Page 38 of Single-Minded
“Did you sign the lease yet?” I asked.
“I told him I want to sleep on it,” Magnolia said. “It’s at the top of my rent budget, but the location is so good you can’t put a price on it.”
“Between summer tourism and weekly farmers markets, you’ll get a ton of walk-by traffic even being one layer off the square,” Chloe said.
“Do you have a business name yet?” I asked her.
She bit her lip as she looked at me.
“You have an idea,” I said.
“Tell us,” Rowan said.
Magnolia sat back in the chair, pushing her hair out of her face. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’ll do any kind of event. Weddings, birthday parties, bachelorette parties, graduation parties, celebrations of any kind. Even business events like we’ve done at the Anchor. It’s a wide variety of events, but what it comes down to is moments. The moments that matter to people. So I was thinking…Moments by Magnolia?”
“I like it,” I said.
Chloe tilted her head, overthinking it.
“Love it,” Rowan said.
Chloe nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. I could see Moments in bigger type and by Magnolia in a smaller script beneath it.”
“Yes,” Magnolia said. “I can totally see that.”
“I think it’s a great name,” I said. “Moments says it all. By Magnolia makes it yours.”
Chloe smacked the table. “Boom. One down. What about you, Pres? Did you come up with any ideas?”
I sat forward and leaned my elbows on the table. I’d been brainstorming possibilities since day one and kept coming back to the same idea. “What do you guys think of The Bean Counter?”
“Ha,” Chloe, the queen of puns, said. “Double meaning. You know I love that.”
“What’s the double meaning?” Magnolia asked.
“I used to be in finance. Not an accountant, but close enough. And beans?—”
“Coffee beans. I get that part. It’s cute,” Magnolia said.
I raised my brows at Rowan.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s perfect. You both have these wonderful names for your businesses, and Chance and I can’t decide on a name for our baby girl.”
“Ah, low stakes,” I joked, waving it off.
“You’ve got time,” Chloe told her. “Speaking of time, I need to make sure Holden’s picking up Sutton.” She typed in a message on her phone and asked Rowan, “Is Chance home already?”
“He’s staying late to get the fall media budget finished,” Rowan said.
“Do you still like working with your husband?” Magnolia asked.
“Most days,” Rowan said, grinning. “It helps that it’s not forever.”
“You’re going back to teaching next year, right?” I asked, knowing she’d wanted to find a position for this fall until her due date fell in late September.
“I hope to. It depends on whether there’s a position at the high school.” Rowan was one of those odd individuals who liked teenagers.
Chloe read a reply from her husband, then said, “Holden’s got Sutton. Does anyone want to do a spur-of-the-moment celebratory dinner? It’s a big day, with Magnolia leasing a business space and both of you deciding on names.”
