9. Delia
nine
Delia
Tonight, after Robert kissed me, I decided to lend some credibility to my lie to Jeremy and picked up a shift at the bar where I worked.
I preferred to bartend, but occasionally, they put me in as a bottle girl, walking around with trays of cocktails and bottles of wine, trying to convince wealthy men to spend unnecessary money.
I was good at it, but sometimes the men got a little touchy when I worked that particular position, which is why it wasn’t my favorite.
I walked up to a group of men seated in leather chairs, smoking cigars. They were laughing together about something, their wrists draped in watches and their fingers shining with rings. Their suits were pressed. In short, they had money to spend.
“Hello, gentlemen,” I started, flashing the sincerest smile that I could muster. “Would anyone here like a refill?”
I pointed to an empty glass one of the men had in front of him on the glass table. It was sweating a ring on the surface, and I gestured that I could take it from him.
“How about you? Wouldn’t want those lips to get dry.”
He leered at me, an approximation of a smile, and picked up the glass. He held it just out of my reach, teasing me with it.
“I can think of a few ways you could wet my lips.” He looked over at the group of men, who laughed, egging him on. “And one or two I could wet yours.”
When he said it, he glanced down at the tiny shorts I had to wear for the job, black and spandex, as they rode up into my ass cheeks. His eyes lingered on my crotch, and I tugged down on my shorts legs, smiling at him.
“I only serve drinks,” I told him dryly, and reached to take his drink.
He took the opportunity to cop a feel ‘accidentally,’ his fingers grazing the part of my breasts outside of my shirt as my cleavage almost spilled out.
“Sorry,” he said sarcastically, as I finally got hold of the drink.
“If you’re really sorry, why don’t you tip her extra for the effort?” I heard someone behind me say.
As I straightened up and turned, my stomach dropped to see Robert there, a dark expression written on his face.
He stood a good foot above me, and I could see the men calculating how tall he was from their seats.
Apparently deciding he was too tall to fight, the man who had harassed me scoffed and reached into his billfold to pull out a twenty dollar bill. He crumpled it up and tossed it onto my tray, smirking at Robert.
Robert closed his eyes and grimaced, and I felt the air charge with masculinity, the kind that scared me.
He opened his eyes and pushed past me, his hand delicately cupping my waist to scoot me out of harm’s way.
He leaned close to the man’s face and murmured, “Please, take that off her tray and give her a real tip before I feed that bill to you.”
The guy looked around at his group of friends, who avoided eye contact, suddenly extremely interested in what was in the bottom of their glasses.
The guy looked from Robert to me, and then asked, “This your boyfriend?”
Robert didn’t give me any time to respond. He grabbed the man’s collar and pulled him up to his feet before hissing, “I’ll make you my boyfriend in a second if you don’t do what I say.”
“I – fine!” The guy’s forehead was gleaming with sweat, and he burned his suit with his cigar in the process of reaching for his billfold.
“You made me fuck up my suit!” he accused.
Robert reached into the man’s pocket for him and set the billfold onto my tray, not letting go of the guy with his other hand.
“Delia, get whatever tip you think is right out of there,” he said, his eyes locked with the man.
“You fucked up your own suit being a fucking creep. Wait while she decides.”
My mouth was dry. I could feel the eyes of the men in the friend group on me, and my chest was tight with the anxiety of it all. But slowly, I set the tray down on the table and reached for the leather billfold. It was engraved ‘To my love – money means nothing when I have you.’ I smirked at it, thinking of whatever woman thought he was the man of her dreams, and took out two hundred-dollar bills. Next time, I hoped, he’d know how to behave.
“Hey, what the fuck!” the guy exclaimed, and Robert jostled him by the collar, setting him down into his chair.
“I promise you that’s a lot cheaper than the hospital bill would be if you even look at her again tonight,” Robert told him, pushing the guy’s legs out of the way to move toward me.
He picked up the tray and took the billfold from me. He threw it back at the man’s chest and handed me my tray. “Come on.”
“What was that?” I whispered, as we walked away from the man. I scanned the rest of the bar for empty drinks, looking for someone to help.
Anything to avoid looking at Robert. What he had done had been reckless and possessive.
And it had turned me on more than anything I’d ever had a man do for me.
“You work here?”
“No, I just dress up as an employee and scam people out of cash,” I told him sarcastically, walking over to a table that was signaling me.
A man with a woman next to him said, “Another bourbon and coke please.” I nodded and took his empty glass.
