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Chapter Nineteen
Jasper frowned down at his laptop, the words of his half-finished business plan blurring together into a bunch of meaningless letters. Maybe he shouldn’t have had that third coffee. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to come up with the names of similar businesses.
Fitz had gone over the basics of a business plan with Jasper two nights ago and had sent him a shit ton of links to examples, but trying to keep his mind focused was like trying to herd cats hyped up on catnip. Numbers and graphs and analyses. How was he supposed to sound like he knew what he was talking about? He was in over his head with this. He wasn’t some MBA grad. He was just an actor who liked to make people laugh. Maybe his sister had been right. This was just another doomed-to-fail, harebrained scheme. Another useless whim he’d chased.
Fuck.
“Wow, you look intense,” a familiar voice said. “Everything okay?”
Jasper looked up from his spot at the hot desk, finding Hollyn wearing black skinny jeans, a sleeveless green blouse that gave him a hint of her lacy bra beneath, and a tentative smile. She’d wrangled her curly hair into a big, messy bun atop her head and stabbed through it with a pencil. Adorably sexy as usual. He let out a sigh, the sight of her a welcome respite from the work at hand. “I’m fine.” He flicked his hand toward his laptop. “Just coming to the realization that I’m dumb as shit and doomed to fail in business.”
Her smile dropped into an instant frown. “Stories we tell ourselves, Jasper.”
Great, she was throwing his own words back at him.Perfect.He raked a hand through his hair, irritated all over again. “True stories in this case.”
She grabbed a chair from an unoccupied table and sat down facing him, her tics quiet, which he was beginning to recognize as her singular focus mode. She gave him the look an interrogator would give a criminal. “You’re not dumb and doomed to fail.”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, feeling petulant. “How would you know? I’ve had official people in education tell me this.”
“I know because I’m not attracted to dumb,” she said matter-of-factly. “And whoever told you that needs to be fired from their job and not allowed to work with children.” Her nose scrunched a few times in succession. “Plus, what you do onstage, how quickly your mind works and the clever stuff you come up with? That takes brains. So don’t give me your sob story, Deares. I’m not buying it. What’s the actual issue?”
He dropped his attitude. Hollyn wasn’t the enemy. This goddamned piece-of-shit plan was. “Business plans suck.”
“Ah.” She leaned over and peeked at his computer. “Competing analysis. What’s that?”
“Area businesses that are similar to what I’m proposing and how my theater would stack up,” he droned, repeating what he had learned from Fitz and the Google gods.
“Oh.” She smiled, perking up. “I can help with that. I review a lot of places that would be competing with you. I’ve worked that area. I could put together a list.”
He sat up from his slouch. “Yeah?”
“Of course.” She shrugged as if it were no big deal. “Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three in the immediate area of the theater. You’ll be unique enough to stand out. There’s no comedy club out that way. But there are a few bars where local bands play. A movie theater that plays retro movies. There’s also a karaoke and craft beer place. The last one will probably cross over with the kind of crowd you’re hoping to attract.”
Something tight in Jasper’s neck unlocked. He leaned forward, took her face in his hands, and kissed her soundly. “You are a goddess among women.”
She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say I was writing your plan up for you.”
He mock pouted, even though that hadn’t been what he was asking her to do.
“Not gonna work,” she declared with a smirk. “I did enough homework for cute boys in my early days. I’m not going down that thankless road again. You give them their assignment and then they forget your name.”
He frowned. “Boys can be shitheads.”
“Yep. That’s been my general conclusion. I’m trying to amend my study, though, with fresh research.” She lifted her brows. “Up for the challenge?”
“Absolutely. I’m aiming to wreck the curve,” he said, meaning it. He couldn’t give Hollyn what she really deserved, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to use her and forget her. “And I don’t need you to write it, but I would much appreciate the list if it’s not too hard to throw together.”
“Not a problem.” She pushed a stray hair behind her ear, and her gaze shifted away. “In fact, it makes me feel better about asking a favor of you.”
“A favor?” He crossed his fingers for her to see. “Please let it be sexual favors, please let it be sexual favors…”
She laughed under her breath, dipping her head and a little pink staining her cheeks. “Sadly no. But it does involve our arrangement.”
He tilted his head, catching the shift in her tone. “Okay.”
She crossed her legs and grabbed the edge of her seat like she was trying not to fidget. “My best friend, Cal, is driving into town tonight from Baton Rouge, and he’ll be staying with me for a few days.”
Her best friend Cal. That sparked something in the back of Jasper’s mind. He reached for the thread of thought, but he couldn’t grab ahold of it. “All right. Do you need me to lie low?”
