Samantha shoved herself away from the desk and groaned. She’d been at this for hours, laying out different ways to configure the funding of her next enterprise, a newly legal ‘medical’ marijuana shop, and she still felt like she had a million questions. How much of a difference could there be in the total quantity grown and the amount sold in the shop before the police would notice? What taxes would be added, when they inevitably were? Since the shop would have to be a cash-only business, how much cash could she funnel off without being noticed? How much needed to stick around to make the thing look profitable but not robbable? And, worst of all, who was going to run the blasted thing?
She put her hands behind her neck, rubbing at a crick. Dmitri couldn’t do it because he was too irresponsible, and he didn’t need any new addictions. Nikola would give all the product away. Alex and Max would be efficient, but they lacked the caring side that medical customers would need. “Why couldn’t my family be lawyers?” she groused.
“If you were a lawyer, you wouldn’t need a bodyguard. Actually, depending how much of an asshole you were, you might need a bodyguard. But I certainly wouldn’t work for a lawyer,” said a low voice behind Samantha. Warm hands rested on her shoulders.
“And here I’d been telling everyone you were my stylist.”
“You’d definitely need a stylist if you were a lawyer. Gotta pick the right pantsuit. Don’t wanna wear the he’s-gonna-fry suit on a day when you need sensitive-misunderstood-lonely-kid.”
“Whereas now,” Samantha said, “I just wear the he’s-gonna-fry suit every day.”
“Gotta keep ‘em on their toes,” Sadaf said. “But really. You haven’t killed anyone in ages.”
“Uggghhhh. A little murder would be a relief right now.”
“What’s wrong?” Sadaf asked, ruffling Samantha’s bangs.
“Could you not?” Samantha huffed. Sadaf didn’t stop.
“I’ll rub your neck nicely if you tell me all your secrets.”
Samantha frowned. “You know all my secrets.”
“I’m sure I don’t.”
“You know where the bodies are buried.”
“That’s… not really the same. But. What I meant was…” Sadaf paused, shifting her hair fluffing into a scalp massage, “Why don’t you tell me so I can help? What’s the problem?”
“Math!”
“Don’t be silly. You can do math just fine. What’s the real issue?”
“The pot shop. There are so many variables,” Samantha said. “I think I’ve got a grasp of where I’d like our production to start, and we’ve got warehouses for growing, and protection staff. I’m going to start with production nearly matching sales and see how that goes. I think we’ll be set to shift some cash around after the first three months. I want to run through the numbers one more time, but--”
“None of what you’ve said is a real problem. Are you sure there’s nothing else?”
Samantha sighed. “I don’t know who’s going to run it. I can’t do it myself, but I don’t trust anyone else not to fuck it up.”
“Story of your life.”
“Mmm. If only I were a lawyer.”
“You know,” Sadaf said, “That gives me an idea.”
“Hire a lawyer?”
“No. But my cousin Cyrus is a doctor, and his brother is a lawyer. Their dad was a lot more stereotypical immigrant dad than mine. But my uncle died a few months ago. Cyrus hates his job, and he’s a total pothead. But he is a doctor. He could write prescriptions and they’d actually be real. And you could probably just pay him in weed. Well, cash and weed.”
“How could we trust him?”
“This would give him a way out of being a general practitioner, which he doesn’t like. You’d be paying him a reasonable salary for much less work, but he’s not hurting for money regardless. And, due to some incidents in our teenage years, I’m pretty sure he’d never cross me.”
Samantha raised an eyebrow.
“See?” Sadaf smirked. “I don’t know all your secrets. I have no idea what you were like as a teenager.”
“I had a 4.0 unweighted and the highest score at the target range every week.”
“That’s… probably what I would have guessed.”
“Let me think it over. Call him in the morning and invite him to dinner this week,” Samantha said. “I’m not saying yes.”
“I’d have been surprised if you did,” Sadaf replied. “Say yes to coming to bed, though.”
Samantha leaned forward, disengaging Sadaf’s fingers from her hair. “Not yet.”
“You’re going to look awful at your morning meeting tomorrow.”
“I don’t have a morning meeting tomorrow,” Samantha replied.
“Are you sure? Could have been rearranged…”
“I just need to work a little more. I’ll go to bed soon.”
Sadaf frowned. Samantha’s eyes were already back on her laptop.
“Okay, you can stay up,” she trilled, “but you don’t know what you’re missing…” She circled around the desk, showing off her sheer negligee to best advantage.
Samantha didn’t look up.
