When My Parents Tried to Take Back My Office, They Didn’t Expect Me to Treat My “Little Side Hustle” Like a Real Job

I was halfway through my mashed potatoes when Dad said it.

“We’re taking your office space.”

He didn’t even look up when he said it. He stabbed a piece of pot roast, chewed, and said it like he was giving a weather report. Across the table, Mom’s fork froze in midair.

I blinked. “Sorry, what?”

Dad took a sip of iced tea. “Your office. The bonus room. We’re taking it back.”

I set my fork down carefully. “You mean… repainting? Reorganizing it?”

He sighed like I was being dense. “No, Ethan. I mean we’re taking it. Your mom and I need it. So you’ll need to clear your stuff out. This weekend.”

There was a weird ringing in my ears. That room wasn’t just “my office.” It was the only space in the house that felt like mine.

I forced a nod. “Okay. I’ll clear it out tomorrow.”

My voice sounded too calm, even to me. But inside, something small and hard twisted.

Dad grunted, satisfied, and turned his attention to the TV in the living room, where some game show was blaring. Conversation over, in his mind.

Mom finally spoke. “Maybe we can talk about it after dinner, honey,” she said gently, looking at me rather than at him.

That should’ve been the end of it. I should’ve just shut up, eaten my pot roast, and pretended I didn’t feel like someone had just cancelled my lease on reality.

But it wasn’t the end of it. Not even close.

Because that one sentence—“We’re taking your office space”—was a match thrown onto a pile of stuff we’d all been pretending wasn’t there.

And it was about to catch fire.

1. The Bonus Room

We live in a beige two-story in Dayton, Ohio, in a neighborhood where the houses all look like copy-paste, but everyone swears theirs is “different.” Growing up, the “bonus room” was basically Narnia. It was where the Christmas decorations stayed year-round, where old board games went to die, where the treadmill went when Mom admitted she was never going to use it again.

When I graduated from Ohio State with a business degree, very little market demand for an entry-level “idea guy,” and a pile of student loans, I came back home.

I told myself it would be temporary. Just until the startup I’d been tinkering with “got traction.”

My parents were surprisingly cool about it. Or at least, Mom was. She baked a cake with “WELCOME BACK, SORT OF” in blue icing. Dad hugged me and patted my back too hard, the way he always did.

“You can use the bonus room,” he’d said that first week, standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, staring at the boxes like they’d personally offended him. “Clean it out if you want. Make your little… business thing in there.”

“My startup,” I’d corrected, grinning.

“Sure.” He’d waved a hand. “Your start-up.”

He said “start-up” the way some people say “pyramid scheme.”

But he helped me carry boxes, even if he complained about his back the whole time. Mom bought a cheap Ikea desk and helped me assemble it. I set up my secondhand monitor, my dented laptop, and the big whiteboard I’d bought on Facebook Marketplace.

On that whiteboard, I wrote in big block letters:

COLE CREATIVE – SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY & BRANDING

I told myself this was it. This was where it started.

And for a while, it kind of did.

2. The “Real Job” Conversation

By the time Dad dropped the office-bomb at dinner, I’d been running Cole Creative out of the bonus room for almost two years.

At first, it was pathetic. My first “client” was my friend Tyler’s cousin, who needed someone to run Instagram for her dog bakery in Columbus. She paid me in cash and leftover dog treats (which, for the record, were disturbingly edible).

But after that, little things started happening. One of her friends owned a yoga studio. Then a local coffee shop called. Then a mid-size plumbing company that wanted to “look cool on Facebook” but “not like, too cool.”

I learned as I went, slept weird hours, and drank way too much gas-station coffee. I built content calendars, designed logos on Canva, edited TikToks at three in the morning. I read every blog, listened to every podcast, watched every YouTube guru with a ring light and a dream.

Slowly, my Stripe notifications started to look less like pity and more like a paycheck.

But in my parents’ eyes, it wasn’t a real job. Not a job like Dad’s.

