Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Lou
Clay walks back into the bar forty-seven minutes later. The blonde—part of a bachelorette party staying at Aurora Luxury Resort for the weekend—isn’t with him.
My brain, being the shitty dumpster that it is, imagines her slumped blissfully in the backseat of his car, her skin flushed from exertion and pleasure but still pretty.
His blond hair, typically perfectly imperfect, looks like he’s been running a hand through it. Or maybe it was her hands that messed it up. His shirt was already a bit wrinkled. Is it more wrinkled? I can’t tell. There’s nothing obvious like lipstick on his neck.
The only conclusive evidence about what they’ve been doing for the last forty-seven minutes is that he seems to have gotten his shit together. He looks comfortable. Relaxed.
Like he got off.
The high I’d been riding from turning him from a cocky, over-experienced asshole into a man who didn’t know what hit him has been slowly evaporating since he left with her. When he slips behind the bar and grins at me, the last of it fizzles out.
I had him too distracted to iron his clothes.
Hiding in the office or upstairs while I reorganized the speed rail with impunity and moved all the glassware around.
I had him bussing tables, refilling waters, and even washing dishes in the kitchen, when up until now, he’s treated the bar like it’s his personal kingdom, and everything on the other side is for the peons.
I took him apart. She put him back together. I don’t like how I feel about that. It wasn’t a job I wanted.
So what do I want?
I don’t think I like my answer.
And now I’m a disaster, messing up drink orders and getting snappish with customers, unable to stop wondering if he took her in through the side door and she’s upstairs now, waiting in his bed for closing time.
I slip out of the bar and down the hallway, glaring at the door to the apartment before ducking into the office. He won’t let me be up there unsupervised, so I doubt he’ll let someone he just met up there. I’m overreacting.
I drop my hands onto my desk, hang my head, and focus on breathing.
He’s not mine, and I don’t want him. Not for anything outside of sex anyway. I didn’t care about Kristen, so why do I care about this woman?
I don’t. This is only getting to me because my life has gone to shit, and I just lost the one win I’d been celebrating.
The office door opens.
“Ah, Louisa,” Clay says, sounding chipper. “Are we having an existential crisis?”
My entire body goes rigid. I’m this close to tackling him and forcing him to eat my damn shoe. But instead, I straighten. Toss my hair over my shoulder and saunter up to him. Nice and close. Close enough to hear the hitch in his breath. Close enough to see his pupils dilate.
Close enough to smell his cologne. Only his cologne. Not a whiff of a stranger’s perfume. Not the slightest scent of sex or exertion.
“I’m good,” I say, walking away. I hate that knowing he probably didn’t fuck her while I was working makes me feel better. I shouldn’t care.
Briar looks up as I slide behind the bar. “Everything okay?” she asks.
“I don’t know what his problem is,” I say, choosing to conveniently forget that I was the one with the problem two minutes ago.
“Oh, I know what his problem is,” Briar says with a laugh.
She’s warmed up to me over the last few days.
We’ve even ganged up on Clay once or twice.
It’s been fun. I like her. She doesn’t complain every time I put the bar back to how it used to be.
She adapts. “He scuffed one of those pretty shoes of his.”
I gasp. “Not the Italian leather!”
“My problem,” Clay says, joining us behind the bar, “is finding good staff.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” I say.
“Definitely not,” Briar adds, heading toward the kitchen.
There’s a momentary lull, so I watch Clay as he slices another lemon. He is more relaxed than he was before, but the blonde didn’t put him back together. He’s just hiding it better.
“Why are you staring at me, Ms. Gallo?” he asks. He doesn’t look at me as he gathers up the sections of lemon to put in the empty garnish bucket, but I’m standing in his peripheral vision.
“Just thinking about that sauna,” I say.
The lemon slices slip from his fingers and drop back onto the cutting board.
He swears, gathers them up again, and dumps them into the bucket.
Oh yeah. Definitely still in pieces.
I’m already smiling as Keith sidles up to the bar.
He grins at me, ignoring Clay. “Hey, Lou.”
“Hey, yourself,” I say, grabbing a glass and pouring his usual draft beer.
Keith rests his elbows on the bar and leans in. “What do you say to a drink with me after you close?”
We’ve always had something of a flirty relationship, but Keith is one of those rare men who draws a line at cheating, and the times he’s been single, I’ve been with someone, and vice versa.
He’s attractive in a rugged, careless way that I usually like.
Five minutes ago, I might have been tempted to drag him outside for a quick bang in his truck to forget my hurt feelings.
But not now.
I glance at Clay because he’s encroaching on my personal space to pull a beer from the tap. He doesn’t look at me or acknowledge me, but I’d wager he’s paying as much attention as Keith is.
