Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
SERENITY
But the cash in my apron was steadily growing fatter by the minute, meaning I’d probably be able to buy those incredible strappy heels I spotted in the window at a local boutique sooner than anticipated.
Silver lining.
The energy in the bar was electric, dosing me with a much-needed burst of adrenaline every few minutes.
The music was pumping, the band was killing it.
But the main thing that kept me going was the fact that every table I stopped at held a familiar face that didn’t hesitate to offer a greeting, like I was a long-time friend.
Ralph and Sally Hanson, the couple who ran Evergreen diner, chatted with me for a quick minute after I’d taken their order, insisting that I come in soon for lunch.
Joe Silvester, the kindly, weathered man somewhere in his seventies or eighties had taken a beat to flirt with me as I delivered him another pint.
I was quickly becoming engrained in the fabric of Hope Valley.
And it felt incredible. I loved my family like crazy, don’t get me wrong.
But it was nice to have people outside of that circle.
It was nice to be looked at without judgement.
I finally felt like I belonged, and I couldn’t find the words to describe how that felt
The only person who wasn’t friendly was a woman by the name of Sue Ellen Mayfield, but I’d been warned about her before my very first shift.
According to rumor, she was just an all-around miserable person who tried to lift herself up by picking apart everyone around her.
From what I could gather, she wasn’t a town favorite, but that hadn’t stopped her from acting like her shit didn’t stink.
I’d had a couple run-ins with her already, and she hadn’t failed to show her claws. It had to suck, leading such a miserable life. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. She was just too horrible of a person to garner my sympathy.
“Here you go, Mitch,” I said as I placed an IPA in front of the old man. He was sitting with Joe and a couple of other guys. Apparently, they played cards together on a regular basis and ran as a pack. All I knew was they were sweet as hell, unrepentant flirts, and tipped well.
“You’re an angel, Sere girl,” Mitch said with a smile, the lines on his face carving even deeper as he gave me a wonky smile that creased his papery cheeks. “If I was just half a decade younger.”
I placed my hand on his knobby shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “If you were half a decade younger, I don’t think I’d survive you.”
The table broke out into hoots of laughter, and I bent to place a kiss on Mitch’s shiny bald head before moving off to check the rest of my tables.
Movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I turned to find my sister’s arm in the air, waving wildly to get my attention.
My face stretched into a wide smile, and I started in her direction as I scanned her table.
Of course, West was there, but so was Bryce Dixon, another AO hottie, and his lovely wife, Tessa.
Lincoln Sheppard, Stella’s new boss, and his wife, Eden, an adorable doe-eyed woman with the thickest, most beautiful hair I’d ever seen, were there too, as well as Marco Castillo and his wife, Gypsy.
The last couple circling the table was Sage and Xander Caine.
Sage worked at Alpha Omega as well. That was where she’d met the mountain of a man she eventually married.
If I thought Hunter was the strong, silent type, he had nothing on Xander.
With his size, his hard features, and damn near constant silence, he might have been downright scary.
But I’d seen the way he looked at his wife like she hung the moon.
I’d also seen how the tiny sprite of a woman fought with him when she was feeling feisty.
Any man who could handle a spitfire like Sage was all right in my book.
If the Alpha Omega crew was in tonight, that meant Cord was there as well, probably at the bar, hitting on his wife.
I chanced a quick glance to the bar, and sure enough, he was planted on a barstool, leaned over with his hand at the base of Rory’s neck so he could pull her closer for a kiss.
I’d met them all here and there, and I’d come to like each and every one of them.
Then my eyes reached the end of the table.
And there he was. Rounding out the group was none other than Hunter McCann.
A thrill shot through my veins at the sight of him, but I quickly tamped it down.
He’d made it perfectly clear how he felt—or didn’t feel, to be precise—about me, and as much as it stung, I’d been determined to move past it.
After a week and a half of him avoiding me like I was Typhoid Mary, we’d reached a somewhat reluctant truce earlier that morning. Friendship wasn’t exactly what I’d been hoping for, but I’d made my move and lost. My pride was still stinging, but I had to move on.
Friendship was better than nothing, right?
Or at least that was what I kept telling myself. There was still that insane draw I felt to him, like a tether that kept us cinched together somehow. I couldn’t bring myself to ignore it, which was why I’d felt the need to lead us to a common ground we could both be okay with.
For some strange reason, I felt like there was a reason we were in each other’s lives. That something stronger had a hand in us meeting.
Stella hopped up the moment I reached the table and wrapped me in a hug that I quickly returned.
“I didn’t know you were coming in. If you’d told me I would have held a table for you guys closer to the stage.”
She waved me off. “We wanted to sit in your section. Besides, it was last minute. Hunter said he was coming in for a beer, then I remembered there was a band tonight.”
I looked back to Hunter. When I’d issued my challenge at Muffin Top earlier, I hadn’t thought he’d actually bite, but here he was.
Like the heat in my blood, I pushed that thought down.
Being here didn’t mean anything other than he was taking our attempt at friendship seriously.
If he could do it, so could I. I wasn’t going to be that woman who read into every tiny little thing until I turned it into something it wasn’t.
He’d made his position clear, and I was determined to take him at his word, no matter what.
I dipped my chin to him in silent acknowledgment before the rest of the table. “Well, if you’re in my section, you better tip well. I’ve been eyeing a pair of stilettos in a shop window off Main, and tonight is the night I make them mine,” I teased, drawing a laugh from most everyone.
“Ooh! The ones at Glitter and Gold?” Sage asked with a little hop in her seat.
