Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
“W ho wants a fresh cricket?”
Millie popped open the top of the small tank she’d bought last time she visited the local pet store. Half a dozen crickets sat among the leaves and rocks, chirping away. She quickly scooped one up in her bug catcher and replaced the lid. Trisha had been right. Mel’s brother had given her a great deal not only on crickets, but he set her up with a place to keep them so she could give Franklin a delicious cricket treat every day without coming back to the store.
Moving over to her gecko’s tank, she lifted the lid and lowered the catcher in. With a skilled speed she opened the catcher and plopped the cricket down before quickly replacing the top of Franklin’s tank. Her baby sat on his rock, aware of the prey in his home, but not moving. Not yet. She turned her back, allowing Franklin his privacy to hunt. While she loved her gecko and wanted to properly take care of him, it didn’t mean she enjoyed watching him eat live bugs.
Some people might like watching animals eat live prey. Millie never understood that. She knew about the food chain, circle of life and all that. She was a meat eater herself, but she took no pleasure in the thrill of the hunt or whatever people called it. Creatures had to eat and sometimes they ate other creatures. That was life.
The sound of crunching reached her ears, letting her know it was safe to turn around. She faced the tank again to see Franklin gulping down the cricket. Her stomach turned at the sight.
“I love you, baby, but I will never get used to that.”
Her gecko lifted his head toward his sunlamp. His little mouth in that ever-present curve. She swore he was smiling a thank you.
“You’re welcome,” she cooed at him. “I hope you enjoyed your treat because I have to work a long shift tonight and won’t be home until later.”
Much later as Ace had invited her over to his place after her shift tonight.
A shiver of anticipation ran up her spine at the thought of all the deliciously naughty things she wanted to do with him tonight sprang up in her mind. As she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, she glanced into the small round mirror she’d hung by her door. The smile etched on her face felt like a permanent expression these days.
It had been almost two weeks since she and Ace risked the health code violations in the back of Jacks. Nearly every night since they’d snuck back to his place whenever they had a chance. The man had stamina for days. Millie considered herself in pretty good shape with her aerial training, but even she felt rung out after their hookup sessions. It was amazing and awful at the same time because she had no one here she could talk to about Ace.
She needed to call her friend Lucky and have a gab session. He was on tour with a small traveling circus, but they called to catch up about once a month. They always loved dishing out details on the people they were dating. Wait…were she and Ace dating? They were sleeping together and not seeing anyone else. Sounded a lot like dating to her. On the flip side, they were keeping it a secret because of the whole spying at work thing.
Ugh! This was more complicated than she thought. Or maybe she was just making it that way. Did they really need to label it? The whole “what are we” thing was annoying. They’d set out rules to follow and they were having fun. Why put a name on it?
Especially when I can’t tell anyone about it.
Her smile slipped at the reminder.
A small beep from her phone let her know she had ten minutes until her shift. Good thing the apartment she was renting was a five-minute drive. She grabbed her light jacket and keys, blowing a kiss to Franklin as she headed out the door. The spring day was sunny with a touch of chill in the air. She couldn’t wait until summer when she could walk to Jacks.
She paused as she unlocked her car. Would she still be at Jacks in the summer? If she found the thief and Ace paid her, she’d have all the cash she needed to open her studio. Might be a good idea to keep her serving job until the studio got out of the red. Who knew how long that would take. Starting a business was a risky venture, especially one as niche as a circus arts studio.
Millie slipped into her car and slid the key into the ignition, turning the vehicle on. The rumble of the engine vibrated her seat. As she drove to work, she pondered this morose feeling in the pit of her stomach. The one that arrived the second she thought about leaving Jacks. Silly. She’d worked a ton of jobs over the years. While she missed some of them, the fun coworkers, the kind customers, she’d always been excited about her new adventure.
So why was she lamenting leaving Jacks?
It wasn’t like she would be leaving town. She planned to take root here. Start up her dream. She’d see Kelley and Trisha and everyone else. Maybe not as frequently, but it was a small town. She’d see them around.
What about Ace?
Oh no. Was that why she was suddenly mopey? Over a guy? That was ridiculous. Millie did not get moony over a man. Besides, when she did leave Jacks her days of spying would be over so she and Ace could stop sneaking around and have a relationship in public. Though, she had to admit the sneaking around part was fun. Added an air of naughtiness to their lovemaking.
She pulled into the back lot at Jacks, telling her overworked mind to take a break. She didn’t need to worry about relationships or any of that stuff right now. All she had to focus on was doing her job. And finding out who was stealing from Jacks.
She opened the back door of the distillery making her way inside. As she passed the back office, Charlie came out with a laptop in hand, nearly bumping into her. She sidestepped the other woman with the efficacy of years of avoiding stumbling drunks on a late-night shift.
“Oh shit!” Charlie cursed. “Sorry, Millie. This new invoice system Penny convinced me to try is a freaking nightmare. She promised me it would make everything streamlined, but now I’m wondering if she’s getting back at me for giving Tilly whipped cream last time I babysat.”
