The Taste of Whiskey
By Shain Rose
Shain Rose
“I didn’t know a taste of him would ruin me for anyone else.”
Zoey
I had to drop out of college if I didn’t make ends meet soon. Rent was due, Mr. Tabby was hungry, and my laptop wasn’t going to fix itself. Yet, when the broody bar manager offered me a job at the most popular bar on campus, I refused.
Bars were safe havens for some, but I knew just by looking at him, I would be walking straight into trouble.
Cole
She looked like a car wreck the moment I saw her. You know the ones that are so catastrophic that you can’t look away? I had a knack for spotting them, and the Heathen’s Bar crew had a knack for picking up their wreckage and putting them back together.
Zoey would find her place with us and she would heal. Just as long as I didn’t break her first.
The Taste of Whiskey Copyright © 2021 by Greene Ink Publishing, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the copyright owner and the publisher listed above, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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1
Zoey
Cold, muddy water splashed into my face from the bus driving past as I rounded the corner. There went the ride I needed to catch to be on time to my next class.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I shouted to no one in particular.
I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t even gasp as the globs of mud hit me. This day would go down as the worst day of my life, I was certain. The week had started out terribly when I’d received an email informing me that I’d lost my campus job because of cuts to the university’s budget.
I wanted to write back, What about my budget?
Rent was due, and Mr. Tabby (my overly large, striped cat) and I could not keep living on bread and peanut butter. Every single day since then, I’d searched job sites, submitted my resume, cold-called businesses, and attended classes in hopes I could find a way to fund my education.
No luck.
I’d stayed up late last night, trying my best to find a solution, and then slept straight through my alarm. I’d whipped through my apartment, forgetting my coffee as I struggled to keep Mr. Tabby inside before hurrying out the door. The long meow had me wincing. “I’ll walk you later, bud,” I yelled through the door.
Missing the bus was more fuel for the dumpster fire that was my life at the moment.
I ripped my crimson knitted hat from my head and used it to brush the muddy water from my coat. I regretted not wearing mittens now because I would have been able to use them to clean up more. Yet, the spring breeze was a tad warmer, and I knew I would have been too hot. Shoving my hat back on, I sighed. I could do this. I could get through the day.
But damn, if I was going to make my class, I had to book it.
Running five blocks in a body that had gained the freshman fifteen—or more than likely twenty—felt like running a marathon with an elephant on my back. Still, I got there only a minute late, apologizing to the few people I had to slide past in order to claim an empty chair in back.
Huffing and puffing to catch my breath, I didn’t even bother taking off my gear as I yanked out my laptop, attempting to listen to the lecture while scouring more job sites.
Right when I’d settled in for an hour of multitasking, the professor announced, “Pop quiz! It will be graded, so make sure you’re all using your correct clickers.”
“Yup, some higher power is definitely playing jokes on me today,” I grumbled to myself. As the professor pointed toward the projector to bring up the questions, I scrambled in the small chair to free myself from my black coat. I shoved it to the side and grabbed the sleek white device from the bag between my legs. Each clicker was registered to a single student, making it clear who was in attendance. Most of my peers passed theirs around to get credit when they skipped class, but the thing cost a fortune.
I couldn’t risk someone losing it, not when I was searching the internet for a job to pay my bills.
I groaned at the first question. I hadn’t studied because I’d been too busy moping about the loss of my paycheck.
“It’s B,” a deep whisper came from behind my shoulder. The wood folding chair I sat in creaked as I wiggled from the shivers that shot down my spine. My thumb automatically pressed B on my clicker.
I turned my head just enough to see who’d helped me out.
Cole freaking Ford. God among men on campus, and trouble for women with a capital T. He winked a greenish hazel eye at me when he caught me peeking back at him. His worn brown leather jacket was bunched up in the seat on his right and a pretty girl sat in the one on his left, of course. When a slow lopsided grin spread across his face at my staring, my stomach twisted, my heartbeat raced, and I spun back around. Fast.
I’d noticed him in class before, even though I tried not to. Cole was one of those rare specimens of man that everyone wanted to be around. People stared at him because of his outrageously good genes. They flocked to him, probably because he put out a go-the-fuck-away vibe that performed reverse psychology on everyone. To top it off, he managed a popular bar off campus.
Of course I noticed the guy all two hundred students in our lecture hall buzzed around, but I wasn’t on his radar. I didn’t want to be either. My goal was to keep my head down, study, work hard, and finish school fast.
The professor announced, “Next question!” and I shook my head to focus. I knew the answers to the rest of the questions the professor put on the projector. Not that Cole cared. He whispered each of them over my shoulder, and it sounded like it was straight out of a porn video. I wanted to throw a pen at him to shut him up, but I couldn’t. I didn’t turn back around or thank him because we didn’t need any attention drawn our way, especially considering the fact that I sort of cheated on the first question.
As the professor lectured for the next hour, I refocused on job hunting. I could apply to a sandwich shop or a drugstore near enough to my apartment. None of them would have the benefits the school bookstore had for me though. The university paid their students well and provided health benefits on top of it. I needed a Hail Mary or I wouldn’t be playing education ball for long.