Dad had been at the same manufacturing plant for twenty-eight years. He wore steel-toed boots and came home with grease on his hands. He liked punch clocks, clear schedules, and the idea that work was something heavy you carried on your back, not numbers dancing on a screen.

Every time he saw me in sweatpants at 10 a.m., mug of coffee in hand, mid-Zoom call, something in him twitched.

So when he said “We’re taking your office space,” it wasn’t about the room.

It was about control.

It was about the fact that in his mind, I was still the kid whose science projects he’d stayed up all night helping with.

And now that kid was twenty-four, still living under his roof, and refusing to go get a “real job.”

3. After Dinner

After dinner, Mom found me in the bonus room.

I was staring at my whiteboard, which currently had notes scribbled for three different clients: a roofing company, a tattoo shop, and an accountant who wanted to be “TikTok famous.”

Mom leaned in the doorway, arms crossed.

“You handled that very calmly,” she said.

I shrugged. “What was I supposed to do, flip the table and storm off?”

She gave a tiny smile. “You wanted to, though.”

“Kind of.”

She came in and perched on the edge of the Ikea chair I’d once broken and poorly fixed with Gorilla Glue. She smoothed an invisible wrinkle on her jeans.

“Your dad’s been… thinking about this for a while,” she said. “About using this space.”

“For what?” I asked. “We already have a living room, a dining room, two guest rooms—”

Her eyes flicked toward the door, like she expected Dad to appear.

“Your Uncle Dave has been talking to him,” she said carefully. “About renting out a room. You know, Airbnb. Extra income. With your dad’s back, he’s not sure how much longer he can keep doing overtime. The economy’s weird, and—”

I held up a hand. “Wait. He wants to rent my office to strangers?”

“Well, we’d fix it up nice. Fresh paint, new bed. Maybe a little kitchenette.”

I stared at her. “So my office becomes some guy from Wisconsin’s vacation pad?”

“People from other places come to Dayton,” she said, but even she sounded unconvinced.

I laughed once, incredulously. “That’s insane.”

“Ethan,” she said quietly. “The mortgage is still there, even when the plant cuts hours.”

“I know that. I’m not an idiot.”

“We didn’t say you were.”

I swallowed. The back of my throat burned. “He could have… I don’t know. Talked to me. Before making the decision. Instead of just dropping it over pot roast.”

“That’s how your father is.” Mom sighed. “He decides, then he announces. Conversation is not his… favorite sport.”

“I noticed.”

She stood, walked to the window that looked out over the backyard. The neighbor’s floodlight flicked on; their golden retriever trotted across the grass, nose down.

“You’ve got that call with the tattoo place tomorrow morning, right?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“And the roofing guys on Thursday?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re doing well, Ethan.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Tell him that.”

“I have,” she said. “He hears ‘online’ and ‘social media’ and his brain translates it into ‘my son is posting memes for a living.’”

“Sometimes I do post memes,” I said. “High-performing memes.”

She smiled again, briefly. “Just… talk to him. Later. Try not to scream. He’s scared.”

“Scared of what?” I snapped. “Me? My whiteboard? TikTok?”

“Of getting old,” she said simply. “Of not being needed. Of not being able to protect you from… everything. He doesn’t have the language for any of that, so it comes out as ‘We’re taking your office space.’”

That landed somewhere deep and uncomfortable.

“Great,” I muttered. “So I’m supposed to be understanding while he casually evicts my career.”

She put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Just talk to him, honey.”

4. The Breaking Point

The plan was to wait until the next day, after I’d slept on it. Maybe I would be reasonable. Maybe he’d be reasonable. Maybe we’d meet in the middle.

That was the plan.

Instead, the fight started at 10:37 p.m., over a dishwasher.

I was in the kitchen rinsing my mug when Dad came in, remote in hand, expression already annoyed.

“Why are there dirty dishes in the sink?” he demanded.

I gestured at the dishwasher, which was humming. “Because it’s full and running.”

He opened it, stared at the steaming plates, shut it again like it had personally offended him.

“You could’ve waited and run it after you filled it properly,” he muttered.

