“What do you want out of life, Bryan?” he asked.
“What the hell kinda question is that? Drew, I got a lot of work to do. Can this wait until later?”
“No. Because you’re still moping around. Now, what do you want out of life?”
I watched Drew shut my office door before he pulled up a chair. There was a small grin on his face like he had something up his sleeve. I finished typing up a document I needed to get sent to my foreman Duke before lunchtime rolled around. Then, I shut my computer down and decided to go ahead and take my lunch break.
“Okay. I’ll bite. I want to continue helping people.”
“Good. Nice start. What else, man?”
“I want to continue holding the memorial ceremonies for my brother,” I said.
“All right. Good stuff. What else?” he asked.
“I’m not sure if construction is the way to do it,” I said.
“Wait. that’s new. When did this happen?” he asked.
“I want to keep giving away a home on each property to renovate and build upon, but I don’t know if the homeless outreach is the way to be helping people anymore.”
“But it does a great deal of good.”
“I know. I guess I don’t really want to stop it. I just ...”
“Wanna expand it?” he asked.
“I guess. I don’t really know. I haven’t been sure about anything for weeks now.”
“Hence why we’re having this conversation. I have a feeling you’ve been cooped up in this office
because your head isn’t in the game anymore, dude. I think you go out there and see those homeless guys you employ, and it reminds you of Hailey. So you sit up here, thinking you can escape it by not facing it.”
“I’ve faced it enough,” I said.
“Yeah. Staring down the top end of a beer bottle. You know why I went into construction work?”
“Because you didn’t think you could support yourself doing all your tattoo work,” I said.
“I bring all this shit up because now that I’m the boss alongside you, I’m not so sure about construction work being my life forever.”
“We did talk a couple months ago about your hypothetical tattoo shop. You given any more thought to that?” I asked.
“A lot of thought, actually.”
I was a bit surprised. Yes, Drew had always been into tattooing and things, but he’d always given off the vibe that he enjoyed this place. We grew this business with our bare hands, pulling eighteen-hour work days building up sites by ourselves just to garner a reputation. Hell, our initials made up the name of the company that was just now starting to grow beyond San Diego.
“Are you thinking about leaving?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m kind of sitting in the same boat you are. I know how I feel. I just don’t know where to go from here, dude.”
“Well, you’ve got the smaller share of the company. It’d be easy for you to sell it off to me and take the money to go start your new business venture. Or, you could sell part of it and still keep a small chunk of the company as cash flow for when you need it. It’ll take time for you to be profitable, but I think you could handle it,” I said.
“You seem to have given this a lot of thought,” he said, grinning.
“I’ve been entertaining the idea of running this place alone ever since we had that conversation that night. I want to be ready with steps and options for whenever you do make your decision.”
“Well, don’t go kicking me out yet, man. I’m still not sure how I feel,” he said.