Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
“H ey Trisha, do you know where I can find some crickets?” Millie asked.
Her coworker paused the bar prep she was doing and looked down at Millie’s hands which held bins of maraschino cherries and green olives.
“Crickets? Like to eat?”
Kelley lifted the knife she was using to slice lemons and pointed it at Millie. “Sweets, you know I’m a fan of the new cocktails you’ve come up with over the past few weeks, but I draw the line at anything bug related. I know that bar up in Boulder has the worm shot, but that’s Boulder. They’re a different breed.”
She laughed, realizing how out of the blue her question had sounded. “They’re not for a drink,” she assured her coworkers. “They’re for my gecko.”
Kelley’s eyes widened as an excited smile lit her face. “You have a gecko? That’s so cool!”
“My brother had a water dragon when we were kids,” Trisha said with a shiver. “He was so creepy. Shed his scaly skin everywhere because he was some kind of escape artist. I used to find him all over the house. Once I even found him in the tampon basket in the bathroom.”
“My gecko is too lazy to escape,” Millie said. “He’s a diva who loves his sun rock and gorging himself on food.”
Kelley sighed, “I’ve always wanted a reptile, but my girlfriend is terrified of them, so we got a cat. And before anyone mentions it, yes, I know I’m living a cliché, but Ms. Powder Paws is pretty cute.”
“Powder Paws?” Millie chuckled at the name.
Kelley finished slicing the lemons and scooped them into a bin, grabbing the basket of limes and pouring them on the cutting board. “Yeah, because she is all black with these cute white little paws. Like fresh powdered snow. Ms. Powder Paws.”
Okay she could see that as a logical name. “Makes sense.”
“What’s your gecko’s name?” Kelley asked.
“Franklin.”
The bartender frowned. “Franklin?” What kind of name is that for a gecko?”
Trisha nodded in agreement. “I’ve always found it strange when people give pets human names. It makes for some very confusing situations. I once went on a date with a guy who had a dog named Sue. He spent the first part of the date going on and on about how much he loved Sue and how pretty she was, without mentioning she was his dog.”
“Oh no.” Millie knew where this story was headed, but she leaned closer to hear Trisha as the woman continued.
“Yup.” Trisha nodded. “Fifteen minutes in I was convinced he had this wonderful girlfriend back home and wanted me to be his side piece. Made him sound like a huge jerk. I nearly threw my drink in his face until he brought out his phone and showed me a picture of a golden retriever who, admittedly, was very beautiful.”
“Men are idiots,” Kelley said, slicing into a fresh lime. “I don’t know how you two put up with them.”
Millie knew from experience that women could be just as big of idiots as men. Humans were not always the smartest no matter what gender they identified as.
“They have their uses,” Trisha said with a small giggle. “But back to your question about crickets, Millie, Mel’s brother owns a pet shop on the other side of town.”
“Mel,” Millie frowned as she tried to think of the person Trisha was talking about. “Have I met Mel yet?”
Jacks had a limited number of employees, but between the restaurant and the bar and all the shifts, she hadn’t met everyone.
“He’s the sous chef over at the restaurant. Tall Black guy. Not the short white guy, that’s Jeremy, the head chef,” Kelley answered.
That explained it. She hadn’t worked at the restaurant side of Jacks yet.
“I think he’s on shift tonight,” Kelley continued. “I’ll do an intro when he gets in, bet he’ll give you a discount on the crickets.”
“Oh no.” She waved a hand in the air. “I didn’t mean to impose like that. I just wanted to know where to get some—”
“No worries, Mel’s brother hooks us all up with discounted pet food. And we give him a deal on his drinks. Win win.”
Wow. She’d never lived in such a tight knit community before. Traveling around with circus shows the cast and crew always had your back, but they were outsiders wherever they went. She had to admit, it felt nice to be part of a community again.
“Tell me more about everyone who works at the restaurant side. I feel like besides you two I barely know anyone.”
Millie spent the next twenty minutes listening to Kelley and Trisha talk while they prepped for open. She leaned against the bar, drying glasses and stacking them on the shelves as Kelley told her all about her promotion to head bartender when the restaurant opened.
