Chapter 12 #2
The man leans down toward my ear. “Seems clumsiness is something you need to work on, isn’t it.” He chuckles. There isn’t anything especially sinister about the way he laughs, but it raises the hair on the back of my neck all the same.
When I look up, I recognize him immediately.
He is the man I spilled not one but two martinis on.
I look around frantically and find that he and I are the only people in the bar.
The dining room lights have been shut off, meaning the servers have gone home for the night.
Also missing are his wife and two young children.
Maybe he’s come to ream me out for the earlier mishap, or maybe his wife left with Hux, but from the way he is smiling at me, I have a feeling this conversation is going to go in a much worse direction.
“I just wanted to say thank you for your exceptional service tonight and offer you a little bonus. He slowly pushes a hundred-dollar bill into my apron’s pocket.
The unwelcome touch forces me to step back, but there is nowhere to go.
I am sandwiched between the bar and him, with two barstools on either side.
The spinning in my head, as well as my heart rate, starts to increase.
I know Elle is nearby, but why hasn’t she come back yet? Do I yell, or am I just being dramatic?
“I will say, having two drinks spilled on my lap made for an uncomfortable dining experience, but lucky for you, I think I know how you could make it up to me…” His sly smirk makes my stomach flip, and I feel the bile making its way up my throat.
“You see, the other family we are vacationing with headed out on an overnight white water rafting trip. Their cabin is empty, and I happen to have the spare key. So I was thinking, I could meet you there in about thirty minutes. We can discuss in private how to make this better. Seems only fair, doesn’t it? ”
I’m paralyzed. My palms start to sweat, and my hearing becomes muffled.
I can’t move. I can’t make a sound. A piece of crinkled paper, the receipt from the meal with his family, appears in his hand.
I make out a cabin number scribbled on it as he leans in once again.
He doesn’t go for my apron this time, but instead, the top of my V-neck shirt.
Just as the piece of paper brushes the top of my breast, the man is yanked backward with such force he knocks over the table behind him, crumpling to the floor.
Before the man even has time to get up on his own, he is being thrust up by the collar of his shirt to meet the angriest Hux Anderson I have ever seen. His normally beautiful blue eyes look black, and his chest is heaving.
“Listen to me, motherfucker, if I ever catch you so much as looking at her or any other employee here for the rest of your trip, I will bury you so far in the ground not even the coyotes will find your body. Do you understand me?” Hux’s spit sprays across the man’s face as he yells.
“Yes, yes, I-I’m, sorry, I?—”
“Save it for your fucking wife. I won’t kick you out because your scumbag behavior shouldn’t punish her and your kids, who deserve a hell of a lot better.
I can promise you, you will never be welcome back to Anderson’s after this.
” Hux releases him with force, causing the man to stumble back a few more feet.
“Find somewhere else to eat for the rest of your stay, you aren’t welcome in this bar again. Now, get the fuck out of here.”
Shaking, I stand stunned. Hux has his back to me, but I can tell by the rise and fall of his shoulders he is trying to calm down. I don’t know what to say, but Hux beats me to it anyway.
“What the hell was that? Who was that guy?”
“Are you seriously mad at me right now? As if I asked for some creep to come over here trying to shove room numbers and hundred-dollar bills down my shirt.” I’m still shaking but with a whole different form of rage.
“He paid you for sex?”
“Seriously, Hux, do I come across as someone who would be down with that? Never mind, you know what, don’t answer that, I’m leaving. Thanks for your help, but I don’t need your shit right now. Thanks,” I sarcastically say over my shoulder.
I stumble away from the bar and push through the screen door with Hux hot on my heels. I try to take two stairs at a time but end up missing one. I feel Hux’s arm wrapping around my waist before I plummet to the gravel at the bottom of the wooden steps.
Once on the ground, I claw at his hands and unwrap them from my body, stomping away furiously with a slight drunken sway to my walk.
“Wait!” Hux barks in a tone that makes me freeze. He walks up close, tilting his face down to mine. For a minute, I think he’s going to kiss me, and my mind immediately starts to short-circuit. Do I kiss him back with everything I have or punch him in the face?
“You’re drunk!” he growls.
