Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
Contrary to my predictions, the bar is packed today because of the football game. All the tables are already occupied by fans who, between their conversations and laughter, create a general din. The only upside is that evenings like these are always big for tips.
“And this makes seventy, beautiful!” During a lull, I slam a wad of bills down on the wooden counter, each one of them earned with a strategic smile and a well-timed wink. Getting tips at the Marsy turned out to be easier than I expected, especially after I realized that the customers we serve are nothing more than brain-dead morons, who only need to see a flash of leg before they’re ready to give away their life’s savings. And then, with every dollar I earn, a little bit of that insecurity I’ve been carrying for as long as I can remember slips away from me.
“You’re unbelievable, Nessy, with those cat eyes and that sexy mouth, you always hustle ’em,” Maggie says, giving me a high five.
“Child’s play.” I try to make a haughty face and roll my eyes, but I burst out laughing instead. To be honest, the first few days I was like a plank of wood. Then Tiffany gave me some tips and, by God, they worked great. I fold the bills up and tuck them inside my bra.
“It’s the pigtails,” interjects our colleague Cassie in her usual vapid tones. “They give us that hint of innocence that contrasts with the sexy cheerleader uniform. And they literally lose their minds.” Cassie is the quintessential sexy girl, her slender yet curvaceous physique nets her double the tips the rest of us make. She is perfect for this job because, unlike Maggie and me, she gets off on the attention.
Halfway through the evening I’m clearing a table for some new customers when I hear a familiar voice calling out to me.
“Hey, Vanessa.” I turn around with my hands full of crumpled place mats and see Logan walking toward me at a brisk pace. He’s wearing khakis, a blue sweater, and a pair of two-tone loafers. His facial features are tense, though, and his rapid stride makes me think he’s worried.
“Hey! I’ll be right with you.” I place the wrappers in the dish tray, give the table a wipe down with a damp rag and seat the customers. Then I head for the bar, followed by Logan.
“What’s going on, are you okay?”
“I was just about to ask you that question,” he retorts worriedly.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been looking for you all afternoon. What happened to you?”
I let out a sarcastic laugh. Is he kidding me?
“What do you mean ‘I’ve been looking for you all afternoon’? I didn’t get a single call from you in the afternoon. In fact, I haven’t received any calls or texts from you all day. But you were busy packing, I understand.” I smile at him and grab everything I need to set up the tables in my section.
“No, wait a minute. I was busy packing until lunchtime, that’s true. But as soon as I finished, I called you. Three times. I even left you a voicemail, but you never responded.”
What is he talking about?
“Maybe you were calling the wrong girl,” I say sardonically, but he doesn’t seem to be in the mood for jokes.
“No, I’m pretty sure I called you.” He takes his phone from his pocket and shows me the calls and the message.
Yet, I didn’t receive anything. Maybe I didn’t have bars at the top of a tree?
I shrug apologetically. “I was probably in a spot with poor cell reception. I don’t know what else to think.” I leave him waiting at the bar while I go fetch an order.
“Why, where were you?” he asks me when I return to him.
I’m silent for a moment, considering what to say. If I tell him that I spent the whole day with Thomas, he might misunderstand, and that’s not what I want. But lying to him would be worse. “I took a nature hike. The rest of afternoon I spent sleeping.” It’s true, in a way.
“You had me worried. I was about to go over to your house to make sure everything was okay.” He smiles and touches my cheek.
“Bad move. You would have found my mother and left bitterly repentant.” We both laugh.
“Look, I can’t stay long, I have to get back to campus in less than an hour. My roommate is waiting for me, I promised him some Call of Duty before I leave. Can you take a little break?” he asks with a twinkle in his eye. I take a quick glance around the room and make sure the tables in my section are all served. Then I nod to Maggie, who is on the opposite side, and ask her if she can cover for me. She gives me the thumbs-up and looks at Logan approvingly. I smile and we walk outside. We decide to go to the parking lot behind the Marsy for more privacy. We stop at a more secluded corner, and I lean back against the wall of the building. Logan stands in front of me, entwining his hands with mine.
“Hi,” he whispers softly.
“Hi,” I repeat just as softly.
“I like these pigtails.” He takes one and plays with it a bit. “And this uniform. I’m not a jealous guy, but I have to admit that it really bothers me that everyone can see you dressed like this.” He examines me from head to toe.
“I hate these stupid braids, they make me feel ridiculous.”
“You say that because you don’t see yourself with my eyes. You’re so beautiful.”
“Stop it, come on, you’re making me blush.” I lower my eyes, embarrassed.
“I asked you to come out here because I wanted to give you something.” He pulls a small square box out of his pants pocket and places it in my hands. “These are for you, I wanted to give them to you this afternoon.”