“I did fill it properly,” I said, too tired for this. “I made dinner. Mom helped. You worked overtime. No one is the villain here.”

“Funny, I don’t remember asking you to make dinner.” He opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. “You’re home all day. Least you can do is keep the kitchen clean.”

“I was working all day,” I said carefully.

He barked a humorless laugh. “Working. Is that what we call it now?”

I stared at him. “What else would you call it?”

“I call it sitting in that bonus room staring at a computer, taking phone calls in your pajamas.”

“I wasn’t in pajamas,” I snapped. “I had jeans on.”

“Oh, jeans,” he said mockingly. “So professional.”

Heat rose in my face. “You know I cleared almost five grand this month, right?” I shot back. “More than I was making at the marketing agency in Columbus. Remember that job? The one you said I was stupid to quit?”

“You quit a full-time job with benefits to ‘be your own boss.’” He actually used air quotes. “Excuse me if I’m not throwing a parade.”

“That ‘full-time job’ was ninety percent making coffee for people with less talent than me,” I said. “I’m building something here. And I’m doing it out of that office. The one you just decided to rent on Airbnb without asking.”

His jaw tightened. “This is my house. I don’t need your permission to use my own damn room.”

“You said I could use it,” I shot back. “You said, ‘Make your little business thing in there.’ That was the agreement.”

“It was temporary,” he said. “You were supposed to figure your life out, get on your feet, and move out. Not dig in and play CEO in my bonus room.”

“Temporary?” I repeated, incredulous. “You never said temporary.”

“You’re twenty-four, Ethan,” he said, voice rising. “You live in our house, you don’t pay rent, you eat our food, and you act like we’re your roommates. You don’t get to call meetings about space allocation.”

“I offered to pay rent,” I shot back. “Three times. You refused every time.”

“Because you’re my son,” he yelled. “I’m not taking money from my own kid.”

“Then stop acting like I’m freeloading!”

We were both shouting now. I could feel the words getting meaner, heavier, like we were loading bullets.

Mom appeared in the doorway, eyes wide. “Okay, okay, that’s enough,” she said quickly. “Both of you, stop—”

“Do you know what it’s like to go to work every day,” Dad thundered over her, “bust your ass, come home beat, and see your kid playing around on TikTok and calling it a job?”

My chest constricted. “I’m not playing around,” I said, voice cracking. “This is my job. This is my company. I have clients. Contracts. Payroll taxes. I’m not a child.”

He slammed his beer bottle down on the counter so hard some foam splashed out. “You want to be treated like an adult?” he shouted. “Get your own place. Pay your own mortgage. Then you can have all the office space you want.”

We stared at each other. The room buzzed with the fridge’s low hum and our ragged breathing.

Mom stepped between us. “Mark. Enough.”

Dad’s chest heaved. He grabbed the bottle, took a long swallow, and set it down more gently this time.

“The office is done,” he said, quieter but no less firm. “We’re converting it. You can set up your… thing in your bedroom. You’ve got a desk in there.”

“That’s not the same.”

“It’s not supposed to be,” he said. “You want autonomy, you don’t get it by squatting in my bonus room.”

I laughed once, bitter. “Yeah, God forbid your adult son have an office in the house where he’s actually building something.”

“Building what?” he snapped. “Followers? ‘Brand awareness?’ You’re chasing fairy tales.”

The words hit harder than I expected. I felt my face flush, my throat tighten.

“Okay,” I said, slowly, my voice unexpectedly calm. “Okay. You’re right. It’s your house. Your bonus room. Your rules.”

Mom looked at me quickly, worried. “Ethan—”

“No, it’s fine.” I wiped my palms on my jeans. “I’ll clear it out tomorrow like you said. And I’ll… figure out my fairy tale somewhere else.”

Dad’s eyes flickered, just for a second. But he didn’t back down. “Good,” he said gruffly. “Glad we understand each other.”

We did.

Just not in the way he thought.

5. The Decision

I didn’t sleep that night.

