Page 12 of Sealing the Deal

It’s been a week since the news broke about the new owner and I’ve barely had time to breathe between running the bar, replying to comments on the Red Zone, organizing protests, painting placards, and talking to Cal and Rico on their Stormhawks podcast.

The Stormhawks management have done little to calm fans. One press release from Donny Hubert asking us to trust them. Something which feels like a slap in the face after they’ve kept the buyer secret and done whatever backroom deals to allow someone like Grayson Ashborne to get his claws into our team. The second press release was no better. Some bullshit about the ownership belonging to a company called Grayson Global instead of Ashborne Holdings. Do they think we’re stupid?

I’m at the center of the protests, front of the line to pin Grayson’s balls up the second he tries to break the team apart. But there’s another part of me that wants to see things calm down, and for focus to move to Saturday’s first playoff game. Why the hell aren’t management doing more? It would help if we understood why the Huberts decided to sell in the first place. I still can’t get my head around it.

All week, anger and embarrassment have blazed beneath my skin, knowing I let that man behind my bar, serving fans, acting like he was one of us. I didn’t even ask his name. And as if all that wasn’t enough, I’m at The Hay Barn on my one day off this week, instead of driving out to Oakwood Ranch to see Izzy like I planned, because my landlord decided this morning was the perfect time to make my life worse.

If he thinks he can raise my rent again⁠—

My jaw tightens and I swallow the thought. Because he can and probably will. And I’ll be left to take it, again, because what choice do I have?

He won’t sell the building. I’ve tried to buy it countless times. Begging the bank for a mortgage loan and making an offer, only for him to laugh in my face.

Bastard!

He even turned down Mama when she tried to buy it a few years ago, offering more money than I ever could. Not many people say no to Mama, but my landlord did, and he’s been raising my rent and holding it over me ever since.

But I won’t leave. I might not own this building, but this bar is mine and it was my parents’ before that. My mom’s, really. Dad’s only contribution was drinking the profits. He drank his way into an early grave in my teens. Mom had been running the bar alone for as long as I could remember anyway, so his death didn’t change much for us. But then Mom met a car salesman called Randy and moved to Florida when I was twenty-two.

After a lifetime of the bar coming first, she walked away. Just like that.

And maybe I was too young, too inexperienced, too hooked on the familiarity of the place, but I couldn’t let the bar go to anyone else. So, I took over the lease and turned The Hay Barn from an old ranchers bar to a Stormhawks fans bar, keeping the name because it felt wrong to call it anything else.

I still get the nearby ranchers stopping by after a supply run or a meeting in the city, plus a whole lot of regulars. Then on game day, the fans descend to watch the Stormhawks on the big screen that dominates one wall of the bar. That’s when the place comes alive.

I check the time. It’s gone 9 a.m. Of course, my landlord is late. I bet the jerk loves to take victory laps past the struggling shops on this strip. He knows we’re barely making ends meet as it is.

Might as well do some jobs while I wait. There’s a scuff on the wall that needs paint. So, I grab the tin from the store cupboard and prize off the lid, paintbrush in hand, while my thoughts fix on how I’ll make more cutbacks for another rent hike, when the juggling of bills already feels like a logic puzzle worthy of a rocket scientist. It’s impossible.

That’s when the door to the bar opens and I catch sight of a tall man in a black suit from the corner of my eye. No way is it the dumpy figure of my sixty-something landlord.

“We’re closed,” I call out.

“Good morning to you, too.”

The voice is smooth and polished, and a little familiar.

I whirl around and yep, the devil himself, Grayson Ashborne, is standing in the doorway of my bar, broad shoulders filling the frame. He flashes the same easy smile he gave me the other night when he claimed he wanted to help and brushes snow from the shoulders of his suit jacket.

A line of expletives races through my head as he strides forward, letting the door swing shut behind him. The most hated man in Denver, walking into my bar like he owns the place.

“Hell, no,” I say, finding my voice and planting my feet. “You need to leave.”

A corner of his mouth lifts into an almost-smile. “You always this cheery in the mornings, Flic, or am I just lucky?”

“Don’t say my name like you know me,” I say, and every ounce of venom I’ve been stockpiling threads through those words. “You tricked me.”

He has the gall to look genuinely puzzled, brows knitting together. “When?”

“Don’t play innocent. You acted like you stepping behind my bar was about helping me.”

“I seem to remember you needed that help.”

“Bullshit.”

“Why do you think I gave up my evening to pull beer and wash glasses if not to help a bar owner who was understaffed and overrun?”

Anger hums beneath my skin. I don’t even hesitate. “To get close to the fans. To act like you’re one of us. And to try to win us over so we won’t notice when you start to destroy our team and our city.”