Those two words should never, ever be in the same sentence,” I added.
“I know, but it was a vendor gift, and I felt bad letting it sit around. At least it’s gone now,” Matt said.
“Can we have something else?” Jordan asked. “Something to make me forget that taste?”
“I got it,” Mason said, getting up and going around the back of the bar. Reaching up, he grabbed a bottle of the top-shelf Irish whiskey, bringing it down and pulling out larger glasses. Filling half the glasses with dark soda, he added the whiskey and passed them out.
“That’ll do,” Jordan said happily as he sipped on the drink.
“You’re paying for those,” Matt replied. “Tom said even we have to pay for the top-shelf stuff.”
“Tom, shmom,” I said. “Is he here to police us, right now?”
Mason laughed. “It’s fine, put it on my tab if you need to. We deserve this.”
It had been a good quarter. The meeting that morning with Tom had been primarily to go over the numbers. Since the quarter technically had begun with the old bar burning down, and then several weeks of nothing as we tried to find out who did it and rebuilt in a new space, we expected a pretty heavy loss. Especially when the advertising for the new spot and all the fees came in from the sale. But Tom had taken on a good portion of the up-front costs, and we hit the ground running with themed nights and a lot of empathy from the community over how the old bar went up in flames.
Yet, when it was all said and done, we actually cut a profit after all. It was unbelievable how busy we had been since we opened up, and the extra tables and booths the new space afforded us gave us more room for customers, resulting in more sales. A small uptick in price to offset the cost of moving, wasn’t even blinked at, and our sales were absolutely through the roof. When Mason said we deserved the extra drink, he wasn’t lying. We’d worked our asses off for that moment.
“When does Ava come in?” I asked. Ava was Mason’s wife and the mastermind behind our themed nights. Her work was essential to our success, along with her ability to run the bar like a magician.
“She’s coming in around six,” he said.
“Aw, man,” Jordan said. “I was looking forward to a nap.”
“Poor baby,” I said, and Jordan shoved me jokingly.
I stood up to follow Mason to the back when I heard a knock on the door. Figuring it was someone who left something, I turned back to tell them to come back later, but when I saw who was at the door, I broke out into a wide smile.
“Hey, Mason,” I called, “I’ll help you guys in a minute!”
I walked over to the door and opened it, pulling my best friend into a bear hug and ushering him inside.
“Hey, brother,” Nick Watson said, “do you have a few minutes?”
“Yeah, man, come on in,” I said, guiding him to a booth near the bar. “You want a drink?”
“Just a beer, if that’s alright. I still have to drive.”
“No problem.” I poured us both a glass of our favorite