“Yes, Hux, I am, and what are you going to do about it, fire me? Go ahead, I don’t give a damn!”
“I can’t fucking believe Elle. If anyone should lose her job, it’s her. She knows you’re underage, and she knows the jeopardy she could put my family’s business in by pulling that shit.”
“Elle has nothing to do with this!” I lie.
Of course, he sees right through me. “So, you’re saying you stole alcohol from the bar?”
“Oh. My. God,” I yell. “You drive me fucking insane, you know that! You have been at a few parties now where I have been drinking and haven’t said boo.
All of a sudden, tonight, you decide it’s time to be my dad?
Oh, and it’s not like you weren’t having your own inappropriate buzzed sexcapades on the clock in the hallway this evening…
So don’t even begin to lecture me on responsible drinking and workplace etiquette. ”
Hux fumes. “First of all, in the last month, have you seen me take a drink? I haven’t had one drop of alcohol in over two years, so get your damn facts right.
Second, I’m not even going to bother justifying myself when it comes to Sharon.
You know nothing about it. I don’t have any interest in playing your childish games. ”
“ My childish games! I seriously can’t believe you. You are beyond infuriating, and yet I can’t get the hell away from you! You have made it clear that the mere sight of me makes you angry, but wherever I go, there you are!”
“You realize you work at my family’s resort, right? If anyone is stalking anyone, I don’t think I’m the number one suspect.”
“Ugh!” I scream, stomping my feet like a toddler, which triggers my head to spin even more viciously.
“You should be pretty damn happy I happened to walk into the bar tonight. Who knows what would have happened to you with Ted Bundy in there, especially seeing that standing up straight seems to be getting harder and harder for you as the night goes on.” He eyes me up and down.
“So, I would say, if anything, you owe me a thank you!”
“Thank you! Thank you? Over my dead body! You have made my whole summer hell , and you’re looking for a thank you?”
Just as I am about to light into him more, my stomach flips, and I realize Hux is about to get a visual of how disgusted I am with him.
My eyes dart back and forth, looking for a place to run to.
This is becoming a common theme, making a complete fool of myself in front of Hux, and tonight, I’m about to take it up a notch and throw up on his shoes.
Though satisfying, it is not the ammo I’m looking for.
I start to gag, and before I can escape, Hux gently puts his hands around my waist and lowers me to a fallen tree that runs along the side of the dimly lit path we’ve been arguing on. He pulls my hair back just as the first wave of vomit projectiles out of my body.
“You’re all right, Ev, just let it out,” he says as he rubs my back in slow circles. Tears stream down my face, both from embarrassment and the burn of tequila resurfacing while I retch for what feels like an eternity.
“Isn’t it funny how alcohol throw-up is so different from flu throw-up?
” he asks quizzically as if we are discussing the weather.
“I mean, if you were blowing chunks of what you ate in the last twenty-four hours, I would be way less inclined to sit here with you. Just saying, but the smell of tequila adds a little magic to this beautiful night, don’t you think?
” He smiles at me as I look up at him and glare with bloodshot eyes.
“Knowing Elle, she gave you the good stuff too.”
When I finally think my stomach is done, at least for the moment, I sit up, perching my elbows on my knees and placing my forehead in my hands. “I am glad you find this so amusing.”
“Aw, hey, it happens to us all. Well, not me anymore, seeing I don’t drink, but what’s a Friday night without a little upchuck?”
“I also don’t do this for your information,” I say with a bit of an attitude and a vague hand wave. “I have never thrown up from drinking, so doing it in front of you for the first time is especially awful.”
“Don’t sweat it. I know you don’t, and I wasn’t insinuating that you encouraged that creep.
I’m just all kinds of fucked up when it comes to you.
” His admission stuns me into silence. “And hey, I am honored to be here for this life milestone,” he says lightheartedly, his signature sly smile returning to his face.
It’s funny how some days I want to smack that smug grin off his face, and other days, I want to caress the soft, plump skin of his lips with my fingertips.
One thing I know to be true is that no matter what emotion is invoked, the heat that stirs inside my body is undeniable. I am falling for Hux Anderson, not just in a summer crush way. In an all-consuming, heart-racing, ageless love kind of way.
And that is not good.