I come away from the wall, thrilled, and open the box. Inside I find heart-shaped caramel chocolates. I look up at him, amazed. “Did you buy me chocolates?” I ask. It may seem trivial to him, but I’ve never received any from anyone in my life.
He shrugs. “I’ll be gone for a few days. If you’re missing me, you can eat one and think of me. Because I will be thinking of you all the time.” He strokes my cheekbone with his thumb.
“You know these won’t last more than an hour in my possession, don’t you?” I joke.
“Are you telling me that I need to find a more effective way to make you think about me?” Without giving me a chance to reply, he closes his eyes and slowly brings his face closer to mine.
Oh, no, this is the moment. He’s going to kiss me.
His lips land on mine. They are soft, warm. He caresses one cheek and slides his other hand down my ribs, pressing his body against mine. He kisses me slowly, sweetly and it is wonderful. But I don’t feel anything. No tingling in my belly. No trembling in my knees. My mind is clear, not scattered across some unknown galaxy. Kissing Logan is pleasant, but not overwhelming.
“I really like you, Vanessa. I’ve wanted to do this since the very first day I saw you,” he whispers against my lips.
“I like you too.” And that’s the truth. Even if we didn’t ignite with passion right away, that doesn’t mean it won’t flare to life in the future. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be there, necessarily. With Travis, the passion had faded so quickly. With Thomas, there was way too much of it, as far as I’m concerned. And things ended badly in both cases. I wrap my arms around his neck, he slides one hand along my bare thigh, lifting it a little. We continue kissing until a group of boys passes us, hooting and hollering and telling us to get a room. I pull away from Logan and bring a timid hand to my lips. He laughs softly.
“Maybe we’d better go back inside.” He takes me by the hand and we make our way toward the entrance.
“Vanessa?”
I turn sharply.
“Matt?” I exclaim in amazement.
Okay, now this is awkward.
My boss’s nephew just caught me making out behind the bar. But things somehow get worse when I notice the guy next to him. Thomas is staring at us with fury in his eyes.
“H…hey,” I stammer, trying to tamp down the anxious feeling growing inside me. I smile at him, but he doesn’t smile back. He leans his elbow on Matt’s shoulder and, turning to Logan with contempt, sneers: “Your uncle ought to limit the number of rich dicks he lets in. They steal the waitresses and won’t even buy a fucking beer.” He passes us, shoulder-checking Logan roughly.
For a few seconds, I’m dazed. Why does he feel the need to be such an asshole whenever I’m with Logan?
“Excuse me?” Logan demands furiously, but Thomas ignores him.
“Don’t pay too much attention to him,” Matt suggests, “he’s having a bad night.”
I should have guessed that this afternoon’s version of Thomas would become just a fleeting memory. Matt waves at us and goes inside, while Thomas stops to finish his cigarette. He leans his back against the wall and crosses one leg over the other, looking right at me. Logan notices and takes me by the hand. I instinctively pull back but then, stung by guilt, I interlace my fingers with his.
“Nice legs, Ness. You should show ’em off more often.” Thomas winks at me, blowing out a lungful of smoke when I pass by him.
“I see you’re back to being a troglodyte,” I say acidly.
He shrugs and watches the cigarette smoke rise.
I start to go inside but Logan reaches out a hand to stop me.
“I’m curious, Thomas: How does it feel, wanting something that you can’t have?”
Oh my God. Why, Logan, why?
With one move, Thomas is on him. He stops short, just an inch from his face. “What did you say to me?” he growls through gritted teeth.
“Thomas, stop it,” I interject, trying to push them apart, but neither of them seems inclined to listen to me.
“You heard me,” replies Logan calmly, looking him right in the eye.
“Tell me.” Thomas slaps a hand to his chest and says in an almost imperceptible whisper, “What can’t I have?”
“Seems obvious to me,” Logan says defiantly, throwing a glance in my direction. “It’s why you hate me. It must be frustrating, huh?” My mouth drops open in astonishment, and I frown at him. What the hell is wrong with him? Thomas takes a deep breath, looking like he’s about to explode. And at the exact moment when I think he’s going to attack, he pauses, a sinister grin painted on his face. He looks at me for an interminable moment, and I silently beg him to remain calm.
Then he looks at Logan, clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and proclaims, “I could fuck her right now if I wanted to. Right here in front of you, just to show you how fucking wrong you are. You can fool her with that choirboy face, but not me. The truth is, you’re a fucking psychopath pretending to be a gentleman. You can fuck every waitress in the state of Oregon, but none of them will ever belong to you either,” he spits at Logan with such hatred that it leaves me horrified.
“The facts suggest otherwise,” retorts Logan with an icy calm that only stokes Thomas’s anger. Logan puts a hand on my waist and pulls me close to him.
What the…
I don’t have time to pull away before Thomas is grabbing him by the collar of his sweater and slamming him against the wall with unimaginable violence. He punches Logan square in the face, splitting his lip.
