There were 5 boys on offer. I could see how Nicolò could consider them mid. None of them were ugly. None of them were drop dead gorgeous either. All 5 of them were barely legal at 18 years old. It seemed that they were all extremely poor and desperate for money. None of them were of our ethnicity. While they were all on offer, Jan and Lewis claimed that they were straight. It was just like the receptionist said. I did not buy it for a second. Neither did Emilio or Nicolò. Cameron said he was actually bisexual. I could believe that. I was also a bisexual male. Both Nicolò and Emilio looked at me in shock. "Stop fucking lying! There's no way that you're a fag!" Nicolò said. He looked really nervous. I just shrugged. "Only halfway. I still like girls too." I said jokingly. Nicolò did not see the humor of it. He just glared at me and said "I'm not a fag. I don't have fag friends either." I raised an eyebrow. "Are you really going to do this right now?" I asked as I flashed my tattoo. He flinched when he saw it. "Only half, right!?" he asked meekly. "Only half." I confirmed. "...Okay. Just... I do not wanna see it."
Scoffing, I said "See it? Who said I was going to let you see me fuck, pervert!?" He went red with embarrassment again. "Don't worry. I was just teasing. I'm still the same guy you always knew. Who I fuck is my business. Not yours, so let me handle it." I said with a smile. Nicolò was still uncomfortable, but was trying for my sake. That was admirable. It was Emilio that said "I don't care about any of that. We've been in too many gun fights together for me to pretend you couldn't kick my ass now. I know that you are still a man." "Thank you, Emilio. That really means a lot coming from you." I said genuinely. Normally, I did not care what NPCs thought about me unless it was for a quest. Hearing the more thoughtful Emilio stick up for me was nice. If he approved of me after spending all this time together, that was great. Since we now knew where Nicolò worked, we went there when we were bored. He did not want others to know about it. We both were 5 star doctors. Searching for jobs was beneath us. If a person needed an emergency surgery or was deathly ill, they could come get us at our bar.
I was pleased when we could upgrade the Quality, Production, Security at Yellow ink to 3 stars. Security went down to 2 stars. We had to spend another 5 grand to bump it up to 3 stars. Our speakeasy had a singer in residence now. It was there job to sing and entertain patrons. They got money, free drinks and exposure to the criminal underworld in return. Standard quality booze was now on offer at the bar, but there was not much of it. We got another of guards for outside the speakeasy. All 4 of them now carried shotguns. The outside guards we not from our ethnicity. Their names were Roger and Luke. The singer was named Bertolo. It was pretty cool how things were coming together. Rose Buds also got some upgrades. We got 2 guards there by moving Security to 2 stars. We also upped the Quality to 3 stars. Now Rose Buds could have some standard quality booze with the nice label we designed. We were still moving the wooden crates over to the speakeasy though we only wanted to sell it one place. That was the perk of having a small operation. Our employees became our gang.