I lay awake staring at the ceiling, replaying the argument on a loop. Each time, I said something sharper, cooler. Each time, he actually listened. Each time, it still hurt.

Around 2 a.m., I sat up and grabbed my laptop.

There’s a point in every fight where you realize it’s not just about what you’re fighting about. It’s about everything underneath.

For my dad, it wasn’t just about the room. It was about fear—of money, of the future, of becoming obsolete.

For me, it wasn’t just about the room either.

It was about respect. About adulthood. About the fact that I had, quietly and stubbornly, turned my “little business thing” into a real company, and he still talked to me like I was twelve.

So I did what I always do when I feel out of control: I opened a spreadsheet.

I listed my monthly retainer clients and projected income:

Tattoo shop – $900/month

Roofing company – $1,100/month

Accountant – $700/month

Dog bakery – $400/month

Yoga studio – $600/month

Random one-off projects – averaging $1,000/month

Total: around $4,700/month. Not Silicon Valley money, but not nothing.

Then I listed expenses: software, taxes, my share of groceries, gas, my student loan. Then I Googled “Dayton, Ohio studio apartment rent” and winced at the search results.

It wasn’t impossible.

It just meant I’d have to stop thinking of this as “my little company” and start treating it like a real one. More clients. Higher rates. Less “Sure, I’ll do it for exposure” and more “Here’s my contract.”

By 3:30 a.m., I’d made up my mind.

If Dad wanted his bonus room back that badly, he could have it.

He just wasn’t going to have me in it.

6. Clearing Out

The next morning, I woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of Dad leaving for work. The front door shut with its usual soft thud. His truck rumbled to life, then faded down the street.

I got up, showered, put on jeans and a clean t-shirt. I combed my hair. I looked like a functioning adult, which felt important.

In the bonus room, the sunlight poured in through the single window, turning the dust in the air into little floating stars. My whiteboard leaned against the wall, full of notes and arrows and half-erased ideas. My desk was cluttered with sticky notes and pens that didn’t work and one sad succulent on life support.

I stood in the doorway for a minute, just taking it all in.

Then I started packing.

I stacked the books, rolled up the whiteboard, coiled wires and shoved them into boxes. I labeled each box with Sharpie: MONITORS, CABLES, CLIENT FILES, RANDOM JUNK.

Mom appeared in the doorway around nine, holding a mug.

“You’re really doing it,” she said quietly.

“You heard him,” I said. “My pajamas and I have got to go.”

She made a face. “He shouldn’t have said that. He was tired and he’s scared and he’s… him.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” she said. “But okay. What’s your plan, honey?”

I paused, holding a tangle of extension cords. “I’m moving out.”

Her eyes widened. “What? When?”

“As soon as I can find a place that’s not falling apart and not a scam,” I said. “A small studio or one-bedroom. I looked last night. It’s not impossible. I can do it if I pick up a couple more clients and cut out, like, all fun.”

“Ethan…” She set the mug down on the window ledge. “Don’t move out just because your father—”

“I’m not moving out because of him,” I interrupted. “Okay, I mean, he’s the… catalyst. But this was always the plan, right? I just kept putting it off because it was comfortable here. Too comfortable. I keep telling myself I’m running a business, but I’m doing it from my childhood home, arguing about dishwasher cycles.”

She sagged a little. “You know he’s going to freak out.”

“He’ll live.”

She bit her lip. “What if you talked to him first? Explained the numbers? Showed him the clients, the invoices—”

“I’ve tried,” I said, maybe sharper than necessary. “He hears ‘online’ and his brain shuts off. Maybe if I prove I can pay my own rent and run my own office, he’ll finally see it.”

She was quiet for a long moment. “Do you have enough for a deposit?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And if I don’t, I’ll sell my Xbox. Or a kidney. Whichever gets a better price.”

She swatted my arm lightly. “Not funny.”

“A little funny.”

She sighed. “Okay. I don’t like it. But I get it. Just… don’t rush into some terrible apartment over a bar that plays death metal until 3 a.m., okay?”

