The idea of Matt being caught in the crosshairs made my stomach quench uncomfortably.
“That’s not too likely, either,” I shot down.
“All right, all right. I’ll talk it over with Erik and we’ll come up with an idea.”
We ended the call after that, neither of us having anything else to say. This situation was massively stressing the both of us out. Simon’s eyes now held dark circles under them, showing he hadn’t been getting a good night sleep in a while. Even I wasn’t the same. My eyes also held circles under my eyes indicating a lack of sleep, but I was also losing weight. I hadn’t been pigging out on sugar and junk food as I used to; even my meals were a lot smaller than they usually were. As it turned out, stress and fear were a really great combination for a diet. My size twelve jeans were now two sizes too big.
Today was my first night working as a bartender at the supper club. It wasn’t a very creative place in the name department. It was solely called “The Club.”
When I had walked into the supper club two days previously, I couldn’t help but notice that as beautiful as the location and building was, the supper club was smack in the middle of the forest surrounded by nothing but woods and water. According to the owner, it was the seclusion that made the place special. But the location made me uncomfortable. I was no longer fond of the woods; my thoughts often flickered to the possibility of someone among the pack being able to easily stalk me in the woods if they really wanted to. When I went in for an application a few days previously, I was immediately met by a gruff balding man named Richie. He wanted to know why I was inside his restaurant when they didn’t open for a few more hours. It was a rude way to talk to a potential customer.
Without batting an eyelash, I told Richie I wanted an application for the open bartender position.
He didn’t cut corners. He then demanded to know why he should hire me. I thought this was also a rather rude way to talk to someone when all they wanted to do was inquire about a job. At that point, I really had no hope that I would be having my application viewed, let alone getting the job. My attitude then got the better of me. I told Richie I was the very best at the position and it would only be his loss if he didn’t hire me. I wasn’t confident I would get the job; I had nothing to fear.
But Richie took me by surprise. He claimed to have loved my confidence. I had blushed when he said that my pretty face would sell a lot of alcohol as well. That wasn’t something I was used to hearing.
After that, he didn’t even ask for an application and just told me to show up Monday for training. Two days later, I was walking toward the supper club for my first day at the new job. Nightfall was approaching; the cool November breeze blew the crunchy leaves across the pavement of the walkway. There was nothing to fear; it wasn’t dark yet. There were people all around walking into the club. All were employees arriving to work to set up for the opening in a few hours. Even while being completely surrounded by people, I had the familiar feeling take over me that I was being watched. From where I couldn’t say. The woods surrounded the supper club completely; the club was perched on a small cliff overlooking the glorious lake that looked like a mirror for the trees and sky during the daytime.
I hurried inside the building while trying not to think about the possibilities of a werewolf watching me in the woods.
“Now, ladies, you should think of me as your Uncle Richie, because I always take care of my girls,” boasted Richie an hour later. After clocking in and doing the behind-the-scenes stuff of working in a restaurant, we had to line up in the front hallway of the club to greet customers and then be given our specific tables. The behind-the-scenes actions were polishing silverware, rolling them into napkins, and making sure our individual tables had menus. There were two floors of the supper club, an upstairs and the on-ground area. Both had amazing window views of the outside lake perched right next to the building. I imagined it looked glorious in the summertime with the sun shining. The fall season made it so it was darker earlier; it was already dark outside and prevented views of the lake.
It was a nice place to work, my coworkers were friendly, but I was finding myself uncomfortable working for Richie. Evidently, he was a very wealthy man who owned multiple supper clubs based in Wisconsin and Michigan. I didn’t learn this information based on Google or an outside source; Richie quickly revealed he had a very boastful personality. Anytime around him, no matter the time, he spent it boasting of his own accomplishments regarding his establishments. I learned this while asking who I was training with. My question received an answer before Richie somehow got talking about his teenage years back when he was a bus boy and had to build up to have the incredible name he has today.
Although I really tried not forming a negative opinion about him, Richie was also incredibly too friendly with his servers. It was borderline flirting the way he touched their shoulders or tried to make them laugh with his cheesy jokes. His Uncle Richie comment was enough to make me cringe. Though it was only my first day, I was thankful to escape his attention. His creepy flirting seemed only reserved for the young women who had been there longer than a couple weeks.
It was easy to take notice that all twenty of the servers and bartenders at The Club were solely young women. The only males that worked for Richie were either hidden in the kitchen cooking or the sole male host who also doubled as the head of Richie’s small catering company. Everyone else was a young woman with nearly the same look: very young and relatively thin. Even though the hair colors and skin tones ranged between us all, there wasn’t anyone who looked above the age of twenty-three. No one carried extra pudge on their hips or padding in their cheeks. If not for my stress-induced weight loss to leave me hovering between a size 6 and 8, I was quite doubtful I would have been hired based upon my weight alone.
There was also a singular trait all the young women carried: everyone smiled and giggled at the annoying things Richie would say.
“You’ll fit in if you drink the Kool-Aid,” muttered a girl the second Uncle Richie was out of earshot. I did a double take, for I wasn’t sure I had heard her right.
This girl had pretty dark skin and almond-shaped eyes. She introduced herself as Sasha earlier in the night.
“Uncle Richie,” I murmured in a low voice so we wouldn’t be overheard.
Sasha rolled her brown eyes. “Don’t even get me started. Just smile and nod and you’ll do fine. He only fires the girls who don’t suck up.”
I winced. Sasha gave me an understanding nod. “It’s really annoying, but the tips we make are worth it.”
Sasha hadn’t been kidding. The tips were solely what made the job worth it. Early on, it was revealed that Richie had the tendency to go from insanely friendly to easily angered as simply as flicking on a light switch. That much was proven when I witnessed one of the newly hired servers accidentally spill a cup of soda on the tray she was carrying. Even though it wasn’t very noticeable, for only a few droplets splashed out, Richie pulled the girl by the elbow into the kitchen to avoid being overheard by customers. His face was beet red and a vein looked to be pulsing on his shiny forehead.
He then fired the poor girl on the spot. The girl speed walked out of the kitchen crying, and from my understanding, she hadn’t been new; she’d been at The Club for a couple of months.