The idea didn’t stay a conversation for long.

That was the problem with Kev. Or the best thing about him, depending on the day. Once something landed in his head and stayed there longer than five minutes, he stopped treating it like a possibility and started treating it like something that was already halfway done.

Three days after he brought it up at the Alibi, he called.

Lip answered while sitting in the passenger seat of Mandy’s BMW, one elbow resting against the window as they waited at a red light.

“You break something?” he asked.

On the other end of the line, Kev sounded offended immediately. “Why’s that always your first guess?”

“History.”

“That’s rude.”

“It’s accurate.”

Mandy glanced over from the driver’s seat, one hand loose on the wheel. She didn’t need to ask who it was. The look on Lip’s face was enough.

“Kev?” she said.

Lip nodded once.

She smiled faintly and looked back at the road. “Already?”

Kev was still talking.

“I found a place.”

Lip closed his eyes for a second and leaned back into the seat. “Of course you did.”

“Listen to me first.”

“That usually makes it worse.”

“It’s not far from here,” Kev said. “Good street, decent foot traffic, used to be a bar, closed a few months ago.”

Lip watched the traffic light change and then the city slide forward outside the window as Mandy pulled the car through the intersection.

“Why’d it close?”

There was just enough pause on the other end to answer the question by itself.

“…Different owner. Different problems.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s enough of one. Just come see it.”

Lip looked out the windshield for a second, then at Mandy. She was already trying not to laugh.

He sighed. “Text me the address.”

Twenty minutes later they were parking in front of a narrow brick building on a street that had clearly seen better years and still thought it might see them again. The sign above the door was faded badly enough that whatever the place used to be called had become more suggestion than lettering. The windows were dusty. The front step looked worn smooth in the middle. One of the side lights was out.

Kev was already outside waiting, which meant he had probably been there too early and spent the last ten minutes convincing himself that counted as productivity. Veronica stood beside him with both arms crossed, looking calm in the way people did when they knew someone near them was doing too much.

“Finally,” Kev said the second they got out of the car.

Lip shut the door behind him. “You called twenty minutes ago.”

“Yeah, and now you’re here.”

Mandy looked up at the building, then at V. “How long’s he been standing outside pretending this is already his?”

V didn’t even hesitate. “Long enough to start renaming the place twice.”

Kev pointed at the building with both hands. “Ignore her. Look at this.”

Lip did.

First the sign. Then the windows. Then the stretch of sidewalk and the businesses on either side. A corner store across the street. A laundromat half a block down. Apartment buildings close enough that people could walk here without planning it. Enough street traffic to matter, but not so much that parking would become impossible. The kind of block where a decent bar could work if you didn’t ruin it by trying too hard.

“Needs work,” he said.

Kev grinned. “Obviously.”

“But the spot’s good.”

That was enough to make Kev look even more pleased with himself.

V tipped her head once. “That’s the whole point.”

Mandy slipped her hands into the pockets of her jacket and looked through the dusty front window. “You got the key?”

Kev already had it out.

Inside, the place looked exactly how old bars looked once someone stopped caring about them.

The stools were still there, though one of them leaned to the side like it had given up structurally a while ago. The bar top was scratched enough to show years of bad decisions. The floor still had that permanent sticky look old bars got even after they’d been closed long enough to dry out. A couple dead neon signs hung crooked on the walls. The back area was bigger than Lip expected, though cluttered with broken chairs and boxes of things no one had thrown out because nobody wanted to admit they were worthless.

Kev walked in like he was already renovating it in his head.

“Bar stays here,” he said, slapping the counter with his palm. “Tables out there. Maybe some booths along that wall.”

“Maybe not booths,” V said immediately.

“Why not booths?”

“Because you hate cleaning booths.”

“I don’t hate cleaning booths.”

“You hate cleaning everything.”

Mandy laughed under her breath and wandered toward the back while Kev kept talking.

Lip stayed quiet at first, just looking.

That was the difference between Kev and him. Kev saw the version of a place he wanted almost immediately. Lip saw the numbers first. The cost. The work. The things that needed fixing before anyone ever ordered a beer. Plumbing. Flooring. Electrical. Staffing. Insurance. Permits. Security. Inventory. The part that had to make sense after the excitement wore off.

Kev was still talking.

“Pool table maybe in the back,” he said, gesturing toward the open area. “Nothing huge. Just enough to keep people here longer.”

V gave him a look. “You said that about the Alibi.”

“And I was right.”

“You were lucky.”

