The glass door to the liquor store was protected with serious-looking security bars, and when she went inside, an old-fashioned bell jingled over an electronic beep. They were covering all the bases. The cooler up front was stocked with comically large cans of beer, suggesting much of their business was day drinkers chasing a cheap buzz, but farther back there were rows and rows of wine and liquor that included some expensive bottles on the dusty top shelf.
There were exactly five kinds of chilled wine to choose from: a cheap pinot grigio, a moderately priced muscatel, a popular rosé, a six-dollar Cold Duck, and, bizarrely, a bottle of Dom Pérignon. Who knew how long it had been there—but it didn’t go bad, right?
Before she could talk herself out of it, she hauled the antique-looking bottle to the register, where the startled clerk practically dropped his phone. With tax, it came to well over $200, but thankfully she had shoved her card into the chip reader before she could back out.
Somehow, she knew Trip would approve.
She was carrying the bottle out in a brown paper bag when she stopped. “Do you have cups?”
Because she was damned if she would drink $200 champagne out of a rinsed-out travel mug.
“Red Solo and also the fancy kind,” said the clerk.
She bought the “fancy kind,” which ended up being two-piece plastic champagne glasses and cost another eight bucks for a pack of ten.
Back at the office, she assembled two of the glasses, stood them next to the sweating bottle on the reception desk, and waited for Callie. If she had jumped in the car right away, she’d be there in fifteen minutes or so. Trip still hadn’t answered, so he was likely in transit somewhere. Hopefully, he’d be able to come celebrate in person soon.
She definitely wanted him to advise her on the next steps in hiring. She had Sandro to answer calls, manage her schedule, run errands, and do other odd tasks. A freelance web designer was nearly finished with her new website, but she probably needed a full-time marketing expert and someone to oversee production and the supply chain. Eventually, she’d need a good sales rep and another entry-level person to handle orders and customer service. She wondered how many people she would be able to squeeze into the outer part of the office suite before they needed more room.
She pushed open the door to Trip’s office, which looked exactly the same as the day he’d removed her blindfold to show her the space. He’d been there for an hour or two on two different occasions, using it as a place to park himself while he waited for Lark to finish work. She hated to ask, but if she didn’t put someone in here, she might have to let someone work in her own office. Which was fine. But wouldn’t it be weird if they had this big empty office next door?
A good problem to have. She also had to figure out how to deal with individual orders that came through the website. There were probably ways to outsource it, but maybe there was a small office in the building that could work as a small supply and mail room. So.
God, she wanted to pop that cork. She scrolled through Instagram, looking to see if Trip had posted anything new—of course he hadn’t, not since the Sweet home, Chicago! picture he’d taken from the plane the last time he landed—and quickly liked a few posts from the friends she didn’t see often enough in real life.
Finally, the outer door opened, and Callie came in with a bottle in a reused gift bag.
“Congratulations!” she said, rushing across the room to wrap Lark in a big hug before handing over the bottle.
Lark was pulling it out of the bag when Callie saw the Dom.
“Now I’m embarrassed,” said Callie, reaching for the bag. “Give it back.”
“Nothing wrong with a good bottle of prosecco,” said Lark, not wanting Callie to feel bad. “We can save mine for later.”
“Like hell we can. I’ve never had Dom Pérignon, and if you’re buying, let’s forget I even stopped at 7-Eleven. In fact, this bottle isn’t for you at all.”
They both laughed at that. Relieved to be off the hook, Lark peeled off the foil and popped the cork, which hit the acoustic tile ceiling hard enough to make a dent. Whether it was because she’d walked too fast coming back or the bottle was too warm, the champagne geysered forth, forcing a frantic scramble to get their cups under the spout before too many ounces of the precious stuff soaked into the carpet.
Once their glasses were filled, Callie gamely put her mouth under the bottle and gulped until finally it stopped overflowing.
“Well, damn,” she said, wiping her chin. “Our family always celebrated with Cold Duck.”
Lark took a sip, then a mouthful, savoring the bubbles. She had no idea how food writers managed to separate so many different flavors when describing wine—all she knew was that it was somehow bold and delicate at the same time. It somehow made her think of a cool, dark cellar in a big, old mansion. It tasted like success.
They quickly finished half their glasses before refilling and toasting again, this time posing so Callie could share the moment on Facebook “for the folks back home.”
“So how big is the deal?” Callie asked.
“Pretty big. Twenty-two thousand units. I think that equals roughly a dozen per store.”
“What does it mean, moneywise?”
Lark had definitely run the numbers.
“At a retail price of $44.99, if every single game sells, they’re looking at almost a million dollars in gross receipts. Of course, Target pays us half that for the games and can return unsold units.”
“So a half million bucks?”
“Minus production and overhead. The games cost ten bucks each, so that’s almost a quarter million. And I definitely need to hire more staff to deal with this.”
Callie looked at her glass and grinned.
