Winning His War

50

Jem's POV

Admittedly, there may have been a flaw in my plan.

Bringing Patrick and Andrew to Nashville felt like a good idea when I made the decision but now that it was actually happening, I almost should have none better considering who I was talking about.

Andrew's love language is spending time together and we were about to have 6 hours together just in drive time. Not to mention how he tends to just be excited to just leave the house at this point. I should have been ready for the excitement that filled the car on the long drive but I forgot that this wouldn't be the usual trip with Dev and Barrett I which we normally drove in silence.

Then of course there was Patrick. Patrick who tended to stay within a 10-mile radius of his hometown, Patrick who threatened to steal a gold plated spoon at my restaurant, Patrick who was the most basic southern man I've ever met in my life; that's the guy I chose to bring to a rather big city.

Granted Nashville wasn't the fanciest place by any mean but to two people who had never been or were excited just in general, it seemed to be a big deal to them.

"We should have came at night," Andrew said from the passengers seat, his face all but glued to the window; so much so that even his words were muffled by the glass. "Can you imagine what all the lights would look like out here? I bet it's gorgeous."

"Can you imagine how much power they're using? It's fucking insane," Patrick scoffed from the backseat but he looked just as impressed.

This is how most of the conversation has been ever since we got off of the interstate about an hour ago. Andrew finding something to be excited about, Patrick making note of how expensive it had to be and pretending to be annoyed about it. Both of them were too cute though so I opted to not choose sides and just enjoy them having fun in the car.

"Is that supposed to be an aquarium? That building is bigger than a football stadium," Patrick asked as he leaned up from the backseat to point at something I was too busy driving to look at.

"Do you want to go walk around it for a while," I asked still not taking my eyes off the road to look but still ready to find a random parking lot to turn around in so we could go back.

"We don't have time."

"Says who," I scoffed, resisting the urge to make a u turn in the middle of the road in order to go back just to prove my point.

"You I guess. You have plans to do here."

"We're here to look at a building and go back home. That's the only plans I have. If you two see something you want to do or see somewhere to eat that you've never been before than just tell me. We have plenty of time." This only made Andrew's smile brighten as Patrick slid back into the backseat slowly. "So do you want to turn around or not?"
"Not for an aquarium," he mumbled but began looking out the window again.

The car didn't stay quiet for long and soon enough Andrew was back to pointing out things that would be gorgeous if we came back another time at certain time of day or year.

We had gotten a late start to the day; it was already 5 by the time we made it to the building. I had parked on the side of the road and got out without a word yet they followed me as I crossed the road to get a better look.

The building itself was shit. The foundation was cracked, mold no doubt covered the baseboards, and I could tell just from looking at it a few homeless people were using it. But the property would be decent if we fixed it. The building would have to be demolished entirely and that would cost a lot of money but the road was pretty busy and there weren't many fancy restaurants down this way so we could probably make that back pretty quickly.