Chapter 24

“Hello, Alison,” Dan said from his seat at the corner table of the burger place.

“Hello, Dan. You’re looking good,” Alison said while taking a seat next to him. She said, “Hi, Tom. How was college?”

“It was great. How are you doing?” Tom asked while raising his frosted mug of root beer. He pointed at it and then raised three fingers once he had the waitress’s attention.

“I’m fine. I’m so glad to be out of school for the summer,” Alison said. It seemed to her that the last two weeks of college had been miserable. She said, “Final exams nearly killed me.”

“I know what you mean,” Tom said.

Dan grinned and said, “I’m smarter than both of you. I just audit the courses, and don’t have to take the final exams.”

Tom tapped Dan on the shoulder in a friendly mock punch and said, “That’s it. Just rub it in, why don’t you?”

“At least you have the summer off. I’m working full-time at the restaurant, part-time at the construction company, and I’m going to audit another course at the community college,” Dan said.

Alison looked at Dan in surprise and asked, “You’re taking another course?”

“Yes. I’ve signed up for an intro to business course,” Dan answered. He wanted to take the course on business law, but that required the intro to business course as a prerequisite.

“You must not have any kind of social life,” Alison said with a frown. She had tried to set him up with one of the women at the restaurant, and had wondered if she had been successful. From the description of his life, it didn’t sound like it.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Dan said looking away rather embarrassed. During his first Saturday night date with Ann and Sally, things had heated up very quickly. He figured that the painting had been fueling some fantasies or something on their part. For his part, he was amazed by the attentions of two attractive women.

“Oh, tell us about it,” Tom said sensing that there was a good story in there.

Ellen entered the burger place and looked around. Spotting Dan in the corner she headed over to him. On arriving, she said, “I see that your friends have arrived. You must be Tom and you must be Alison.”

“Allow me to introduce you to Ellen,” Dan said gesturing to her.

While Alison exchanged greetings with Ellen, Tom raised his mug and gestured to it. He turned to Ellen and said, “I’ve ordered you a root beer.”

Ellen sat down between Tom and Alison. Leaning over to Tom, she said, “Thank you. I love frosty mugs of root beer.”

“Tom drinks root beer like other people drink water,” Alison said while examining Ellen. She thought the woman was a little too old for Dan. There was at least ten years difference in their ages.

“It’s the only drink worth drinking,” Tom said with a grin. He was pretty impressed with Ellen’s appearance and thought that Dan had done well for himself. Dating an older woman had to be interesting.

Alison noticed Tom’s lopsided grin before she turned to look at Ellen. She asked, “So are you Dan’s new girl friend?”

“No. I’m just a friend,” Ellen said with a smile. She said, “Dan warned me that you would want all of the details about his love life. He’s got two girlfriends, although that is a little too simplistic of a description of his relationship with them.”

“Two?” Tom asked looking at his friend with a shocked expression on his face. He didn’t even notice when the waitress put four frosted mugs of root beer on the table. He was too busy having visions of being sandwiched between two naked women while they did ‘nasty’ things to his body.

Having enjoyed many evenings with Dan, Alison said, “I’m sure that you’re keeping them both satisfied.”

“Actually, they are a couple and invite me over occasionally,” Dan said trying to downplay it.

“He keeps them both very happy. I know, they’ve told me,” Ellen said grinning over at Alison. Dan turned red at the exchange.

Tom sat back in his seat. He said, “I haven’t had a date in four months. How did you manage to get two girlfriends at the same time?”

On hearing the bit about four months, Ellen looked over at Tom. He was a good enough looking young man. Deciding that they might have some mutual needs, she turned to Dan and asked, “Can I?”

“Be my guest,” Dan answered with a smile. He grabbed one of the root beers and raised it in a toast.

“Come with me,” Ellen said rising from her chair. She grabbed Tom’s hand and pulled him out of his chair. She said, “We’ll be back in an hour ... maybe.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Dan said with a smile. Tom was looking around wondering what Ellen meant by the suggestion that they’d be back in an hour.

Watching Ellen drag Tom off, Alison asked, “Is she going to do what I think she’s going to do?”

“Yes. She’s been a little frustrated lately,” Dan said. He slid a root beer over to Alison and gestured to it.

“Why haven’t you taken care of it?” Alison asked. She picked up the mug and took a sip. Although she wasn’t a great fan of root beer, she had to admit it was a hundred times better when it was served in a frosty mug.

“We’re friends. She doesn’t want it to develop beyond that,” Dan said.

“So when do I get to meet your girlfriends?” Alison asked.

She was wondering if she’d have to find a new friend with benefits. Last Christmas it hadn’t seemed like a good idea to continue the benefits, but a whole summer without them would be too long.

“In about an hour and a half we’ll go over to Ellen’s house. She’s throwing a little welcome home party for you and Tom,” Dan answered.

“Really?” Alison asked. Ellen must be someone special to throw a welcome home party for a couple of people that she didn’t know.

