“What do you mean?” He lifted an eyebrow and grabbed a bottle to start making a drink. “You got thirty minutes left to bartend.” He ticked his head toward all the patrons. “Or can’t you handle them?”
I turned toward the bodies screaming over each other at us. Arms outstretched and waving in the air, they hoped to grab our attention quicker than the next person. Red bounded up between everyone. “Cole, don’t put her on the booze for the last half hour. Come on! You’ll scare her away.”
He shrugged like that was suddenly his goal. I wanted to throw a glassful of beer at his face and wash away his new attitude. Suddenly, after a whole shift he didn’t want me there? I’d kicked ass all day, sweat off all my makeup, earned the bar way more than they would have been able to make had they been putting people on a wait, and caught on to every aspect of the menu.
“I don’t scare that easily,” I yelled back to her over the music.
She smirked at me like she was proud, then she put her fingers to her mouth and whistled loudly before flouncing off again.
“Whaddya want?” I yelled at the longest outstretched arm while grabbing his Visa.
He rattled off five shots, two beers, and two cocktails. By the time he was done, I had the beers ready and was turning to grab the tequila from the shelf behind me when I slammed into Cole’s hard chest.
“Move.” I peered up at him with a glare.
He stared at me with those multicolored eyes framed with long lashes and breathed hard twice before he responded. “If you don’t want to stay, you’d better go. I have a feeling we're all going to get attached to you quick.”
His words hit me hard. Like when a shot of whiskey hits hard halfway down your throat. “I’ll finish my shift,” I murmured.
He nodded and stepped aside without fighting me at all.
I slung drinks alongside him for the next thirty minutes in a good rhythm. We didn’t know each other well but being behind a bar never really left me. I reached for the liquor just as quickly as before and once I knew where the taps were, I moved like I’d been there for years.
I bumped hips with Drake and Vinny. We yelled out orders to one another when we saw someone had the liquor we wanted. And we pulled in money hand over fist. Fast.
Bouncers filtered in as Cole cut the music and pushed the stragglers out.
“You bartend better than most.” His voice rolled over me from behind as I wiped down the metal sink.
“Well, I spent the better half of high school in a bar,” I admitted before I could catch myself.
I didn’t know why my first instinct was to share the truth with him. And then my nerves got the best of me as my palms turned clammy. I shouldn’t have felt like I had something to prove, like he was judging me or grading me. Still, I scrubbed hard at the counter and then returned to the sink for another round of cleaning.
“The Heathens want you to come back,” he murmured low as he leaned a hip on the bar and faced me, close enough that I felt his body heat.
I glanced up and around to see them all buzzing about. Melanie threw a towel at Peter who’d kept two girls at a table. They smiled at him like they knew they would be going home happy.
“But I danced away half my shift,” I grumbled, still holding onto the sour mood he’d thrown my way.
His biceps flexed, and I saw his neck tighten under his Heathen’s shirt.
I gripped my towel a bit harder, trying to hold onto the idea that I wasn’t there for fun or for a one-night stand with Cole. I’d walked away from being that free-spirited girl. I’d chosen to take on the responsibility of going to college away from my mom and finishing up quickly in order to get back and take care of both of us.
“Yeah, and while you were dancing the night away, I was staring at you like you’re staring at me now.”
“And how’s that?” Why did I ask? Why did I lean in and whisper it like I wanted him to indulge my flirtation?
“Like you want a nightcap. Like you’re ready for a shot of tequila, salt off the body and all.”
We stared at each other, my breath coming much faster and my hands wringing the towel. I licked my lips, and he mirrored my movements. His tongue moved slowly over his bottom lip, leaving a glistening sheen I wanted a taste of.
“Cole? I had a few extra bottles I brought for you to sample.” A dark-haired woman with cat eyes that popped bright green stood in front of us in a tight black dress that had a liquor logo scrawled across it. “Peter said I could stay after for a while. To show you, you know, everything I’m working with.”
The innuendo was clear and Cole’s attention was fully on someone else now. The reminder was all I needed. “I can help Drake out here. Go ahead.”
“We still need to talk about—”
“Nothing to discuss except when you can fix my laptop. Like I said, I could help for a night.”
He narrowed his hazel eyes at me and grabbed the white towel I still wrung in my hands. “Drake can clean the rest of the counters. We should talk.”
I stomped my foot. “I don’t have anything to say, Cole.”
“Are you going to tell Red then?” He hit me right where he knew I had a weakness. I didn’t want to let anyone, especially someone I’d just made a friendship with, down. “She’s going to be slammed all week without you.”
I wanted to yell at him to go ask any of the many women who walked in, who drank here, who clearly were looking for jobs. I knew for a fact his waitress opening wasn’t posted on any job sites. “I’ll help out for the week as long as you're looking for someone because I can’t—”
“Great.” He cut me off. Then he waved to the cat-eyed woman, and they disappeared behind the back door.
Drake took the opportunity to take control of the music and turned it back up for us to clean to.
Vinny poured more drinks for the few other women and men still sprinkled throughout the bar, and he threw back one or two with them. They were what I liked to call the afterpartiers. The ones the bouncers always went around because they were friends of those who worked here.
We’d had them at our bar in Sun Village and I knew most bars had them too.
Another half hour passed, and Melanie worked on splitting tips while Drake counted the registers. Red and I straightened the chairs after mopping, and we danced a bit more theatrically now that everyone was gone.
“Okay, you’re my freaking dance partner from now on,” Red said after she caught me dropping down low around the mop.
Heat rose to my cheeks. “I dance better without an audience.”
“Girl, don’t we all?”
A clatter sounded from behind the metal door that led to the back room. My head snapped that way, and my gaze probably lingered a tad too long.
“She comes in every week to see him,” Red offered, like I wanted to know. “She’s the daughter of Swig Vodka and loves to bring in all the new products they have for Cole to sample.”
“That’s nice.” I lifted a shoulder, trying not to listen too closely. Except he’d looked at me up and down. He’d licked his lips at me. He’d been attracted to me.
Right?
I’d been out of the game for a long time, but I still knew when a man showed interest. I also knew my body hadn’t responded to a man like it had to him in a very long time.