Tilly was the sweetest baby on the planet. The girl was just starting to walk and loved trying to climb up the bar stools. It gave Millie an idea to have a parent tot tumbling class when she opened her studio. Those things always filled up fast. A lot of kids took to circus arts like fish to water. Plus, it was great exercise for parent and kiddo.
“I don’t think Penny would do that,” Millie said with a smile. She’d only met the woman a few times, but she was as sweet as her daughter. She doubted Penny had a vindictive bone in her body.
“You’re right,” Charlie sighed. “I just stink with learning new operating systems. I need to go call Penny, excuse me.”
Millie waved, heading up to the front of the bar to start her shift. Trisha and Brad were already there, starting prep work.
“Is Kelley not working today?” she asked, looking around.
Brad shook his head. “She called out sick. Got food poisoning. Del’s coming in to cover her shift.”
“Oh no, I hope she feels better soon.” Food poisoning was no joke. Millie had some bad tuna in Seattle once and spent a full eight hours hugging her toilet.
“Me too.” Brad leaned forward, his voice lowering. “But I’m more worried about her girlfriend.”
“Her girlfriend? Why?”
“Kelley got sick from eating her food. Jessa opened a food truck, and it hasn’t been doing very well. She’s gotten a bunch of bad reviews for the food making people sick. She failed her last health inspection and is losing money hand over fist. Kelley is doing her best to help, but the business is not looking good.”
That sucked. Millie knew plenty about how hard it was to start a business. Fifty percent failed in the first year. She’d done a ton of research for her own future business. Sometimes you worked as hard as you could and still failed. Her heart went out to Jessa.
In the back of her brain, she locked away the information she’d just learned. Kelley was trying to help her girlfriend’s failing business. Would she go so far as to steal money from her own place of work to give it to Jessa?
Cramps twisted her stomach. Millie hated thinking about her coworkers like this. She considered most of them friends and friends didn’t suspect each other of such awful things. But she had a job to do. She locked this information away to tell Ace later tonight. She didn’t believe that Kelley, who had worked for the Jacksons for so long, would do this. But she had to report everything she heard. Damn Ace for making her do this.
“I just hope Kelley doesn’t have to go to the hospital,” Trisha said, slicing a lemon into quarters. “It’s a fucking joke what they charge just to step through the door these days. I mean, I’m grateful we have a bit of health insurance, but it’s still a nightmare to go to the doctor.”
That was true. Jacks was unique in that it gave health insurance to all its employees. Not the best coverage, but it was more than any other serving jobs she’d had. And she’d had to visit the doctors many times over the years for various aerial injuries. Thankfully she’d never had anything as expensive as a surgery or she’d be in debt until she died.
“She said it wasn’t too bad, but she didn’t want to risk puking on shift,” Brad said.
Yeah, Millie didn’t want her to risk that either. She was a sympathetic puker. If she heard retching, she found herself losing her lunch too.
“I’m gonna go grab more ice,” Brad said, heading toward the back. “Del said he’d be here in about twenty.”
“Thank goodness Del is filling in and not Ace,” Trisha said.
Millie grabbed a stack of coasters and headed out to the main area, placing the round cardboard discs with Jacks logo on them on the tables.
“Why do you say that? Is Ace not a good bartender?” She hadn’t worked with either man as a bartender since she started here, but she knew Del used to be the full-time bartender.
“He’s fine at making drinks,” Trisha answered, finishing off the lemons and switching to cutting limes. “But he spends the entire night scowling at everyone. Tips suck on Ace nights.”
Now that she could believe.
“He’s such a grouch.”
“I don’t know about that,” she mused. “Sure, he’s a grump, but once you get past that outer shell, he's really very sweet.”
Silence filled the bar. Millie turned to see Trisha with a look of shock on her face. The hand holding the knife poised above the green fruit as if the woman was a statue.
“What?”
“Are you defending Ace?” Trisha asked, placing the knife on the cutting board as her eyes widened. “Wait, are you sleeping with Ace?”
“What!” Mille waved a hand in the air, moving over to another table to place coasters down so she wouldn’t have to look Trisha in the eyes. After all, as she found out at poker night, she was a terrible bluffer. “No. Why would you even think that?”
“Because last time we talked about Ace you agreed he was an ass.”
She glanced back up at Trisha with a frown. “I did not.”
Trisha raised one eyebrow.
“Okay, fine, maybe I did, but…I played poker with him, with all the Jacksons,” she rushed to clarify. “And he wasn’t that bad. He even let me do a Tarot reading for him.”
Let, ha! More like forced into it by his siblings.
Trisha laughed in disbelief. “Really? Ace Jackson enjoyed a Tarot reading?”
“I didn’t say he enjoyed it…tolerated it would be a better word.”
He didn’t really do that either, but Trisha didn’t need to know that. Millie just had to cover her mistake so no one suspected she was sleeping with the boss.
Trisha’s face morphed into a grin. “Did he complain about it?”
Millie let out a sigh of relief as the other woman latched onto the story instead of her earlier speculation. “He hated it.”
She laughed along with her coworker; grateful the moment of speculation had passed. She needed to be careful. Millie had to remember to treat Ace the same way she had before they started sleeping together or people might get suspicious. Then she’d never find the thief, never get her money, and her dream would be in jeopardy just like Jessa’s food truck.