They Gave My Cousin a Car, I Built an Empire novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Across the Street

Good Dog Supply opens with one dollar-store balloon while PupPalace opens across the road with a balloon arch, a news van and Gary cutting the ribbon. Vicky gets six customers, and the distributor wants the first pallet paid in cash, nineteen hundred dollars more than they have.

We opened on a Saturday, and so did my cousin.

Ben and I had picked the date six weeks earlier.

Tyler had picked the same date eleven days earlier, by text, and he sent me a thumbs-up emoji to confirm.

At seven in the morning, I unlocked the door of Good Dog Supply and turned on the lights.

The shelves were secondhand, bought off a closed grocery store for four hundred dollars and bolted down by Ben with a borrowed drill.

The sign over the door was a vinyl banner I had hung myself, using a step stool and a lot of language.

Our grand opening decorations were one bone-shaped balloon from the dollar store.

"It's very festive," Ben said.

"It's very alone."

He tied it to the door handle anyway.

Across Wilmington Pike, the other store had a balloon arch.

It was forty feet of red, white and gold balloons, curved over the entire entrance, with a chalkboard sign that said *FREE PUPPY PHOTOS* and a bounce house shaped like a bone.

A van from Channel 7 was parked at the curb.

My father stood in front of the arch in a new polo shirt, holding a pair of scissors the size of garden shears.

Tyler stood beside him in a tailored vest with PupPalace stitched on the chest.

I watched through my front window as they cut a red ribbon in front of a crowd of at least sixty people.

Dad held up the scissors and said something that made them laugh.

The camera operator zoomed in.

"He's good at that," Ben said quietly.

"He's been doing it at parties for thirty years."

By ten o'clock, we had three customers.

One woman bought a leash.

One man asked if we sold fish and left when we said no.

One little boy stood in front of the rawhide display for ten minutes, until his mother pulled him out to go and see the free puppies.

At noon, I counted the register.

"Two hundred and twelve dollars," I said.

"That's good," Ben said, and then, because he is a terrible liar, "for a first day."

"Six customers."

"Six customers who each had a dog."

"Ben."

"I'm just saying every one of them had a dog."

I went to the back and ate half a granola bar standing up, watching the traffic light cycle outside, and nobody crossed the road toward us.

At one o'clock, my cousin came in.

He had a coffee in one hand and his phone in the other, and he turned the phone on the store before he said hello.

"Wow," Tyler said. "It's so cozy."

"Are you recording?"

"Just for content, cuz. Support small business." He panned across the empty shelves. "You guys have a lot of... rope."

"It's a chew toy."

"It's a very small store, is all I'm saying."

"Tyler, get out of my store."

"I'm a customer," he said, and put a single bag of cat treats on the counter, and walked out without paying.

Ben held up the bag.

"He's right about the rope," he said.

At two o'clock, my father came in.

He didn't film anything.

He walked slowly down each aisle with his hands in his pockets, reading price tags.

He picked up a harness, turned it over, and put it back.

He stopped at the wash station Ben had built in the back, a plain steel tub with a hose, and tapped it with his knuckle.

"Real nice, Vic," he said.

"Thanks."

"Little place. Real cozy."

"That's what Tyler said."

"Well. He's right." He took a card from his pocket and set it on the counter. "That's twenty percent off at PupPalace. Family discount. You can always buy your supplies over there."

I looked at the card.

It had a cartoon corgi on it with a crown.

"I'd rather not," I said.

"Suit yourself." He looked around once more. "You'll learn a lot from this."

"From what?"

"From figuring it out."

He said it kindly.

That was the worst part.

He left, the bell rang behind him, and I stood there with my hand flat on the counter.

"Don't throw the card away," Ben said.

"Why would I keep it?"

"Because one day you'll want to laugh at it."

I put it in the register drawer.

At five, we locked up, with three hundred and sixty dollars on the tape.

Ben sat down on an upside-down bucket and pulled out his phone.

He had been quiet for an hour, and now he was reading something on the screen with his lips pressed together.

"What is it?"

"My old boss at the distributor," he said. "I asked about our first pallet. Dry food, litter, the basics."

"And?"

"He says new accounts pay cash up front. No terms. It's corporate."

"How much?"

"Fifty-four hundred."

"We have thirty-five hundred."

"I know."

"So we're short."

"By nineteen hundred dollars," Ben said. "And he needs it by Thursday, or the pallet goes to someone else."

I looked across the road.

PupPalace was lit up with string lights, and a line of people was still waiting at the door.

"Then I guess we figure it out," I said.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend