31. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
C ARLY
I can’t stop smiling and it’s becoming a problem.
Yule already caught me doing it twice, smiling at nothing while I was wiping down the counter. After the third time, on his way back to the kitchen, he frowns and asks me, “You doing okay, Carly?”
“Of course,” I answer without looking up. “Why?”
“Because you seem exceptionally chipper today. And I haven’t seen you looking like that for a while.”
I finally glance up and say, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
Yule raises an eyebrow. “You’ve had that cat-ate-the-canary grin all morning. What gives?”
“Oh, she ate something alright,” Emma calls from her position behind the cocktail bar. She has a shit-eating grin on her face and she winks at Yule conspiratorially. “Or maybe it’s the other way round. Maybe something ate her.”
“Oh, you hush your mouth, Emma Jane.” I giggle as a hot blush fills my face, and Emma snorts her amusement. Meanwhile, Yule looks between us even more confused.
“Alright, either of you want to tell me what’s going on here?”
“Nothing’s going on,” I say. “It’s just been a good day.” And it was. The Tiki Bar has been busy all day but never too busy. We have enough staff to cover all the tables and no one has dropped or spilled anything today. Plus, all my tables were big tippers and I have several hundred bucks tucked into my jeans.
Now that things have wound down in preparation for the evening rush, what’s there not to be happy about?
“Yeah, right.” Emma isn’t willing to let it go like that. She puts one hand up around her mouth to block my view and then stage-whispers to Yule. “Carly has a boyfriend.”
“No, I do not!” I protest like a teenage girl, which makes Emma giggle even more madly, and even Yule cracks a smile. He crosses his arms over his chest and he leans against the counter.
“A boyfriend, huh?” he says teasingly. “And do I know this fella?”
“You don’t know him because he doesn’t exist. I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“It’s Micah Landing,” Emma says, talking over me and Yule’s smile turns puzzled.
“I don’t think I know that name, Landing. Is he one of the mayor’s out-of-wedlock kids?”
“No. He’s Declan’s friend. You know the one with red hair, tall, handsome. He was at my engagement party.
“Oh, that guy?” Yule’s smile instantly turns into a frown. “Carly, no offense, but that guy doesn’t seem like the kind of man you make a boyfriend.”
“No offense taken, Yule, because you’re exactly right. And Micah isn’t my boyfriend.” I send Emma a pointed look. “We’re just hooking up.”
“Right,” Yule says. “But even then, you gotta be careful. You know how you women are. One second you’re just hooking up and the next second you’re getting your own heart broken because you start asking all types of questions about ‘what are we’ and dropping ‘L-bombs’ here and there, while he was honest with you from the beginning that he just wanted a simple roll in the hay. And now he looks like the asshole for leaving you, and you get angry enough that you justify slashing his brand-new tires that he just got for half off.”
We both blink at Yule after his little rant, and Emma tentatively asks, “Erm, you okay, Yule?”
“Yeah. Just an old memory. I’m over it.” The irritated flash on his face tells us he’s not that over it, but he continues. “Anyway, just be careful. It’ll be easy to fall for a pretty face like that and want to believe any lies he tells you, but you gotta remember who he is, and who you are. And he may not even mean to hurt you. It may just be in his DNA. Guys that look like that have been breaking women’s hearts since they could walk.”
“I will,” I assure him and stick my tongue out at Emma who rolls her eyes while still chortling. Everything Yule said I already knew. No matter what Micah tells me, I’m still not deluding myself about the nature of our relationship. It’s a short-term fling, a situationship at best. Sure, he might feel “things” for me, but those are directly linked to how much fun we have together and how fuckable he finds me. They’re certainly not things that I can even start to mistake as love.
So I know all of that.
But that still doesn’t stop me from smiling at inopportune moments during the night, when I think about him again.
Especially when I think about him in that stupid pink shirt doing yoga with the elderly. Or him getting my coffee ready while I rush to school, calmly handing it to me in the car like it’s no big deal. Or even just how he looks when he’s telling me about his dream to recondition the New York skyline and make housing more sustainable and affordable, or when he tells me jokes about all those stupid things he did in the past.
Now I see why all those women found it so hard to let go once the relationship was done. It wasn’t just the mind-blowing sex, although that’s certainly part of it too. But the thing that’s going to be hardest to let go of is the companionship, the banter, the comfortable routine of hanging with each other every single day and just talking.
Oh, God, slow down, Carly. Yule is right. You really have to be careful here, because you’re going toward the deep end.
I pull back from my thoughts and decide not to think about Micah for the rest of the evening.
But it’s difficult because I find myself doing so anyway at odd times during the evening rush. Sometimes I’ll hear a joke and think, Micah would probably enjoy that. I should tell him later . I’ll see someone wink and it will remind me of him. It’s awful, and If I was in the right presence of mind, I would realize that it’s pretty dangerous for me to be thinking this way. But I can’t help it.
“Hello.” A knock on the table finally gets me out of my reverie and I glance down at the patron in front of me. Oh, God, I zoned out right as I was about to take his order and, now he and his table full of large flannel-wearing men are looking at me like I’m crazy.