I gasp and clasp my hands over my mouth in fright. Before I can think twice, I put myself between the two of them. I close my eyes and cover my face with my hands, ready to absorb the next punch headed for Logan. But it doesn’t come. I uncover my face slowly, and I see Thomas’s arm raised a few inches from my face, his angry eyes boring into me. “Move,” he orders peremptorily. At that point, seized by an uncontrollable rush of adrenaline, I grab his leather jacket and push him back with all the strength I have. I don’t know how, but I actually manage to get him away from Logan. I am about to lash out at him with all the fury in my body, but then I freeze. His gaze is glassy, cold. Full of suffering. There is a gleam in his eye that is completely foreign to me. Matt’s right. Something is wrong tonight.
I press my hands to his chest in an attempt to calm him, but he pulls back wildly. “Thomas! What’s the matter with you?” I stare at him, alarmed.
“This asshole provokes me, and somehow I’m the problem?” he rants, gesturing at Logan behind us.
“You started it!”
Thomas’s breathing is labored as he begins to pace back and forth in an attempt to control the anger that seems to be devouring him from the inside out.
“You’re getting fucked behind a bar and expect me to be cool with it?”
“That’s not what I was doing!”
“Then what the fuck were you doing?”
I scrub my hand over my face and shake my head. “Thomas, I don’t know what is going on with you tonight, but you can’t just take your anger out on other people! Just because you and I are friends now, that doesn’t mean that what I do in my personal life is any of your business!” I burst out.
He looks like I’ve stuck a knife in his chest, and I almost feel guilty in the face of such suffering. Then, without another word, he walks away around the side of the bar, and I hear him go inside: the sound of a violently slammed door echoes across the parking lot.
Confused and disturbed, I turn to Logan. I am angry with him as well, but when I see his bleeding lip, I reach for him.
“Oh my God, I…I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” I lift his chin with my trembling fingers and he grimaces in pain.
“No. I’m not okay. He’s out of his mind, that guy.” He uses his thumb to wipe a dribble of blood from the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah, well, he…he’s not in a good headspace right now. And you were provoking him. Why did you do that?” I ask, distressed.
“Are you excusing him and blaming me? Let me remind you that I’m the one who got punched in the face!” he shouts, massaging his jaw with a surly look.
“Yes, I know. Sorry…” I lower my eyes, mortified. “I’m not excusing him, but this whole situation could have been avoided. Why did you have to goad him?”
“Because in case you didn’t notice, he was doing the same to me.” I fall silent. “Tell me the truth: What is going on between you two?”
Panic seizes my throat. My eyes grow wide. “Nothing.”
“But there was…wasn’t there?”
“No.” I stare at the asphalt underneath my feet.
“Vanessa…” he says, urging me to say more.
“It’s not a big deal, Logan.”
He tilts his head and lets out a frustrated sigh, sensing that this will be my only answer. He’s silent for a moment before asking, “Do you like him?”
“We’re friends.”
Logan purses his lips. “You have to be honest with me. It’s clear that he likes you, but I can accept that. I have to know, though, if you like him back. Because in that case, I’m just wasting my time.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I like him or not. What matters is that I could never be with someone like him. I already had a guy like that, one who didn’t respect me enough, and I learned my lesson. I want to feel good, Logan, and you make me feel good. You worry about me, you treat me with kindness. You hold doors open for me, and you even got me chocolates.” I smile. “Small things, but no one has ever done them for me before,” I admit in a whisper.
He moves a pigtail behind my shoulder and touches my cheek. “Okay, if you say Thomas is not a threat, then I believe you.” He kisses my lips gently, and I reciprocate.
“I want to be your boyfriend, Vanessa. I won’t force you to decide right now, but I am asking you to give me an answer when I come back to Corvallis, if you can.”
An answer…about us?
Suddenly, it feels like there’s a heavy weight on my chest and I struggle to breathe. I’m happy with Logan, but I don’t think I can feel for him what he feels for me. Fortunately, Maggie pops out of the back door and calls me back in, allowing me to put the subject on hold for a little while at least.
“Are you coming in too?” I ask.
“No, I have to get going.” He gives me a sincere smile. “Plus, Thomas is in there. Best not to poke the bear.” What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I not madly in love with this guy who looks at me like I’m a goddess?
“Okay then…see you when you get back?” I ask, a bit melancholy.
“You can bet on it. And I’ll call you. Frequently,” he smiles.
“And I will answer. Frequently. And don’t worry about Thomas.” We exchange a knowing look and kiss each other for the last time.
When I enter, I see that Thomas, Matt, and their group of friends have taken a table in my section. I curse under my breath and head over to take their order. “Please explain why all your customers are incredibly hot dudes while mine are all well north of forty and wearing dentures?” asks a particularly whiny Cassie when I return to the bar.