“No promises,” I said. “Those are cheap.”

She smiled despite herself. Then her eyes misted.

“You’re really… grown up,” she said softly, like she was surprised.

I shrugged. “I fake it well.”

She stepped forward and hugged me. I hugged her back, hard.

“You’re still my baby,” she said into my shoulder.

“Mom, I’m literally taller than you.”

“Don’t care.”

7. The Apartment

By some miracle or karmic alignment, I found it that afternoon.

A small, slightly dingy one-bedroom apartment above a donut shop downtown. The paint was weirdly yellow, the carpet had seen things, and the windows didn’t seem entirely sure about the concept of insulation.

But it had high ceilings, good light, and a small nook off the living room that screamed “office” to me.

The landlord, a middle-aged woman named Claire with a nose ring and zero nonsense, walked me through the place.

“You work from home?” she asked, glancing at the “Cole Creative” logo on my laptop sleeve.

“Yeah,” I said. “Social media strategy, branding, content planning. Mostly small businesses for now.”

She nodded. “My nephew does that. Kid lives in Seattle, runs three different accounts for some vegan shoe company. Makes more than I do. World’s weird, huh?”

“You have no idea,” I said.

She named the rent, which was high but not lethal. First month and deposit due up front.

“I can do it,” I said, surprising myself with how steady my voice was.

She studied me for a second, then nodded. “Okay, Ethan. Let’s do it. I like seeing people under thirty doing something other than holding a vape.”

We signed the paperwork. My hand shook a little when I slid my debit card into her reader.

When it approved, a weird wave of relief and terror washed over me.

I walked back through the apartment, trying to imagine my stuff in it. The desk in the office nook. The whiteboard on the wall. The monitor on the Ikea table that may or may not survive another move.

It was small. It was imperfect.

But it was mine.

8. The Blow-Up

Dad got home around six. I heard his truck pull up, the jangle of his keys, the slow creak of the front door.

I was in the kitchen, waiting.

My boxes were stacked by the back door—three labeled OFFICE, one labeled CLOTHES, one labeled “MISC – PROBABLY CABLES.” My monitor stood next to them, wrapped in an old comforter.

Mom hovered near the sink, wiping the same already-clean spot for the fifth time.

Dad stepped in, tossed his keys in the bowl by the door, and froze.

He stared at the boxes, then at me. His expression went from tired to wary.

“What’s all this?” he asked.

I swallowed. “I’m moving out.”

The words felt surreal coming out of my mouth. Like I was playing a role in someone else’s life.

He blinked. “You’re what?”

“I got an apartment,” I said, forcing my voice to stay level. “Downtown. It’s… small. But it’s enough. I can run my business from there. Have my own office. My own space.”

He stared at me, as if waiting for me to say “Just kidding.” I didn’t.

“You got an apartment,” he repeated slowly. “Without talking to us?”

I laughed once. “You mean like how you decided to take my office without talking to me?”

He flinched. It was quick, but I saw it.

Mom jumped in. “He found a good place, Mark. Above the donut shop on Main. Reasonable rent, decent neighborhood, the landlord seems solid.”

Dad ignored her, eyes locked on me. “You can’t afford that.”

“Yes, I can,” I said. “I did the math. I’ve got retainer clients, consistent income. I can cover rent, utilities, my loans, and still have enough to eat something other than ramen.”

“You’re barely hanging on with your little online thing,” he snapped. “One bad month and you’re screwed. At least here, you had a safety net.”

“This is not a safety net,” I said, gesturing around. “It’s a cage. A nice cage with home-cooked meals and free laundry, but still a cage. You think I’m ‘playing CEO,’ remember? Fine. Then I’ll go play CEO in my own space and prove you wrong.”

His face reddened. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“You did say that,” Mom murmured.

He shot her a look. “I didn’t mean it the way he’s twisting it.”

“I’m not twisting anything,” I said. “You think what I do isn’t real. You think because I don’t wear a uniform and punch a clock and come home covered in grease, it doesn’t count.”