My trust in others has been shot to hell, and honestly, the only person I’m interested in is standing right next to me, scowling at the foamy head of the beer he fucked up the pour on.
“Sorry, Keith,” I say. “Not really looking for anything at the moment.”
Keith shrugs the rejection off with a grin. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
I can blame a guy for avoiding me, because that’s exactly what happens for the rest of the night with Clay. He goes back to bussing tables.
Last call comes, and a few stragglers are finishing their beers, when I finally notice Milo sitting by himself in the back corner. I glance at Briar. Something felt off about her for the last hour or so, but I couldn’t put a finger on it—a sort of hyperawareness bordering on jittery.
With a sigh, I round the bar and head for his table.
“Why are you here?” I ask, hand on my hip. If he suggests we spend the night together, I will murder him with my bare hands. Our benefits have permanently ended, and I’d rather have Briar’s friendship than meaningless sex. And if he’s here to harass Briar—again, murder with my bare hands.
Milo doesn’t quite manage to not look Briar’s way before pushing his phone toward me. When he glares at someone behind me, I turn to find Clay at a nearby table. He immediately goes back to wiping it down. With a roll of my eyes, I pick up Milo’s phone.
There’s a message on the screen from Gina: Hayden’s back. Tell Lou.
“Dawn saw Hayden’s truck in Pine Point yesterday,” Milo says in a low voice, summing up Gina’s second message.
My vision swims a little, and I grab the table to steady myself.
He’s back?
My eyelid twitches. It hasn’t done that in at least a week. “Got bail money?”
Milo’s gaze had been drifting toward Briar. Now it snaps back to me. “Better. Got places to bury a body.”
I won’t murder Hayden, and Milo won’t help me dispose of a body, but a girl can fantasize. “Thanks.” I manage to find a smile somewhere and motion to the empty beer glass on his table. “Want a drink? On the house, of course.”
“I’m good.” He stands up. “Thought I’d see if Briar wants a ride home. You okay?”
No. “Yeah.” I motion toward Briar at the bar, and Milo heads off in her direction.
I drop into Milo’s seat and stare at the space above the kitchen door where my good luck cornicello used to hang on the still-missing longhorn skull.
Fuck.
Hayden is back.
Can I hear the vein throbbing at my temple? Sure feels like it.
Milo leaves, and Briar follows a few minutes later.
The stragglers—four Pine Point guys—stand and stretch and head for the door, talking and laughing, and once they're gone, the silence becomes oppressive.
I push to my feet and head back behind the bar, all too aware of Clay bussing their table, his back to me.
“Want a drink?” I ask him as I pour myself a bourbon.
“No.” He doesn’t look at me as he gathers up empty beer glasses in one hand, wiping down the table with the cloth in the other.
I sag in disappointment. The news that Hayden’s back made me forget for a moment that Clay disappeared for nearly an hour after following the pretty blonde outside.
He might not have fucked her then, but that doesn’t mean he won’t.
I lift the glass to my lips, welcoming the burn. “You’ve got plans?”
One shoulder ticks up in a shrug.
“Prospective client? Or hook-up?”
He finishes wiping down the table and brings the glasses to me at the bar, a scowl on his face. “What are you talking about?”
“You left with someone.”
His honey brown eyes regard me for a long moment. Too long. I shift from one foot to another, then reach for a cloth to wipe down the bar.
“Jealous, Ms. Gallo?” he asks in a soft voice.
I force a laugh, ready to act like I have zero interest in him or that he wouldn’t be good enough to be worth my time, but my laugh dies prematurely. He’d recognize either lie.
He walks to the farthest table and flips the chairs onto the top. “Not that it’s any of your business, Ms. Gallo, but we weren’t fucking. She had a flat car battery.”
I snort. “It took you an hour”—I’m rounding up—“to jump her car?”
“I didn’t do it. Your lumberjack friend happened to walk by, and I asked him to help her.”
“So what were you doing?”
“Sitting.”
“Sitting?” I ask, unsure if I heard him correctly.
“Yes, Ms. Gallo. I was sitting.”
I take a long drink of bourbon simply because I don’t know how to respond to that.
He was just sitting? Alone in the dark? Related to his existential crisis, or something else?
I can’t think of a good way to ask, and anyway, I doubt he’ll tell me.
“Well, my ex is back,” I say conversationally as I lift the glass to my lips again.
“Foolish of him.”
I tip the drink back, and it burns so sweetly, but I’m the one feeling foolish. That feeling doesn’t diminish as I put the bar back in order for tomorrow. Clay finishes wiping down tables and flipping chairs, then disappears without saying goodnight, without offering to walk me to the camper.