Page 36 of The Truth of Loving You

“Well...yeah, but I didn’t expect him to be here this late.”

I might not be the smartest guy, but I had to assume Shane gave Alec an excuse for being here.

“Got it!” Shane shouted with a punch in the air. His smile and satisfied look blinded me. I had the sensation of my stomach dropping to my knees, and my knees weren’t having it. When he saw me, he turned that beautiful shade of pink.

“Oh hey, Cole.” He was not playing it as cool as he thought. “I told Alec you asked me to help out with your inventory issues,” he said, slowly pronouncing each word.

Any idiot would know he was trying to cover his reason for being here. He wasn’t subtle.

My relief at seeing him was alarming on so many levels.

Shane started twitching, and his words tumbled out. “You summoned a tech nerd, and here I am, at your service. I should get business cards with ‘professional tech nerd’ as my title.” A nervous laugh escaped him.

“Anyway, I wrote a program to link your POS, you know, point of sale, with your inventory and wrote another program to send alerts through the POS system for when you need to place an order for supplies. I factored in the average length of time to receive the delivery. Man, the delivery time has gone to hell, huh? Well, Alec helped me create a scale to estimate how much ink will be used when you schedule the tattoos. Obviously, walk-ins won’t be scheduled, so we looked at your last six months of walk-ins and added that as a baseline to the report.” Shane took a breath.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I was slightly concerned that Shane was talking nonsense and looked like he was going to go on another rant. “Slow down and start from the beginning.”

Shane closed his eyes, and he visibly slowed his breathing. “Okay,” his eyes popped open, and he continued, “have you ever ordered food from a restaurant that uses Tasty on their website?”

Both Alec and I nodded.

Shane launched into a comparative explanation and paused to make sure we understood. I got it, but tattooing wasn’t as straightforward.

“This isn’t as accurate, but I did my best with Alec’s help to create a system that will estimate all the supplies used. When you schedule a tattoo, you’ll have a drop-down menu to estimate the size of the tattoo, and if it will be a color tattoo, shades of gray, or simple black. Alec and I sorted through the last six months and calculated how much of your business comes from walk-ins, and I analyzed the past year of your supply orders.” Shane motioned to a stack of papers next to his laptop.

“You did all this. Tonight?” I blinked, trying to imagine how he got all this done.

“Yeah, in like the last three hours.” Alec stood with his hands on his hips rocking back and forth on his heels while his eyes darted between us. “The guy works like a computer.”

Shane blushed further. “I mean it’s not ready for implementation yet. I need another day or two. And I can link it to the computer in your office if you want,” Shane continued, but I still didn’t understand the scope of what he’d done.

“Show me,” I demanded.

Shane looked a half a second away from dropping to his knees before he caught himself. “Sure, come here, and we’ll input tomorrow’s schedule.”

Shane explained the specifics of the system, and Alec and I took turns using it. He clicked a few buttons, and a red banner with a sound appeared across the bottom of the screen, alerting us to buy red ink.

Yup, red ink was the bane of my existence right now.

“This is amazing.” I stared in awe at the computer.

“Happy to help.” The pretty shade of pink spread across his neck.

“What the fuck are you doing working for my father?” I meant it as a compliment, but Shane reared back as if I’d slapped him. “I mean, Shane, you’re a genius.”

“Literally.” He shrugged as if being an actual genius was normal.

“You could charge a fortune doing this for businesses. You should run your own consulting firm and only have to work two days a week. Do you know how much I would have to pay someone to write a program for my individual business?”

“I just wanted to help. It’s not a big deal.” Shane started packing up. “I can test it for bugs and transfer it to your system over the weekend.”

I wouldn’t allow Shane to act as if his genius wasn’t a big deal. He needed me as much as I needed him.

“Alec, get the fuck out,” I said. Alec saluted, holding back a grin but didn’t move so I barked, “Now.”

Chapter eighteen

Shane

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