“I’m so sorry about that,” I apologize instantly. “My mind’s kind of a mess today. What did you want to order?”
A leer spreads across the man’s face, chasing away his annoyance as his eyes crawl down my body.
“I don’t suppose you’re on the menu, are you?” he drawls as his friends snicker between themselves. I raise an eyebrow.
“No,” I say firmly. “I’m not. But I do recommend the special, Chef Yule’s making a mean tomahawk today, and it goes well with the mac and cheese.”
“Nah,” he says. “Not a huge fan of cheese. But I do like a nice curvy woman that can keep me warm at night. And I’m wondering how much I gotta blow on a meal to get her.”
My lip turns. Ew. Creep.
“It’s not happening,” I tell him in a polite but firm voice. The man is pretty huge and I don’t want repercussions.
He laughs. “Oh, come on, don’t pretend to be all uppity now, Carly? Don’t you remember me? And what we had in high school?”
Huh? High school? I peer at the man not trying to recognize him behind his bushy beard and his balding head. But I’m drawing a blank.
“It’s me,” he says. ‘Tiny Tony.”
Tiny… the name takes a while to ring a bell and when it does, I almost groan in regret. Of course. He was one of the boys I made out with in my freshman year of high school. But he looks nothing like what he did before. He was short and scrawny at the time, but he had really sweet blue eyes and he seemed nice and harmless enough when he asked me to hook up. Part of the reason I said yes to it is because I knew his family was leaving town the next day and I thought there was a good chance I would never see him again, and he wouldn’t have time to go around spreading rumors about me after it was done. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
But now seeing what he’s become, I regret it deeply.
Still, he’s a customer so I try to be pleasant. I fake a friendly smile. “Hey, Tony. How’s it going? Nice to see you back.”
“It’s going pretty good. Great now that I’ve seen you.” He seems to take our previous fling as an excuse to lean in to whisper, “You still as good with your tongue as I remember?”
My entire being flushes with anger and indignation, especially as his friends laugh meanly.
Before I can stop myself, I snap back, “I don’t know. You still as stupid as I remember or did you finally pass eighth-grade math?”
That makes his friends laugh even more, and some anger tightens Tony’s features.
But he retains his smile. “Feisty. Good. I like a woman with a little heat. Makes rolling around a lot more interesting.”
“I’m not rolling around with you.” I snap my notebook close and prepare to make my exit. “And it looks like I’m not taking your order either.”
As I turn to head back to the counter, my face burning with anger, he reaches out and snags my wrist, holding me in place.
Irritation and fear pulse inside me. “Let me go.”
“Now why are you being like that?” he croons. “I was going to be nice to you but now you’re trying to make me the jackass.”
You already were a jackass , I think but I don’t say it. The fear is louder than the wrath and it’s preaching that I take a lot of caution here. Tiny Tony is now a huge man and so are his friends. And he seems like the type to seek retribution.
So I gentle my voice and say, “Look this isn’t the time or place. I have other customers.”
“Okay, then tell me the time and the place. Where do you live?”
Yeah, like I’m going to give this asshole my address. I open my mouth ready to rattle off a fake address, when suddenly, someone clears his throat.
I look up and my heart drops.
Micah is standing a few feet away from us, near the entrance. And the look on his face is quickly growing from annoyed to dangerous.
“You know there’s a lot of things in this town that I’m getting used to,” Micah says as he saunters over to us. “How quiet it is. How long deliveries take. The fact there are no organic kumquats in their grocery store.” He reaches us and then pins Tony with a look that can only be described as murderous. “But the one thing I can never get used to is random assholes thinking that they can just grab anyone they want. That gets me heated, especially when it’s my woman.”
Tony’s eyes show his surprise and he shares a look with his boys before he sneers. “She’s your woman?”
“Yup. So you better take that hand off, or I’ll take it off for you. I’m trying to be on best behavior here so I’m giving you a chance to rectify your error. But if you push me, believe me, you won’t like my methods.”
“Oh yeah?” Tony laughs like it’s funny. “And what are you gonna do, preppy boy?”
Micah doesn’t say anything in response. He simply closes his eyes and begins humming quietly.
The other men share a confused look as he does, but only I know what he’s doing. He told me before that when he gets really angry, he sometimes has to hum to calm himself down. And that’s what he’s doing now.
Tony and friends find it funny, but only I know the danger they’re in. I’ve seen Micah fight and I know what he’s capable of. But I’m also worried about Micah picking a fight with them. Sure, he beat Robbie up pretty easily but these guys look rougher. And there are almost ten of them,
I try to deescalate and pry my hand out of Tony’s grip. “Let me go, Tony. Please. I’m serious.”
“Oh, you’re serious, huh?” He gets to his feet, still chuckling. “Listen, just because you managed to get this idiot here to see you as something other than a whore doesn’t mean shit to me. I remember you. I know who you really are.”
The anger flares up in my chest again but before I can say anything, before I even see it coming, Micah’s fist smashes into Tony’s face.