“I’ve seen those. You’ve got great taste, babe.
That place is awesome. That’s where I got these.
” She extended a leg out from under the table to show me the pair of gray studded ankle boots she was rocking.
They were killer, and I wanted them instantly.
“I love those!”
She twirled her foot in a circle before dancing it from side to side. “Right? They’re the best. You get those heels in the window and we can trade off now and then.”
Man, but the people in this town were awesome! “Deal,” I agreed, then I got down to business, because I needed those tips more than ever. “What can I start you guys off with?”
I scribbled their orders down on my notepad and headed for the bar where Rory and Cord were still going at it like they were teenagers, not a married couple with a teenager who should have grown sick of each other long before now.
“Think you two can quit sucking face long enough to fill this order? I’ve got tips to earn.” I waggled my eyebrows when they broke apart to look at me. “Momma needs a new pair of shoes. Literally. If I don’t get them, I’ll throw a conniption to end all conniptions.”
Cord let out a pained groan as Rory giggled and move from him to take my ticket. “I’m on it.”
I shot Cord a wink in response to the playful glare he was throwing me. “Oh relax. You already know she’s going home with you. She’s a sure thing.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said with a smirk before lifting his pint of Guinness to me in salute and heading over to the table I’d just left to join the rest of his crew for a bit.
I turned from him to scan my section as I waited for my drinks, mentally taking note of who I needed to check next, which tables to clear, and who needed refills, when I felt someone move up beside me.
“Hey gorgeous. Buy you a drink?”
I looked over to a man who’d pushed his way through the crowd to sidle up into my personal space.
I gave the man a small grin that probably looked just as forced as it felt.
“Sorry, pal. I’m on the clock.” I pointed to my name tag and the T-shirt that read, “I Make an Art of Tapping That.” Those tees were just one of the many reasons I loved working here.
Each one said something different, all dripping with sexual innuendo and funny as hell.
The guy crowding me against the bar looked at me in a way that made my skin crawl. His grin was one I’d seen far too often in my other life, one that said he was an entitled prick who didn’t know how to quit while he was ahead.
“Then how about you take your fifteen-minute break, we go out back, and I show you a good time?”
I looked him up and down, my expression flat. “But then what am I supposed to do with the remaining eleven minutes?”
His chin jerked back in bewilderment. He hadn’t been expecting that, and if I didn’t think he’d read into it the wrong way, I would have smiled at my win.
Before he could figure out what to say next, I put him out of his misery.
“I’m not interested. Not sure there’s a woman in this place who would be with a proposition like that.
Work on your game and try it on someone else.
But I suggest you don’t come right out of the gate trying to get in their pants. ”
Rory’s timing was impeccable. She plunked my drinks down on the bar in front of me, and I quickly loaded them on the tray without giving the asshole another look or thought.
With the tray balanced on one hand, I moved through the throng of people until I hit Stella’s table. I passed out drinks and was about to move on when a hand on my wrist stopped me.
Tiny sparks of electricity lit beneath my skin like miniature lightning bolts, traveling up my arm and expanding in my chest as I looked down to where Hunter was touching me, holding my in place.
I slowly exhaled as I lifted my gaze to his. His brow was creased in a deep frown as he asked, “You okay?”
My head tilted to the side in confusion. “Of course. Why?”
“That guy at the bar. The one who was in your face. It looked like he was bothering you.”
I sucked in such a big breath my lungs threatened to burst like balloons. I let it out slowly, silently willing the squealing voice inside my head to shut the hell up. It wanted to believe Hunter had been watching me close enough to notice that guy meant something more than it really did.
He hadn’t been watching me, I told myself. He wasn’t tracking my every move. Odds were, he’d looked around the bar and just happened to catch the scene as it played out. That was all.
I pulled my wrist from his grip, my skin, once heated, suddenly going cold at his lack of touch. I waved him off like it was nothing. “Oh, that was no big deal. I’m used to it. It’s nothing.”
He didn’t look any happier or reassured. “Not something you should have to get used to, Wildcat,” he grunted.
Oh, if only that were true. It was something that he, as a man, would never understand.
“Sadly, it comes with being a woman. You’re right, I shouldn’t have to get used to it, but until society somehow teaches all the pigs and assholes out there to treat women with the respect we’re owed, we have to deal with shit like this on a regular basis. ”
My comment only seemed to make him unhappier, and the way his eyes traveled back toward the bar to where the man from earlier still stood, nursing his drink, sent a shiver down my spine.
“I don’t know what that look on your face means, but I don’t like it,” I said in a warning tone. Leaning down, I lowered my voice. “Whatever you’re thinking, Hunter McCann, knock it off. Starting a bar brawl isn’t going to do anyone any favors.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but eventually pulled in a deep breath and nodded in agreement.
The relief I felt at dodging that bullet was short-lived, however, because a second later, the singer on stage was saying my name, along with a lot of other words that made my lungs seize and the blood in my body turn to ice.
“A little birdie told us that one of the Tap Room’s newest family members has a set of pipes on her that’ll bring the house down.
Ladies and gentlemen, please give a huge round of applause to Serenity Ryan!
” The crowd burst into applause and the man behind the microphone talked over them.
“Serenity, get your bee-hind up here and joins us for this next song.”
“What?” I squeaked as my head began to shake frantically. “No way. No, no, no.”
My wide, crazed eyes spun back toward the bar, specifically, to Rory and Tammy, the so-called little birdies, both cheering wildly and shooting me thumbs-up.
I was going to freaking kill them!