Hot Dad Next Door (Temptation Next Door)

Daxter seemed happy and that was what truly mattered. Things got back to talking about more women and I was about to get up, when Damon spoke. “How are things going with you and the love of your life, Trevor?”

I looked at him and then frowned. I was confused by what he meant by love of my life. However, the rest of the table snickered and chuckled, fully aware of his words.

“I’m sorry. Not really understanding,” I said.

Damon rolled his eyes and held out his arms. “Your namesake, man. How’s business?” Damon looked around. There were some full tables, but there were also lots more empty tables. He looked back at me. “Doing alright?”

He was looking at me, like he truly wanted an honest response and wouldn’t believe me if I said that things were amazing, so I shrugged.

“You know, business can slump at times, but I’m holding in there,” I said.

“Tell me about business slumping,” Marcus stated. “There were times that I would acquire a bank building, only to find that it was already nearly bankrupt. That was when I went to J & E Consulting Firm.”

I frowned. “What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a place that comes in and works their magic to help build a business back up. They check numbers, run plans, organize anything they see is failing, and eventually your business is back thriving.” He shrugged. “Or, at least mine was.”

I hadn’t considered going to an outside facility such as a consulting firm to have them look over my business. I supposed it was an option.

“J & E Consulting Firm?” I asked.

Marcus nodded. “I can get you the number if you want it.”

I was holding onto my pride and really didn’t want them to know that I was struggling like that, so I quickly shook my head.

“That’s quite alright. We’re doing well. Really!” I said, smiling at them. I grabbed my beer bottle and stood up.

“I really should get back to work. Good seeing you guys!” I tipped my beer bottle and headed back to the bar. I pushed the beer bottle to Brayton and he discarded it, and then I went back into the backroom to get to my office.

I was at my computer and typing in J & E Consulting Firm before I forgot the name and had to go back to him and inquire about it. Immediately the website was pulled up. I looked it over and contemplated my next steps. I didn’t want to ask more people for help, but more importantly I needed to do what was best for the company. Monday morning I would give them a call and hope that they could help me out of this slump.

It was the only thing I could do.

I had written the number down for the company, so Monday morning when I woke up, that was the first thing I did. I placed a call into the company.

“Good morning, you have reached J & E Consulting Firm. This is Jasmine, how may I help you?”

“Good morning, Jasmine. I need to speak with someone in regards to maybe helping out my business. It’s not entirely going under…yet. I just want to make sure it doesn’t.”

“Sure thing, sir. No problem. Will you be able to hold for a minute? I will get you with someone that can place the perfect consultant in your hands. He’s on the phone right now, so it will be just a moment.”

“Okay, no problem. Thank you so much!”

“It’s my pleasure and as always…thank you for contacting J & E Consulting Firm. Please hold.” The sound of music played over the phone as I waited. I sat down at my kitchen table and started to hum along to the song. Then a man’s voice came on the line.

“This is Roger. I’m a partner of J & E Consulting Firm. How may I help you?”

I, once again, told him what I was looking for, this time going into a little more detail and providing my name, the company I own, and the problems we were facing. After I finished off rattling, I took a deep breath. “Do you think you can help?” I asked.

“Just a minute, I’m entering all your information into the database.” There was some hesitation, before he finally came back. “Okay, I have you in my database and I will certainly see about pairing you off with someone. Unfortunately, all our representatives are assisting other customers.”

He sounded like a voice recording you got when you had to wait for the next available person. “It could be weeks, maybe months before someone becomes available.”

My jaw dropped. I didn’t have weeks and I definitely didn’t have months. I didn’t even know if I had days. I couldn’t wait that long.

“Oh…I see.” I mumbled. “I appreciate that, but I can’t wait that long. I might have to find someone else.” I was expecting to then hang up the call, but Roger was quickly assuring me.

“I understand that that would be an inconvenience. I will look some things over and try to get someone to your business by tomorrow. Would that be sufficient?”