“Yes. I hope that you don’t have a problem with lesbians,” Dan said.

“Lesbians?” Alison asked looking at Dan with a raised eyebrow. It was hard not to laugh at him. She said, “I think that if they are sleeping with you then you can’t really call them lesbians.”

Dan laughed at her comment and said, “No, but a lot of my friends are lesbians.”

“I don’t have a problem with lesbians,” Alison said.

She had experimented a little with her cousin Mary in the past. It hadn’t really done much for them, but she wasn’t so hypocritical that she would say anything bad about a woman who preferred that kind of action. It made her wonder what all had been going on in Dan’s life since she had returned to college after the winter break.

“Good, I think you’ll have a great time,” Dan said. He did wonder how she would react to the fact that there would be a lot of women at the party and only two men.

After taking another sip of the root beer, Alison asked, “Are we still friends with benefits or does your relationship with your two women mean we are just friends?”

Surprised that she still wanted the benefits, Dan considered the question before he answered, “We can be friends with benefits if you want that. Ann and Sally are in a committed relationship with each other. I am just a little excitement on the side for them.”

“I seriously doubt that,” Alison said. She figured that she’d have to talk to the two women and find out for herself if there would still be benefits.

“You sound like my friend Sue,” Dan said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Are you making any progress on opening your pizzeria?” Alison asked as a way of changing the subject. She knew that they only way she’d find out how the two women felt was to ask them.

“Parker’s Perfect Pizza is now a corporation. I don’t have a store and I’m not selling any pizzas, but I have a company,” Dan answered with a smile.

“Congratulations,” Alison said. Wondering how you could have a company that wasn’t doing any business, she asked, “So what does that mean?”

“It means that all of the money that I spend on the pizzeria from now on, is a real business expense. All of my training, purchases, and expenses count as an investment in the company, and are giving me equity. That will help when I go to get a loan,” Dan answered.

“You sound like you really understand this business stuff,” Alison said.

Dan shook his head and said, “I’m still learning. You wouldn’t believe how much there is to learn.”

“I can imagine,” Alison said.

Dan said, “You won’t believe this, but I’ve been studying harder now than when I was in high school. I spend almost every evening working on building this business. I spent yesterday afternoon talking to an insurance agent about how to best protect my business against fire, theft, and lawsuits.”

“Sounds rough,” Alison said.

“I’m investigating how much it costs to put security cameras in a store,” Dan said. The insurance agent said that protecting the business against theft using alarm systems and surveillance cameras could significantly lower the insurance rate.

“Security cameras?”

Nodding his head, Dan said, “If I’m ever robbed, then the cameras can provide evidence that could lead to a conviction. If anyone tries to stage an accident, then a recording of them can help get them convicted of fraud.”

“Who would do something like that?” Alison asked. She couldn’t believe that someone would try to stage an accident to sue a little business.

Dan shrugged his shoulders and said, “Two weeks ago someone claimed that there was glass in their food at the restaurant where I work. Fortunately, another customer had seen the guy put the glass on his food and told the manager before the guy had a chance to raise a fuss. The glass didn’t correspond to any glass product that we had in the entire place.”

“That’s so sick,” Alison said. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Cheating was rampant at the college and three of her classmates had been expelled for plagiarism. That was pretty bad since it required getting caught at it twice before they would expel them.

Dan had heard a number of stories about customers trying to do things to bring lawsuits against the restaurant. One person had tried to sue on the claim that she had gotten food poisoning. The woman was arrested when it was discovered that she had never been inside the restaurant. So far nothing had happened on his shift, but that could change in a minute. He said, “You wouldn’t believe the things that happen in a place of business.”

“I guess not,” Alison said with a worried frown. She had a sudden image of someone coming into the pizzeria and robbing him at gun point.

“That’s why I went with a corporation. I discovered that if the corporation got sued then my personal assets were protected. Right now that doesn’t mean much. All I have is an old car, a computer, and some cash. Once I get established, I’ll have a home. I don’t want to lose my home,” Dan said. On his last visit with the lawyer he had found that lawyers were good at answering questions. His problem had been knowing what questions to ask.

“You’ve really been thinking about this, haven’t you?” Alison said looking at Dan with pride. She remembered when she used to think that Dan was the class dummy. She was pleased to have discovered that she had been wrong.

“Yes,” Dan said. He looked over at Alison and said, “That’s enough about me. What have you been doing? What are your plans for the summer? When is Mary coming to visit you?”

“Nothing, nothing, and soon,” Alison answered. She laughed when he rolled his eyes at her answer. She said, “I’ve gotten through my first year of college. I thought I was a good student until I got there. All of a sudden my A’s turned into C’s. I was shocked. I ended up at the writing center almost every afternoon for three weeks learning how to write an essay that didn’t get a C.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dan said.

Gesturing wildly, Alison said, “I’m so pissed about my education. I got out of high school thinking I knew something. I knew nothing.”