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His beer untouched on the table in front of him, Wes shifted his weight on the wobbly barstool near the back of Trent’s Tavern later that evening. Carmen had stopped by to work on some accounting for the business and had offered to babysit, so he could accept his brother-in-law’s last-minute, late-night invite for drinks.
The local hot spot on Main Street was quiet for a Sunday evening, and Wes appreciated the low-key vibe as his thoughts continued to return to his conversation with Marissa.
A stepmom. Wow.
“You okay, man?” Dustin asked, sliding his gaze away from the SportsNet game recap playing on the flatscreen above the bar.
“Yeah,” he said, then turned his cell phone toward Dustin now. “Check out this app.”
Dustin’s eyes widened over the rim of his own beer bottle, and he coughed as he choked on a mouthful. “I’m sorry, did you just say app? I would have bet big money that you didn’t even know the term.”
His brother-in-law might have won that bet a few weeks ago, but lately he was really making an effort to get on board with the whole technology thing that Marissa was so caught up in. He was starting to understand more of the appeal.
“It’s the one Marissa designed for coaches,” he said. He’d bought it and downloaded it that evening and was still trying to figure out exactly how to use it, but so far he’d entered in all the names of his Little League players and the dates of their upcoming fall games.
Dustin took the phone, and his smile was wide as he scrolled his finger over the screen. “That little girl of yours is a genius. She must have gotten it from my sister,” he said.
“Obviously,” Wes said. “But it really is useful, right? I mean, no more clipboards or having to look up player positions…it’s all there next to each player’s name. Emergency contacts are listed, and I can call them by clicking the phone number on the screen…” He was in awe, and he’d barely scratched the surface of what the app could do.
“Damn right it’s useful. This thing can even track players’ speed and ball-handling techniques. Where did she learn to upload it for sale?” Dustin asked, playing around with the app’s features.
“Sarah helped her. Apparently, I have to stop by the bank tomorrow to open a bank account for her.” He chuckled at the thought. Marissa was growing up so fast, and so far that summer, she’d learned a lot from Sarah, but more importantly, her own confidence had grown.
Sarah was supportive, offering advice but letting Marissa experiment with her own ways of doing things. Sarah acted like a sounding board for his daughter’s ideas and helped to enhance them. She encouraged and celebrated the wins with Marissa and helped her come up with solutions to the challenges. That meant more to Wes than he could ever verbalize.
“The owner of the B&B? The one Rissa couldn’t stop talking about at dinner?”
“That’s her. She works in technology and offered Marissa an opportunity to work with her the last few weeks.” He peeled the label on his beer bottle.
“That was nice of her,” Dustin said, eyeing him. “Smart and caring—makes sense that Marissa would get attached.”
Wes could hear the implication in Dustin’s voice, so he cleared his throat and nodded toward the phone. “Anyway, that thing is great, huh?”
“This is really impressive for a nine-year-old. Pretty soon she’ll be making more coin than you.” He handed the phone back with a grin.
Wes stared at the app. In just a few days, it had been downloaded almost a hundred times. Marissa was over the moon about it, and he’d seen her drawing of her L.A. mansion that she planned to buy once she was a millionaire from her technological creation.
It wasn’t about the fact that she was making money off something she’d created that had him feeling so freaking proud. It was the fact that despite resistance—mostly from him in the form of lack of understanding—she’d persevered and continued to work toward something she was passionate about.
As much as he worried about her, he knew she would be just fine.
His own life, he was less certain about. Once the inn renovations were done, he didn’t have any big projects scheduled for the fall. Carmen’s visit that evening had definitely been to remind him of that fact.
“Have you reached out to that real estate agent regarding the office space on Main Street yet?” Dustin asked, as though reading the direction of Wes’s thoughts.
Wes shook his head as he took a gulp of his beer. “Not yet.”
“Look, man, you need to start taking risks. Come into the bank and let’s look at some options,” Dustin said.
Borrowing from the bank to secure the space didn’t appeal to him. What if business continued to be slow and he defaulted on the loan? Every opportunity he’d ever taken had been calculated on low risk. Starting the company had been using his savings from his football career. That money was gone, and he needed to make sure Marissa’s future was taken care of. “I don’t know…”
Dustin nodded but gave him a look. “So you’re going to let your daughter put herself out there and take risks, but you’re not willing to?”
Dustin had a point. He wouldn’t be a great role model for Marissa if he was too afraid to take the necessary chances for a better future. In business and with his heart, too, for that matter…
He swallowed another gulp of the warm beer. “Buy the app, support your niece, wise guy.” He paused. “And schedule me in for an appointment next week.”
Chapter Fourteen