“I break my back every day so you can sit in front of a screen and make videos,” he shouted. “Excuse me if I’m skeptical.”

“Skeptical is one thing,” I shot back. “Dismissive is another. You never asked what my clients do. You never asked what I actually do for them. You just see me at home and assume I’m slacking.”

“Because you’re here,” he said. “In my house. If this ‘business’ was so legit, you’d have moved out already.”

“Well, congratulations,” I said. “Your lack of faith has finally motivated me.”

He stepped closer, jaw clenched. “You’re being childish.”

“I’m being an adult,” I snapped. “I made a decision, on my own, about my own life. That’s what adults do, right?”

Mom stepped between us again. “Enough,” she said, voice sharp. “This is going nowhere good.”

Dad pointed at the boxes. “Where’s the money coming from?” he demanded. “Show me. Show me this ‘big income’ you keep bragging about.”

I pulled my phone from my pocket, opened my banking app, and held it out to him.

“These are deposits from my clients,” I said. “Every month. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. But it’s steady. It’s growing. I’m not making millions, but I’m not helpless.”

He stared at the numbers, his face unreadable.

“And those invoices I leave in the kitchen sometimes?” I added. “Those aren’t fan mail. Those are real businesses paying me real money for work they can’t do themselves.”

He handed the phone back like it was hot. “You could lose those clients tomorrow.”

“So could you,” I said, softer. “The plant could shut down. They could outsource. Your back could finally say ‘nope.’ Nothing’s guaranteed. That’s the world now.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

We stood there in a taut silence.

Finally, he said, “You’re really moving out.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

“When?”

“Tonight and tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll get most of it over there tonight, finish up tomorrow between calls.”

He ran a hand over his face. For the first time, he didn’t look angry. He just looked… old. Tired.

“I don’t want you to go,” he muttered.

My chest tightened. “You just told me to get my own place.”

“I said it because I was mad,” he said. “Didn’t think you’d actually… damn it, Ethan.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “What did you think would happen? That I’d just keep living here until you decide it’s time for me to grow up? That’s not how it works.”

“It is how it works,” he said, a little desperately. “You’re my son.”

“I’ll still be your son,” I said. “I’ll just have my own address.”

He shook his head, like he was trying to shake loose a thought he didn’t like.

“Fine,” he said finally. “Fine. Do what you want. You always do.”

That hurt in a way I wasn’t ready for.

“I haven’t ‘always done what I want,’” I said quietly. “I’ve always tried to make you proud. Even when you didn’t understand what I was doing.”

He didn’t answer. He walked past me, into the living room, and turned on the TV.

The argument should’ve ended there. Silent stalemate.

But later that night, it got worse.

9. The Realest Thing

We’d hauled three carloads to the new apartment by ten p.m. Tyler helped, lured by the promise of free donuts from downstairs.

“Dude, this place is perfect,” he said, dropping a box in the office nook. “It’s like… startup-core. Exposed pipes, sketchy wiring, weird smells. I love it.”

“Yeah,” I said, breathing hard. “It’s got character. That’s what realtors say when something’s kind of trash but charming.”

We set up the desk, the monitor, the whiteboard. Just enough so I could work the next morning.

Every time I looked at the blank whiteboard, my stomach twisted with equal parts fear and exhilaration.

This had to work now.

There was no “safety net.”

Back at the house, Dad’s truck was in the driveway. The TV glowed through the living room window.

Inside, the bonus room door was open. I could see boxes stacked neatly along the walls—Christmas stuff, old toys, Mom’s craft supplies.

Dad’s preemptive reclaiming.

As I walked past the living room, he spoke without looking away from the screen.

“How’s your palace?” he asked.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Small. Donut-adjacent.”

He snorted. “You’ll be back. When the money dries up.”

I stopped. “Why do you want me to fail so badly?”

He finally looked at me, eyes flashing. “I don’t want you to fail. I want you to be realistic.”

“Realistic like… staying in a job I hate until I retire?” I shot back. “Realistic like ignoring an opportunity because it doesn’t fit your idea of work?”