“I was right and lucky.”

Lip leaned one shoulder against the bar and finally spoke. “How are you running it.”

Kev turned to him at once, because underneath all the noise that was really the part he cared about hearing.

“Same as the Alibi,” he said. “Keep it simple. Don’t make it fancy. Different crowd maybe, but same kind of place.”

V nodded. “Employees on rotation. We oversee both.”

Kev pointed between them as he talked, building it out in the air with his hands. “Three working here most nights. Three at the Alibi. Maybe lighter during the day if we need it. Depends how traffic settles.”

Lip looked around again.

The layout could work.

The neighborhood could work.

Most importantly, Kev and V could actually run it without pretending they were opening some polished chain bar for people who cared about craft cocktails and reclaimed wood. That wasn’t their world and it didn’t need to be.

“And security,” V added.

Lip looked over at her.

She leaned against the old counter and said, “If we do this, I don’t want to spend every weekend calling cops because some idiot can’t hold his liquor.”

That part had already crossed his mind.

“Mickey,” he said.

Kev snapped his fingers immediately. “Exactly.”

“One guard at each place,” Lip said, thinking it through as he spoke. “Night shifts mostly. Maybe weekends heavier depending on how it goes.”

V nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.”

Kev looked between them with the expression he got whenever two competent people started turning his messy enthusiasm into something usable. “See? This is why I bring you places.”

Mandy had drifted back from the rear hallway by then. “Bathroom in the back is disgusting.”

Kev waved a hand. “That’s fixable.”

“It’s barely a bathroom.”

“Also fixable.”

She came to stand beside Lip and looked around the room one more time.

“You doing food here too?”

Kev thought about that. “Basic stuff. Same as the Alibi. Keep people here longer, keep them drinking.”

V looked at Lip. “He’s been making spreadsheets.”

That got his attention more than anything else.

“You made spreadsheets?”

Kev folded his arms, offended by the tone. “Why’s everybody acting like I can’t make spreadsheets?”

Mandy laughed. “Because you can’t.”

“I can.”

V answered for him. “I made them.”

“That feels dishonest,” Kev muttered.

Lip smiled faintly and pushed off the bar. “What’s the rent.”

That sobered Kev enough to give him the actual number without embellishment. Then the estimated renovation cost. Then what V thought opening inventory would run. Then staffing.

By the time they finished walking through it, Lip already knew what his answer would be.

Not because it was risk-free. It wasn’t. Bars were bars. People ran them badly all the time and convinced themselves the next month would somehow fix what the last six didn’t. But Kev wasn’t trying to build something that didn’t fit him. He knew how to run a bar. V knew how to keep one profitable. The location was good enough. The scale was small enough to stay manageable.

He looked around one more time.

The dead lights.

The worn bar.

The bad floor.

The bones underneath it.

Then he looked at Kev.

“Alright.”

Kev blinked. “That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re in.”

Lip nodded. “Yeah.”

For half a second Kev just stared at him.

Then he broke into a grin so fast it made Mandy laugh.

“I knew this was a good spot.”

V looked less surprised, but only slightly. “Good. Because he already started naming it.”

Kev pointed at her. “That was brainstorming.”

“That was terrible,” she said.

On the way back home, Mandy drove while Lip sat with one arm resting by the window again, watching the city slide past in streaks of light and brick.

She kept one hand on the wheel and the other loose in her lap for a while before glancing over at him.

“So,” she said, “Kev’s building a bar chain now.”

Lip looked at her. “Two bars.”

“So far.”

He smiled a little.

“That’s not a chain.”

“Yet,” she said.

That made him laugh.

The car went quiet after that for a minute or two, not awkward, just easy. Chicago at night rolled past them outside. Streetlights. Closed storefronts. The occasional group standing outside somewhere smoking. The city looked the same as always, but Lip had long since stopped confusing that with it actually staying the same.

Mandy tapped her fingers once against the wheel.

“A few years ago you were working for Kev.”

Lip looked out the window for a second. “Yeah.”

“And now he’s calling you to invest in his second bar.”

By the time they pulled into the driveway, the house was dark except for the kitchen light they’d left on.

Mandy parked, cut the engine, and looked over at him.

“So you’re really doing it.”

“Yeah.”

She unbuckled and reached for the door. “Good.”

Lip looked at her. “Why.”

She smiled and got out of the car.

“Because Kev with two bars sounds exactly like the kind of thing that should happen.”

He followed her inside a second later, and honestly, he couldn’t really argue with that.