11. Amelia
Chapter 11
Amelia
I 've been shadowing Logan for the past three nights, watching every drink poured and soaking up everything he's been teaching me, including how to handle the rowdy regulars. Tonight, it's different.It's my first shift without him, and my stomach feels like it's hosting an entire circus.
Tobias dropped me off earlier, practically threatening to wait with me like I was a teenager being sent off to their first job. I had to firmly tell him no because there's only so much overprotective hovering I can take before I snap.
He's coming to pick me up later, but I really need to buy my own car.
"Hey, sweetie. Are you ready for this tonight?" Rachel's hands are splayed on the wooden counter, her chipped burgundy nails drumming to the Pat Benatar track crackling through the speakers.
There's something about Logan's mom that makes this place feel less like a dive and more like home—if home came with sticky floors, a fully stocked liquor shelf, and the faint, ever-present smell of stale beer that clings to everything.
"I think so," I reply with a laugh that sounds way more convincing than it feels.
"I'll be here all night, so if you need anything, just yell. It shouldn't be too busy. Thursdays are usually pretty quiet as Daz and the rest of the boys take their bikes out for a meetup."
Thank God.
I keep myself busy behind the bar, my hands constantly moving as I wipe down glasses and make sure the liquor is fully stocked, all while serving drinks with a level of confidence I didn't know I had in me. It feels good to be out here, surrounded by people—different faces, fresh stories, new energy. Admittedly, it's a little rough around the edges—scuffed floors that have seen better days, dim lighting that could probably use an upgrade, and the odd barstool that looks like it's seen one too many brawls. But that's part of the charm. There's an undeniable comfort about it, and I think it's mostly due to Logan and his family.
I glance around the room, catching glimpses of the customers as they go about their night. While some hunch over pool tables, others loudly argue over which Bon Jovi song reigns supreme as they fiddle with the jukebox.
While it's not fancy, it's authentic, and I love that.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity of back-and-forth bickering, the two guys by the jukebox settle on "In These Arms" by Bon Jovi, their choice blaring throughout the bar, and I'm seriously considering cranking it up louder because, well, it's Bon Jovi.
I crouch down behind the bar, gathering stray straws from the floor, when I hear footsteps approaching. I stand back up, dusting off my hands and preparing for the next drink order, when a familiar voice cuts through the noise.
"Hey, trouble, I'll take a commonwealth when you're ready, please." I whip around fast, finding Logan grinning at me as he casually leans against the bar.
"Ah, see, the guy who very poorly taught me about drinks conveniently forgot to mention what that one is."
"Unbelievable," he says, shaking his head. "You can't even get good help these days. It only has, what, seventy-one ingredients? Shouldn’t be that hard to remember." I roll my eyes and throw the nearest rag at him.
"What are you doing here? Come to check up on me?"
"I wanted to make sure the regulars aren't giving you a hard time."
"Just old Joe," I say, nodding toward the end of the bar where the old guy with an impressively long beard is nursing what has to be his third whiskey, his usual grumpy expression firmly in place.
"Good luck with that." Logan laughs, glancing over at Joe, who suddenly perks up and shoots us a scowl.
An hour later, the bar shifts from its earlier calm to full-on chaos as Daz and his biker crew roll in. We heard them before we saw them—the low rumble of their engines like a warning bell—and now the place is packed with more leather and tattoos than usual.
Logan hops behind the bar to help, followed by Rachel, who rolls up the sleeves on her vintage Guns N' Roses sweater. Meanwhile, Harper is perched on a barstool in front of us, sipping her wine as she watches the testosterone-fueled madness around her.
"I haven't seen you here before." A deep voice cuts through the noise of the bar, instantly pulling my attention.
I freeze mid-pour and look up, finding a pair of dark eyes staring back at me.
Holy hell, he's hot.
He’s not pretty hot.
He’s the kind of hot that makes your better judgment vanish.
"Well, I've been here the past few nights, and I haven't seen you here before either," I shoot back.
Logan's laugh rings out from the other end of the bar, clearly amused. "Leave her alone, Tate."
Tate's smile doesn't falter, and his almost black eyes shift back to mine. "Do you want me to leave you alone…?"
"Amelia."
"Pretty name."
"Thank you."
From her seat at the bar, Harper suddenly pipes up, practically rolling her eyes as she starts to speak. "You've never once been this nice to me, Tate."
"That's because you're into my cousin," he says, his voice loud enough to land with all the subtlety of a hand grenade.
The reaction is immediate. Harper's face flashes a deep shade of crimson, her eyes widening like she's contemplating murder, and I can practically hear her inner scream. I move my gaze over to Logan to see if he caught it, and sure enough, he's doing that thing where he pretends not to have heard a single word, but the way his jaw tightens ever so slightly gives him away. His hands keep moving as he dries a glass, but I can see there's a story there, or at the very least, some feelings between them that haven't yet been dealt with.
"Logan?" Harper calls out, and he looks up from the glass he's been pretending to dry for what feels like forever. "Can you kick him out?"
"He could try," Tate responds with a chuckle before his eyes slide back to mine. "How old are you, Amelia?"
"Twenty-two."
"Boyfriend?"
"Not today."
Tate's smirk widens, satisfaction glimmering in his dark eyes. "Good to know. I'll see you around." Without another word, he pushes off the bar and walks away, disappearing into the sea of leather and beards.
"Uh-oh," Harper says, her voice tinged with amusement as she bites down on the end of her straw, laughing through her teeth.
"Uh-oh, what?"
"You've caught the attention of Tate Dawson."
