Page 20 of Pin My Alpha
“Definitely. The point is, this place has history. You don’t sand that down and make it glossy. You remind people why they already love it here, then you give them a reason to bring their friends.”
He just watches me for a second, then nods. The quiet affirmation lands somewhere deep in my gut, and my throat goes tight. I look away, back at my notes, talking faster because it’s better than silence.
“Weekly events, but not just trivia every Thursday forever. Rotate. Local artists, open-mic nights, but you screen them so it’s not just some guy with a guitar singing about his divorce.”
“Half this town has a guitar and a divorce.”
“Then we have high standards.” I slide a printout across the bar. “And your social media has to stop looking like it’s run by a tired uncle.”
“It is run by a tired uncle,” he says, his voice flat with exhaustion.
I look up. He’s got that bar towel slung over one shoulder, sleeves pushed up his forearms. He just looks… heavy. Not weak, never weak. It’s the kind of tired you get from holding up the world by yourself and pretending it doesn’t weigh anything.
Something under my ribs gives a sharp, traitorous tug. I hate it.
“You don’t have to run it,” I say, forcing my eyes back to the page. “You need someone who gets the voice. Someone who knows when a post sounds like a person and not a landlord trying to be fun.”
“And where am I supposed to find this person?”
I take a breath. “You’re looking at him.”
He smiles. It’s not the polite bartender smile, or the almost-smile from earlier. This one is real, crinkling the corners of his eyes. It changes his whole face.
And for a second, it feels like he’s looking right through my entire business-consultant act, straight to the scared kid sitting here in his shirt. My stomach bottoms out.
I clear my throat, forcing myself back to the screen. “You need a content calendar. A promotion schedule. Partnerships with campus groups. The goal is to drive weekday traffic and get people ordering something besides the cheapest beer on tap.”
He’s quiet for a moment, just watching me. “You like this part.”
It’s not a question. “I like fixing things that are broken.”
“Right,” he says, and his voice is neutral, but his eyes aren’t on the spreadsheet. He looks from the printouts to my face, and his gaze snags on my mouth for a fraction of a second.
It’s barely anything, but it’s enough.
A sharp, inconvenient pull low in my stomach. I’m just sitting here. On his barstool. In his shirt. My fingers find the frayed cuff and start picking at a loose thread, anything to do besides acknowledge the way the air just changed.
“The launch campaign needs a budget,” I say, my voice tight.
“Of course it does.”
“I know money is tight.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“But you have to spend something to make something. You can’t just post a couple of blurry photos and hope the rent has a crisis of conscience.”
A quiet, humorless laugh escapes him. The sound gets right under my skin. “Damn. That was the whole plan.”
“It was a bad plan.”
“Clearly.”
I spin the laptop around to face him. The budget tab is open, all neat rows and clean columns. Thank God for spreadsheets. They don’t panic. They don’t have scents. They don’t run away before dawn and then show up wearing the other person’s clothes like an absolute idiot. They just add up.
“Okay,” I say, my voice steadier now. “Here’s where we cut.”
I point with my pen. “Liquor costs are manageable if you renegotiate with two of your distributors. Your waste is high, but that’s fixable. You’re over-ordering food for weekends based on last year’s traffic, and you’re eating the loss because everyone else has a themed patio now.”
