“Oh, me, too, man. Me, too.”

Ivan closed and locked the door behind him before spreading the money out across the floor. He sat in Raymond’s office chair, leaned over, and separated the hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens, fives, and ones as usual. But this time he did it by himself. And when he did his recount, the take from the door came to exactly $5,238.

Ivan grinned and mumbled, “Either Ida let somebody in for eighteen dollars, or she took or lost two singles out of the cash box.”

He wasn’t going to make a big deal over that. But Ida had left without even being paid that night.

“Yeah, I know something’s up with her now,” he assumed.

He set the metal cash box and the money bag in a corner of the room and returned to the bar to have Raymond lock the office back up until they were ready to close for the night.

“What are you guys looking like tonight?” he asked Raymond in reference to their take at the bar.

Raymond looked at him and said, “So far, thirteen thousand.”

Ivan smiled, feeling like a contestant on the game show The Price Is Right. His estimates were right on target. It felt like he was taking candy from a baby.

He nodded and said, “Okay.” Another G for me, he thought. But just imagine if I owned the lounge.

He stepped away from Raymond and pulled Christina from her VIP duties to speak to her in private for a minute.

“Are you all right over there? You doing okay?”

She looked at him with all of her girlish innocence. “Yeah, I’m okay. Why do you ask me that?”

Ivan felt her steadiness all over him. That was what he was used to from her. But he couldn’t see it from her when he was staring at her.

He said, “Maybe it’s just me, but you seemed to be…distracted tonight.”

She shook it off again. “No, I’m good. But how are you doing? Is everything all right with you?”

Ivan looked into her small dark eyes, surrounded by her beautiful brown skin and dark wavy hair, and he began to think with the wrong head. He felt like reaching out and pulling her sexy frame into him and telling her the blunt truth at that moment.

After making this easy money in here tonight, I feel like I deserve some good pussy. Seriously!

Since Ida and Lucina had left him there alone, Ivan had no other bumpers to keep him away from a payout from Chris. So instead of him playing it all business, like his normal MO, Ivan changed up his script.

He told Christina, “Don’t leave here tonight before I talk to you.”

She paused and then nodded to him. He was in authority.

She said, “Okay.” And that was it.