"And that's a bad thing?" I tilt my head, more curious than anything else now.
"It depends how you look at it," she says, and I hear Logan's laugh echo across the bar as he walks over to us. "He's harmless, but he's a human wrecking ball in a hoodie."
"You'll be fine. I'll tell him to rein it in if he gets to be too much."
"How is he your cousin? You two couldn't look more different."
Logan looks like he walked off a yacht with a whiskey glass in hand, while Tate looks like someone you'd find leaning against a motorcycle with blood on his knuckles and a grin that says he enjoyed it. They look like they belong to two entirely different worlds, not the same bloodline.
"My dad is a twin, and even though I'm practically identical to him and my uncle, Tate's the image of his mom," Logan says, leaning his back against the bar and folding his arms across his chest. "He got all the dark and mysterious genes, while the rest of us look like we just walked out of some prep school yearbook."
With only twenty minutes of my shift left, Logan slides back to the customer side of the bar, taking a seat next to Harper, who's sipping another glass of wine and scrolling through her phone.
I'm trying to clean, though it's more of an attempt to distract myself from the throbbing ache in my feet, which is ironic considering how much time I spend on them every day. You'd think they'd be used to it by now, but nope.
Just as I'm imagining how good it'll feel when I finally sit down, the door swings open, and six foot two of inked-up muscle and confidence walks in. Tobias moves through the bar like he's been here a million times before, casually shoving his phone into the back pocket of his black jeans when his blue eyes meet mine.
"Hey, you're early," I say as he approaches the bar.
"I know," he replies, flashing that beautiful smile, and fuck me running, that smile—that stupid, knocks-the-breath-right-out-of-your-lungs smile—has me rolling my eyes while my heart backflips in my chest.
Tobias stands next to Logan, but it's Harper who catches my attention first. She's doing that thing most women do when they first see him—mouth slightly parted, pupils dilated, wine glass forgotten mid-lift to her lips. I can't blame the girl. Tobias has that effect on people—he walks into a room, and everyone else becomes a little less noticeable.
"Harper, Logan, this is my… Tobias. We live together. We're roommates."
Yeah, I just made this weird.
Tobias shoots me a look—one dark eyebrow arched like he's questioning my sanity.
"I'm her stepbrother," he says, looking between Logan and Harper. "It's nice to meet you both."
And just like that, I'm put in my place.
"You good?" Tobias turns his attention back to me, pressing his hands flat against the bar.
"Yeah, I won't be too much longer. You want a drink?"
"Just water, please."
"Water? Really?"
"I'm driving, Firefly, and I already had a beer at home." His nickname for me slips out so easily, softening both of us in the process.
He's called me Firefly since day one, and I never asked why. I just accepted it like I accepted everything else about him. But the night he told me, it changed everything.
He stumbled in from some party, drunk but not sloppy—just that perfect kind of buzzed where everything feels magical and your walls come crashing down. Instead of passing out in his room, he appeared in my doorway, grinning at me.
Before I could say a word, he crossed my room in three strides and scooped me up. Even half-drunk, his arms were steady and strong around me as he carried me down the hall to his room. He laid me on his bed like I was something precious, then dropped onto the mattress beside me.
Maybe it was the way he was looking at me, or maybe I was just feeling brave, but I finally asked him why—why Firefly? Why had he given me that name?
Tobias's eyes locked onto mine, and despite the alcohol running through his system, they were completely focused in a way that made my heart skip a beat.
"Because you're the light in this fucked-up dark house," he whispered, and the raw honesty in his voice nearly broke me. "You showed up, and suddenly everything wasn't so cold anymore. Because you, Mills—you brought the warmth with you. You brought the light."
The memory clings to me as I pull a bottle of water from the fridge and hand it to him, my fingers brushing his as he hands me some money.
"Yo, Amelia?" Tate's voice cuts through the moment, and I turn to find him grinning, leaning casually against the bar next to Tobias. "What shifts are you working?"
"I have no idea yet. Tonight was a trial, so I might not even be allowed to stay." That's a lie. I've already been offered the position. Daz and Rachel have been nothing but welcoming and patient with me as I've been learning the ropes, especially Logan, who's been on the receiving end of my relentless questions the past few days.
"You're staying. I'll make sure of it. It's about time we had a pretty face behind the bar."
He's attractive, but there's something about him that's a little too cocky that makes me file him under fun mistake rather than anything serious.
"Chrissy's hot," Harper interjects from her perch, popping into the conversation out of nowhere, peeking around Logan and Tobias.
"Chrissy's my cousin."
"It happens," Harper says, resting her tipsy little head on Logan's shoulder, and I watch the gentle smile spread across his face at her open affection.
"How can I convince you to ride my bike if I don't know when you're around?"
"I guess you'll just have to take your chances. Either I'll be here, or I won't."
His lips curve into a smile, and without another word, he turns and walks away.
"You can go if you want, Amelia."
"You sure?" I ask, and Logan nods.
"You did good tonight," he says with a smile just as Harper does her best Sleeping Beauty impression against his shoulder.
"Thank you. Tell your parents I said bye." With a wave, I step past Tobias, his body shifting just enough to let me through but not enough to avoid brushing against him.
Tobias's red Audi sits gleaming under the streetlight, but I can feel something's off with him as I walk toward it. It's his energy—it's always been easy for me to pick up on, and tonight, it's… tense. As we slide into the car, Tobias doesn't say a word. He grips the steering wheel, fingers tightening around the leather, jaw clenched in that way that tells me something's bothering him, but he's not ready to talk about it yet.