“We can switch, if you want,” I suggest as I start pouring two pints of beer for their table.
“What?” Her eyes light up.
“You’d be doing me a favor, actually. There’s a guy over there I really want to avoid.” Cassie looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. I slide the pints toward her, along with an order of chicken wings that just arrived from the kitchen. “Go ahead, these are for them.”
She adjusts her cleavage and, not needing to be asked twice, hurries over to their table.
An hour later, I am still working all my tables, except for number eleven. Thomas does nothing but stare at me and, every time I walk past him, I have to resist the urge to meet his eyes. I head to a table that is finally about to leave and exchange small talk with a guy not much older than me, implementing some of my tried-and-true tip-getting tactics. Before he leaves, the boy puts an arm around me and pulls me close to him, smiling up at me. He pulls some bills out of his wallet and wedges them between the band of my skirt and my skin. I gently move his hand from my hip before smiling at him and walking away.
I am about to pass table eleven, when a tattoo-covered hand grabs my wrist, sending a shiver along my spine.
“Stop.”
Frowning, I slowly lower my gaze to him. “I suggest you take your hand off me, otherwise you’ll have to deal with our bouncer, Sean. And, believe me, he doesn’t care if you’re here with the boss’s nephew. He will throw you out one by one,” I say, with deliberate emphasis.
Thomas raises an eyebrow, not remotely intimidated. “Come outside. I need to talk to you.”
“I can’t. I’m working.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Are you enjoying yourself?” he asks with a nasty grin, looking pointedly at the bills sticking out of the top of my skirt.
I roll my eyes. “They’re just tips. Stop acting like an overprotective big brother,” I snap in annoyance.
He purses his lips and tugs my wrist, forcing me to bend closer to him until my ear is near his mouth. In doing so, I cannot help but breathe in his masculine, sensual scent: vetiver, bodywash, and…Jack Daniel’s? Has he been drinking? How did I not notice? His lips are touching my skin; my stomach twists, and I employ every bit of willpower I have to keep myself from getting swept away by the tingling sensation underneath my skin.
“Big brother? Seriously?” He rasps.
“That’s what you’re acting like. Leave me alone, Thomas, you’ve done enough damage for one evening.” I straighten up and try to free myself, but he only tightens his grip.
“You’re still pissed off about earlier, aren’t you?”
“No, of course not. What would make you think so?” I answer with a sarcastic grimace. I can feel the discomfort radiating off of Matt and the other boys at the table.
Thomas loosens his grip on my wrist and runs a hand through his hair. “I talked a lot of shit, I know. But I was pissed.”
“And, as always, that seems to be reason enough for you to completely lose control,” I reply, pretending to be impassive. My response seems to irritate him because he releases my wrist entirely and lets me go.
“Do not tell me that the guy you’re avoiding is that giant hottie with all the muscles and tattoos?!” Cassie demands in a shrill voice when I join her behind the bar. I remind myself that murder is illegal in all fifty states.
“Bingo.”
“You’ve got to explain that one to me.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” I mutter.
“I just saw you two talking. One minute, I thought you were going to rip each other’s clothes off, the next minute, I thought you were going to start throwing hands. What are you two? Sworn enemies? Friends? Lovers who can only love each other under the covers and must hate each other in the light of day?” She titters.
I roll my eyes with a huff. “Friends, Cassie. Just friends.” With poor results, I might add.
“That is excellent news, because I’ve been daydreaming about biting his lips ever since he walked in here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a perfect body. I want to taste it. How about giving me his number, eh?”
“I don’t have it.”
Her eyes bulge in disbelief. “How is that possible?”
I shrug. “We never exchanged numbers. But, if you want it so much, just ask him. He’s only a few feet away.” Cassie raises her eyebrows and laughs as though I’ve said something ridiculous.
“Babe…” She pats my back with a red-nailed hand and gives me a big smile, as if I were a child to whom an elementary concept is being explained. “I can’t just ask him for his number. It’s the second most important rule of the dating code.”
I look at her, dumbfounded. “What are you talking about?”
“Never ask a guy for his number: if you do, he’ll know you’re into him and he’ll think he’s hooked you and then—poof!—he’ll suddenly lose all interest in you.”
I frown. “And the first rule would be…?” I ask, though I’m not at all sure I want to hear the answer.
“Don’t look at him. Ever.”
“But if you never look at him, how do you let him know you’re interested?” I ask, increasingly confused.
“Yes! That’s the trick. He shouldn’t know.”
How idiotic. I don’t have time to discover any more made-up rules because Maggie interrupts to tell us that her shift is over. That means in an hour Cassie will also be gone, thank God. And, finally, in just two more hours I can get out of this place. I’m exhausted.