Trisha was newer to Jacks, but she’d been there long enough to know the ins and outs of the staff at the restaurant considering she split her shifts between there and the bar. She also loved to gossip and somehow knew everyone’s business. Millie had no doubt that by the end of the week everyone working at Jacks would know about her pet gecko who liked crickets. That was fine. She never shared more than she was comfortable with people. Plus, Trisha’s willingness to share worked perfectly for her ulterior motive.
Spying for Ace.
Her stomach soured. She hated being deceitful. Even something as small as information gathering. It didn’t feel right. It was disingenuous and she hated it, but she needed that money. Besides, whoever was stealing from the Jackson’s was in the wrong. Not her. She was simply trying to find out who the thief was. Maybe she’d get lucky, and it would turn out this was all just a big misunderstanding. The money had been logged in wrong or something. She hated to think badly of anyone.
“And the Jackson’s hired her right on the spot, not even worried about the fact that she’d never worked outside the home and had zero restaurant skills,” Trisha said with a beaming smile, relaying the background on Bertie the elderly woman who came in once a week to do restaurant inventory.
According to Trisha, Bertie had been married for thirty years when her husband passed away. They had no children, and Bertie had become lonely spending all day in an empty house. When she mentioned it—and her struggling bank account as her late husband’s life insurance ran dry—at her weekly poker game, The Jackson siblings stepped in and offered her a job.
“They really are an amazing family,” Kelley agreed. “But I still make a better mojito than Del.”
Millie laughed, betting that was true. She’d had one of Kelley’s mojitos and they were phenomenal.
“And unfairly good looking too,” Trisha said with a small frown. “I mean, seriously, they all look like they could be models. It just isn’t fair. How did they all get the good genes? I know I got my mom’s long legs, but my sister got her shiny hair. It doesn’t feel right that every single Jackson is a hottie with a capital H.”
Millie had to agree. The Jackson family were a good-looking bunch.
“Not many of them are single anymore.” Kelley said, wiping down the counter as she set the cutting board in the small sink beneath the bar.
“That’s true,” Trisha frowned. “Only Ace is single now.”
Millie snorted. “Gee I wonder why.”
Trish tilted her head, brow furrowing. “You don’t think Ace is hot?”
“Objectively he’s attractive,” she conceded. “But he’s also a grump who needs to pull the stick out of his ass and learn to relax a little.”
Kelley burst out laughing. “Please let me be in the room when you say that to his face.”
“So you wouldn’t hook up with him?” Trisha asked with a twinkle in her eye. “No one- night ‘throw all caution to the wind’ type situation? Because most of us working here have had dreams about that man and I gotta tell you if I was single and he wasn’t my boss I’d be tempted.”
Kelley and Trisha stood together, staring at her with expectant expressions. The sourness of her earlier deception left her stomach. Happy to be talking for real with these two, no ulterior motives, she shook her head and answered truthfully.
“ If he wasn’t my boss…maybe.”
“Maybe?” Kelley asked, arching one eyebrow skeptically.
“Okay fine.” She threw her hands up in the air. “Ace is a hottie with a capital H and seven t’s. I would slam him down on this bar, rip his clothes off, and ride that man like a pony and I’m positive neither of us would be walking right for a week.”
Trisha’s eyes widened as a softly muttered curse left her lips. Wow, she didn’t think her description was that vulgar. Honestly it was tame considering what she thought about doing to Ace in her head. Then she noticed Kelley’s eyes widen too as she placed a hand over her mouth to cover a laugh.
Oh no.
A sinking sense of dread filled the pit of Millie’s stomach. It couldn’t be. It was too cliché. There was no way what she thought was true. None. She might just die of embarrassment if it was.
Staring at her coworkers, she lowered her voice and asked the question she hoped wasn’t true. “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”
Both Kelley and Trisha nodded.
Fuuuuuuuck!
“Millie,” Ace’s deep voice boomed from behind her filled with irritation. “A word in my office, please.”
She sighed, wishing she could erase the past five minutes of conversation. But life didn’t work that way and now she had to go talk to her boss about why she was sharing sex fantasies about him with her coworkers.
She should have called in sick.