“Realistic like not throwing yourself off a cliff without a parachute,” he snarled. “You’ve got a good home, food, no rent—”

“And no respect,” I said quietly.

That shut him up.

He stared at me, taken aback.

“I respect you,” he said after a second, but it sounded weak.

“You respect the idea of me,” I said. “The version of me that does what you understand. That gets a nine-to-five, wears a name tag, complains about Mondays. The real me? The one who wants to build something of his own? You treat him like a joke.”

“I never said you were a joke.”

“‘Playing CEO in my bonus room,’” I quoted.

He winced.

I took a breath. I hadn’t meant to go this deep, but it was all rushing out now.

“Do you know what it’s like,” I said, voice shaking, “to sit in that room for twelve hours building strategies, editing content, dealing with clients, negotiating rates, learning stuff nonstop, and then walk out and hear you say I’ve been ‘on TikTok all day’? Do you have any idea how… small that makes me feel?”

His shoulders slumped, just slightly.

“I come from a generation where work is…” He struggled for words. “A thing. You can touch it. See it. I build stuff. Machines. Parts. I know when I’ve done something because it’s there, in my hands. You… send emails and make videos.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I send emails and make videos that bring those businesses customers. That help them survive. That put real money in their register. It’s different. But it’s real.”

We stared at each other.

He opened his mouth, closed it. Finally, he said the quiet part out loud.

“I don’t understand what you do,” he admitted. “And that scares me.”

I hadn’t expected that. The anger in my chest fizzled, replaced by something else.

“I don’t always understand your job either,” I said. “I just know you come home tired and your back hurts and the plant keeps cutting corners. That scares me.”

We both laughed, unexpectedly. It was short and strained, but it was something.

“I don’t want you living like me,” he said softly. “Breaking yourself for people who’d replace you in a second. I want you secure. Stable.”

“I don’t want that either,” I said. “That’s why I’m doing this. I’m not chasing some fantasy. I’m trying to build something that doesn’t depend on one boss or one plant.”

We were quiet for a moment.

“You could have told me that,” he muttered.

“I tried,” I said. “You were too busy mocking my pajamas.”

He grimaced. “Yeah. I was an ass. I know.”

I almost said, “You think?” but stopped myself.

Progress.

“So what now?” he asked. “You move out, and we… what? Only see you on holidays?”

“I’m moving fifteen minutes away, not to Mars,” I said. “You’ll see me. I’ll come by. You can call. We’ll probably argue about politics and gas prices like normal people.”

He snorted. “Don’t start.”

“I won’t,” I said. “But I need to do this. I need to know if I can stand on my own.”

He stared at the TV for a second, then muted it.

“When I was your age,” he said slowly, “I moved out because your grandpa told me to. Said I was dead weight. Said a man who wasn’t paying his own bills wasn’t a man at all. He didn’t care where I went. Just wanted me gone.”

I blinked. “You never told me that.”

“We don’t talk about that,” he said gruffly. “It wasn’t a Hallmark moment.”

“How’d you do it?” I asked. “Where’d you go?”

“Crappy apartment with two guys from the plant,” he said. “Worked double shifts. Ate a lot of canned soup. It sucked. But it was mine. When you said you were moving, I… it felt like that again. Like I was being rejected.”

“You’re not being rejected,” I said. “I mean, I’m rejecting your office policies, yeah. But not you. I’m just… trying to be my own person, like you were. On my terms.”

He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “You’re better with words than me, you know that?”

“Occupational hazard,” I said.

He blew out a breath. “I’ve been an ass,” he said again. “About your work. About the room. I thought if I pushed you, you’d… toughen up. Do something safer. More… solid. But I guess I just pushed you out the door.”

“You didn’t push me,” I said. “You just… accelerated the timeline.”

He gave a humorless chuckle. “Always in a hurry, you.”

We sat there in the weird, heavy quiet of truce.

Then he did something that stunned me.

He stood, walked over to the bonus room doorway, and looked in.

“It was a good office,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said softly. “It was.”

