I have to hand it to him, he’s bringing his A game to the tomcat-on-the-prowl playbook. Unfortunately, I already know how the story ends.
With fear. With not being able to escape. With the realization that you’ve just made the most painful mistake of your life. With the kind of regret that digs in and won’t let go.
Damn. It’s been a while since my old damages have felt so close to the surface. I take a deep breath. I’m good now, I remind myself. I’m over all that.
“All work and no play is bad for the soul,” he purrs. “Everyone’s shift ends eventually.”
After almost a year of owning a bar, I can make small talk with a rock if need be. As for this guy, I’ll give him the time of day because it’s the polite thing to do. But I hope he doesn’t hang around for long. He’s making me uneasy.
I exhale slowly, finding my resilience, like I’ve trained myself to do through meditation and yoga. To prepare myself and keep myself steady in situations like this one.
But it’s written all over him: he’s one of those rare people who has an animal power, you can feel it radiating off of him. Everyone in the room is aware of him, like he’s a man-eating lion surveying his territory. In his presence, you feel yourself making a choice, to either make yourself available to him or get the hell out of his way. For my own sanity, I’m going with option two. “I work here and live here, so it all kind of blurs into one.”
“What time does this place close?” He glances around. The cling of his jacket as he moves shows off his gracefully burly muscles. He’s tall and built but not in a gym-rat kind of way. It’s more of a natural, born-this-way perfection.
“On a holiday weekend, we’ll stay open as long as people want to drink,” I tell him.
“Don’t tell me you’re working all night, Luna.”
I glance at him warily. “How do you know my name?”
“Your friend called you that.”
Wow. I’m well aware that the customer is always right, but it annoys me that he was listening in on my conversation with Josie. Some of that was intensely private information. He’s not only penetrating barriers I don’t want him inside of, he’s also somehow knocking against my forcefield, ruffling me. My face is warm and I can feel my pulse in strange places. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you eavesdropping is rude?”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping.” As if he wasn’t smug enough, he folds his buff arms across his broad chest in the most beefcake way imaginable. A strand of his dark hair has fallen across his forehead, giving a softer edge to his extreme hotness. He’s outrageously beautiful. And he knows it. “You happened to be having a conversation right in front of me. In a bar. I couldn’t help overhearing some of it.”
Anyway, it hardly matters. He’ll be in town for the night or the weekend. He’ll have a drink and disappear with this woman or another one and I’ll never have to see him again.
I wish he would leave now.
Before that magnetic gaze does something to me I can’t control.
I turn my attention to the next customer. “What can I get you, ma’am?” I ask the blond woman, who frowns at the word, like she’s too young to be addressed that way. She must have bypassed thirty several years ago, but whatever. I quickly correct myself. “Er … miss? What would you like to drink?”
“I’ll have a Sex on the Beach,” she says, glancing at Mr. Smug.
Yikes.
She couldn’t be any more obvious if she tried. But Mr. Smug doesn’t seem all that interested, which makes the woman frown again, at least as much as her Botox fillers will allow.
“Coming right up,” I say breezily. It’s a bar, after all. It’s where people try and fail and sometimes succeed at picking each other up. I watch a hundred scenes like this play out every day. Why should I care whether he gets laid tonight or not? I don’t, is the answer to that question.
So I serve her drink and walk away. I can still feel the heat of his effect, like I’ve suddenly developed a light fever.
Don’t look at him.
Do. Not. Look.
But I can’t help it. I can feel that he’s watching me.
Our eyes meet and—oh, hell—I blush.
I’m not scared of him. I’m scared of how powerful his allure is, like freaking crack.
To every woman in this room, I remind myself.
Mr. Smug has a drink with the blond. After a while she gets up to leave, looking unhappy about it.
So he’s dismissed her.
The weekend crowd pours in and the bar gets busy. I’m thankful for the distraction. We have live music tonight, a jazz trio, and with the doors open and the moon on the water, I can’t help but feel optimistic, despite Josie’s pronouncement. Despite everything. Maybe she’s right. Maybe this wasn’t our dream all along. Maybe it was mine.
He’s still watching me but I do my best to ignore him. With some distance, I feel my resolve returning and my self-preservation kicking in. It’s hardly the first time a customer has offered to buy me a drink. So what if he’s drop-dead gorgeous. Lots of people are.
Not that drop-dead gorgeous.
Even so, I brush him off as I get on with my job. I have no desire to be another notch on Casanova’s bedpost. His dinner is served and he eats it at one of the tables out on the deck, scrolling on his phone, taking phone calls.
Rico and I are run off our feet for the next few hours and I’m relieved to notice the hot playboy is gone.
I can admit there might be fleeting pang of … what, Luna? Regret? That you were borderline rude to him?
No. No regrets. It’s better this way.
A memory flits jarringly behind my brain. One of those ones I’ve triple-locked tightly into my box of hidden demons. I have no idea why it would be bubbling up now. I try to hold it back but it won’t be held.
Come upstairs with me. There are some people I want you to meet.
Wow. Maybe I’m more tired than I realized. Maybe Josie and her situation are messing with my head more than I knew.
Meditation helps. I count to ten in my mind. I smile at a customer. I take an order.
By the time things start to slow down it’s after midnight. I unload the last tray of glasses, using a clean dishtowel to polish the champagne flutes as I slide them back into the wine rack that hangs over the end of the bar.
“Is your shift over yet?”
I look up into a pair of ocean-blue eyes. “You’re back.”
“I like this place,” he says. “It’s got a good vibe to it.”
“Thanks.” But I refuse to be flattered by his cool charm. He’s good, I’ve already acknowledged that. And I know better than to mess with the likes of him. He’ll eat me for breakfast until all that’s left is a bleached pile of bones.
Another chilling memory flutters through the recesses of my psyche.
Stop. Please. Please stop.
Come on, I saw you watching me. I could have any girl here tonight but I chose you. Consider yourself lucky.