“The asylum chapel. Which brings me to my next point. I saw an ad yesterday. The asylum is going up for auction at the end of the month.”
“And?” Brandon asked, gritting his teeth and looking slightly pissed off.
“And I thought, maybe, if we got some financial backing, we could buy it. Together. No more scouting for events. It could be ours. Permanently.” Ryan shrugged. “Party central.”
“Where are we supposed to get the money to buy a place like that?” Brandon was going to take a lot more convincing.
“You could hit up Daddy Lockwood for it?” Zak was pushing his luck with that comment and he knew it.
“Yeah right. You know, if I had a gun with two bullets and I was stuck in a room with Hitler, Bin Laden, and him, I’d shoot him twice.” Brandon huffed, folding his arms over his chest, and then he went back to scrolling through his phone.
“Emily has money from her dad,” Ryan carried on, ignoring the obstacles being thrown his way. “She’s already offered to go in. Would Harper be interested? Or her parents?”
“I wouldn’t ask them for an opinion, let alone a loan,” Brandon shot back without sparing a single glance at any one of us.
“Harper would though, especially if it meant we could expand the business.” Ryan turned to face me. “What about Effy? Her parents aren’t short of a few bob.” He was starting to sound desperate.
“I would never ask her. If you want the Spencers to invest, that’s your call, not mine. Couldn’t we put on a few extra events to make money ourselves for the deposit?” I decided to steer the conversation my way for once.
“That’s a good idea.” Brandon’s attention was caught again. “I’m not fighting though. I’ve got bookings for my workshops for the next few months. Anyway, it’d stress Harper out and I wouldn’t want to put her through that at the moment.”
“You don’t have to fight. We could put on a fight but it wouldn’t have to be you. We have enough contacts to make it happen. That’s a good idea, Finn. Let’s do it.” Ryan was buzzing, I could tell.
“I have an idea for a venue too.” Now I’d reached my next hurdle, and it was a hell of a lot bigger than the last one.
“Oh yeah? Where?” Brandon leant forward in anticipation.
“The old Clarkson’s Plastics factory.” I held my breath, waiting for the penny to drop.
“Wait, what? The one over in Brinton? Why the fuck would we want to use that? It’s a shithole and the soldiers would bomb the place with us still in it if we stepped on their manor.” Ryan had made up his mind, but Zak stayed quiet and Brandon stared at me, trying to suss me out.
“Why do you want us to go to Brinton, mate?” Brandon could tell there was more to this than I was letting on.
“Alice lives there now. And I figured there were buildings there that we hadn’t really looked at before. Maybe it’s a goldmine we’ve over-looked?” I shrugged like it was no big deal.
“Alice barely leaves the house. She’s never attended one of our parties and we?
?ve been doing them for years. What’s the deal here?” Brandon was like a dog with a bone when he thought he was onto something.
“No deal. I just thought it’d be cool.” I couldn’t look him in the eye though. He’d call bullshit within seconds if I did.
“Cool? Bloody suicide more like.” He scowled back at me as Zak and Ryan watched us like they were at the Wimbledon final.
I stayed quiet and Brandon huffed out his annoyance.
“Come on then. Talk us round. You’re supposed to argue with me, not give in the first chance you get.” Brandon was always trying to push me out of my comfort zone, and this was no different.
“All right, fine. You never listen to me. You always make all the decisions and expect me to go along with it. I’m stuck on the outside most of the time, and just this once, I want to have a say.”
“That’s more like it.” He spurred me on. “What else? Don’t hold back on us.”
“I think we need to think bigger than Sandland. If you want to make this a viable business, then we have to expand our network.” Ryan nodded when I said that. He always saw the bigger picture.
“And the soldiers?” Brandon piped up.
“They won’t be a problem.”
For you, anyway.