I glanced at Robert and saw the pained expression on his face. He didn’t like my joke.
“What are you thinking, working at a place like this?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, making my way back toward the bar with the empty glass.
I could take a few more orders, but Robert was distracting me, confusing me. His presence was intoxicating and strange. I felt like I was in a dream, seeing him here.
“I mean, this is…this is degrading, Delia. And dangerous. What are you doing here? Why do you work here? And why are you dressed like… that?” He made a gesture with his hand, directed at my outfit, and looked genuinely at a loss. And a little bit disgusted.
His disgust cut through me. I was shocked by how much I cared what he thought of me. And I was taken aback by his opinion.
This was a sought-after position. I made a lot of money, and I didn’t do much. This wasn’t exactly the kind of job people thought of when they thought of dangerous and degrading jobs.
Kassandra was behind the bar, looking confused by Robert’s presence. I shot her a look like ‘Don’t ask’ and said, “Whiskey coke.”
“Bourbon,” Robert corrected me.
“Oh! Shit, bourbon coke,” I told Kassandra, and she knit her eyebrows together before taking the glass and dumping it into the sink.
When she turned around, I whipped around to finally face Robert and looked him in the eyes.
Disarmed, momentarily, by the blazing green they were, I shook my head and said, “You don’t have much room to talk, Robert. If you find this job so degrading , what are you doing demanding its services? Assuming you aren’t stalking me, you’re here to drink, right? Someone has to serve you that drink. You know that, right? Unless you want a self-serve bar, in which case, that would be at home.” I tilted my head at him. “So why don’t you just go home, Robert?”
His mouth dropped open, and he didn’t say anything for a moment.
He stepped away from me, just one foot back, but I looked down at his feet and then up at his face. I could see regret in them, and he said, “Sorry to bother you.”
Instantly, guilt swarmed me. I knew why he was acting this way.
I had doubted his intentions earlier, but looking at him now, I saw it on his face. I had worked with enough veterans to recognize that trauma was doing this to him.
He had an avoidant attachment style. He was afraid to be hurt, and I had hurt him. Now, I’d hurt him again. But his judgment stung. He needed to know he couldn’t talk that way to me, even if he was hurting. He needed to know that his traumas weren’t an excuse to be an asshole.
I reached for his arm and said, in a quiet voice, “Maybe we should talk about what happened today.”
“What’s there to talk about?” he asked, not looking back at me.
I was looking at the curls on his head. I could see a few grays intermingled, a reminder of how much older than me he was, even older than Jeremy. Not by a lot, but still older. He had to be twenty years older than me at least.
I walked around him so that I could stand in front of him and said, “The kiss? Maybe we should talk about how you kissed me?”
He closed his eyes against my accusation and said, “So you’re still going with that? You’re going to pretend you didn’t kiss me, too? And now I’m stalking you, right?”
“No, I just—”
He opened his eyes and grabbed the inside of one of my elbows. His grip was hard, and my skin felt electrified by his touch again.
I glanced at his hand, cleared my throat, and looked up at him.
His jaw was tense, and he demanded, “So, say it. Say that you kissed me, too. And say that you liked it.”
I licked my lips and whispered, “I kissed you, too.” My voice cracked on ‘kissed’. I held my breath.
His hand snaked down to my wrist, and I felt the muscles in my pussy tighten. “And?”
“And I…” my eyes darted around the room. I caught Kassandra’s eyes, and she held up her hands, wondering if I needed help. I shook my head at her and looked back at Robert’s intense eyes. “I liked it.”
He exhaled out of his nose sharply and twisted his lips. “I know,” he said, and then continued walking to the door and out, leaving me standing at the bar alone.
I dropped my shoulders. I felt stupid. For just a moment, I’d thought that maybe he liked me.
Now, I was thinking that maybe I’d been wrong about his motivations for kissing me. Maybe it wasn’t about me at all. Maybe he was testing the waters for Jeremy, seeing if I was really loyal.
Or maybe he just wanted to hurt me. Maybe he liked the power.
Kassandra’s voice sounded behind me, “Here’s that bourbon coke.”
I looked back at her with tears in my eyes and took the drink. “Thanks.”
“Are you okay?” she asked me.
“Not at all,” I responded honestly, and then I went back to work.
I kept looking at the door, hoping he’d walk back in and tell me that he wanted me.
What was wrong with me? Why did I want him to want me so badly?