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“That’s everything?”
I nodded and put the contracts in a manilla folder. “That is it, Charlie. I am now a proud owner of forty-nine percent of Chicken Biscuit. You are the controlling owner with fifty-one percent.”
Charlie took a deep breath and sagged in his chair. “You have no idea how stressed out I have been, Wilder.”
“Well, I think we’ve got a good jump on Chicken King. They are breaking ground, but it’ll be a couple of months before they are open. We’ve got the next two months to get people within fifty miles into Chicken Biscuit and get a biscuit into everyone's mouths. We do that, and they won’t remember who Chicken King is.”
Charlie sighed. “That is my hope.” He looked out the window of my office and frowned.
“What’s wrong, Charlie? I know you’re stressed, but I figure you would be happy after signing all the contracts.” The past few days had been just as crazy as I had figured, but Charlie should be feeling a little bit better now that I was officially part of the Chicken Biscuit team. Before we even signed the contracts, I had my advertising blitz going.
“I broke things off with Missy.”
I tipped my head to the side. “Something happen?”
Charlie laughed flatly. “I don’t know, man. I just had so much going on, and the words were out of my mouth before I thought about them. We always agreed that if the other wanted to end things, we would.”
“So you ended things?”
Charlie nodded. “I did. She looked so sad, but she didn’t argue with me. She put her coat on, kissed me on the cheek, and said goodbye.” Now Charlie looked like he was ready to cry.
“Maybe you should talk to her, man. You are going through a lot right now, and maybe you took that all out on Missy?”
Charlie buried his head in his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe I just need to let everything settle for a bit, and then maybe I’ll give her a call. I know all of the contracts are signed, but we still have a lot of things to do.” Charlie stood and ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s what I’ll do. I’m going to get everything settled and back to normal, and then I’ll figure out what to do with Missy. Maybe she was upset because she didn’t see it coming.”
I didn’t know if that was the best thing to do, but I didn’t really know how Missy and Charlie’s relationship ran.
“Well, go home and get some sleep, and tomorrow we’ll start kicking Chicken Kings butt.”
Charlie shook my hand and headed out.
I sat back in my chair and sighed.
Becoming part of Chicken Biscuit had been third on my list of things to do, but it had been bumped to the top of the list. I could scratch that one off and decide what my next endeavor would be.
Blake had arrived this morning with a moving truck, and he had been working on getting settled in.
Everything was good except for Shelby Lyn.
I didn’t know what to do.
My message eight days ago had never been replied to, but I could see that she had read it.
I had always been confident and never faltered on what to do, but with Shelby Lyn, I just wasn’t sure what to do.
Nine years I had walked away from her, and I didn’t want that to happen again.
Shelby Lyn was what I wanted, and I just needed to get the courage to tell her.
Could she tell me to get lost and never talk to her again?
Or maybe she would tell me she still just saw me as a friend?
There were so many things that could happen, but I wouldn’t know what that was until I just told her I came back for her.
I came back because I had everything I wanted for the past nine years, except for one thing.
Her.
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