He turned back to me. “You’ll make a better one,” he said gruffly. “In that… donut palace.”

Emotion hit me like a truck. I swallowed hard.

“I’m gonna try,” I said.

He nodded, awkward and stiff. “You need help moving the heavy stuff tomorrow?”

I blinked. “You’d help me move?”

He snorted. “I’m not letting you throw your back out before you even start this empire. Then who’s gonna teach me how to ‘go viral’ or whatever?”

I grinned, unexpectedly. “I charge extra for Dad clients.”

“We’ll negotiate,” he said.

For the first time, I believed we might actually do that.

10. The New Office

Two days later, the office nook in my new apartment was fully operational.

The desk fit perfectly against the wall. The monitor sat on a stack of old textbooks to get it to eye level. My whiteboard hung above it, this time with fresh markers and neater handwriting.

On it, under COLE CREATIVE, I’d written three new words in big letters:

Treat It Serious.

I had calls stacked from nine to three that day. The tattoo shop wanted a new TikTok strategy. The roofing company needed help responding to a rash of Yelp reviews, both good and bad. A new potential client—the donut shop downstairs, because obviously—wanted to talk about Instagram.

From my desk, I could see a sliver of downtown Dayton through the window: old brick buildings, a mural of a saxophone player, people hustling to work.

At 8:47 a.m., my phone buzzed.

Dad:
How’s the new office?

I stared at the text, stunned for a second.

Then I typed back.

Me:
Good. Just about to start my day. You?

A moment passed.

Dad:
Plant’s the same. Loud. Smells like burnt metal.
Send me one of those posts you make sometimes. Want to see what you actually do.

I smiled.

I picked one of my recent favorites: a short, snappy video I’d made for the roofing company, turning common “roof myths” into a trending audio format. It had blown up locally and landed them a bunch of calls.

I sent him the link.

A minute later:

Dad:
This you?

Me:
Yeah. Edited, captioned, scheduled, strategized by yours truly.

Another pause.

Dad:
It’s… pretty good.
Don’t tell your mother I said that, she’ll never let me live it down.

I laughed out loud.

Me:
Too late. Screenshotting for family records.

Dad:
Smartass.
Go do your… work.
Proud of you, even if I don’t get all of it.

My throat tightened.

Me:
Thanks, Dad.
I’ll come by Sunday. We can talk about your “personal brand.”

Dad:
If you put me on Tick Tack, we’re going to have another fight.

I grinned, wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand, and set the phone down.

The clock on my laptop said 8:59.

I straightened my shoulders, adjusted my webcam, and opened my calendar.

This was my office now. My company. My problem when things went wrong, my victory when things went right.

No more bonus room. No more hiding behind “temporary.”

Dad still didn’t fully understand what I did. He probably never would. But he was trying.

And I was finally treating my work like it deserved to be treated.

When my 9 a.m. call connected, I smiled into the camera.

“Hey,” I said, professional but relaxed. “Thanks for hopping on. I’ve got a few ideas I think could really help your brand.”

As I launched into the pitch, I caught my reflection in the corner of the screen: slightly crooked poster on the wall, wires everywhere, me in a simple shirt and jeans.

I didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a CEO.

But I was the CEO of this—this scrappy, stubborn, donut-adjacent little company.

And for the first time, that felt real.

A few months later, when my landlord asked if I knew anyone who could help her nephew promote his band, I said, “Yeah. I know a guy.”

I looked around my office nook, at the whiteboard full of new clients and bigger numbers. I thought of my dad, sending me occasionally cursed memes with the caption “Is this good content??”

The fight over the bonus room had been ugly, loud, and painful.

But losing that space had pushed me into building something bigger than four walls.

I’d gone from “playing CEO” in my parents’ house to actually being one in a cramped apartment above a donut shop.

And somehow, in the middle of all that messy growth, my dad and I had both changed.

Maybe that was the real office I’d needed all along—a little distance, a little risk, and just enough pressure to prove we could all make something new out of the space we had.

THE END