Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
SEVEN VIRTUES, NORTH CAROLINA
Ever since the Grammys, Beckett Miller and DJ Kensington are in each other’s back pockets. Is this a potential collaboration or something more? I wouldn’t mind more of either of them, if you take my meaning.
—Moore You Want
Four Years Ago—February
I’m huddled in our on-campus coffee shop with my floor-mates Ruby and Layla when they mention the most notorious Seven Virtue’s watering hole, Galileo’s, needs waitresses. Ruby gushes, “I heard there’s an actual pendulum you have to navigate through to get in and out of the bar.”
Layla, much more pragmatic, drawls, “I need money for books next semester. Who cares what it looks like so long as it’s safe and pays well?”
I agree with Layla. “Besides, can you imagine the liability? One drunk tries to navigate it and it would be like a bad shot on a mini-golf course hole.” I slap my hand against the side of my head and topple sideways. “ Whack!”
That sets the three of us off in giggling fits. It’s Layla who probes hesitantly about the boundaries between me and Austyn, “Couldn’t you ask Kensington for money?”
“I could.”
“So why don’t you?”
Now that Austyn’s become a household name, everyone has questions for me about her. I shrug. “She’s my best friend.”
“Then why work?” Ruby persists.
“If it was some kind of life or death thing, I wouldn’t need to ask. She’d just be there trying to shove it in my face. But our bond isn’t because of who she is but who she’s always been to me,” I chastise them, trying to do it gently. These two are asking questions of me instead of asking them behind my back like most of the campus is doing.
That gives them food for thought allowing me a moment to ponder whether I can maintain my perfect GPA and work a job to offset some unexpected living expenses I don’t want to burden my mother with. It’s Ruby who points at my face and announces, “You’re thinking about it.”
I don’t deny the charge. “I am.”
Layla shoves to her feet. “Then let’s go find out if the rumor is true.”
“What rumor?”
“That the owner is a gorgeous, misogynistic prick.”
“Oh, goodie. Just the kind of man I always wanted to spend my free time with,” I clap my hands together eagerly as if someone told me Santa was a silver fox from a Vegas strip show.
Ruby perks up. “Maybe he’s so gorgeous, it won’t matter.”
I shrug into my lined barn coat and tug on my hat and gloves as Ethan’s face flashes into my mind. A spear of pain tries to pierce through the armor I’ve built around my heart. “It always matters.”
Layla laughs. “Then what are we waiting for?”
An hour later, Levi James—the owner of Galileo’s—has already interviewed Layla into a quivering mess. He now has Ruby in the back room presumably doing the same. As gorgeous as the man is—for once, the rumor mill wasn’t wrong—his rabid grizzly bear attitude detracts from his sexual appeal.
While Ruby’s being verbally filleted by someone who likely learned their interrogation tactics from a three-letter agency, I admire the style the bar has. Layla and I were right—Ruby was way off base about walking through the pendulum to gain access to Galileo’s. Still, I was floored to see there actually is one in the courtyard as we were escorted beyond doors painted with the Renaissance developers coat of arms.
Slipping off my outerwear, I stand to get closer to the Moon from Sidereus Nuncius meticulously painted behind the stage when something within me calls for me to hum the famous Indigo Girls anthem about the inventor.
That’s when I hear a strident, “You! What are you singing?”
Whirling around, I find myself face-to-face with Levi. If I wasn’t looking at his face, I’d swear his teeth would have either Ruby’s blood or drool coming from a fang as he debated his next tasty snack. Without thinking, I get right in his face. “What? Too good for a little girl-on-girl musical action in this place?”
Levi rolls his eyes before he walks over to the bar and rings a bell three times. Immediately, as if the staff and patrons are trained monkeys, they all belt out Galileo’s refrain. He shoots me a reproachful glare even as everyone turns back to their drinks. I shrug before offering a suggestion, “You should do it at a certain time, like a toast.”
Levi’s brows snap together. “This is how we’ve always done it.”
“And every other bar uses a bell for the bartenders to thank their patrons for large tips.”
The bartender, a gorgeous redhead, slow claps. Levi turns his feral snarl in her direction, “Shut it, Caroline.”
She rolls her eyes and goes back to taking stock, his attitude not disturbing her in the least.
He steps closer to get in my personal space. “So, how do you un-train people who have been coming here for years?”
Think, Fallon. Think. Then something from my behavioral science class pops into my mind. “You have to consciously discard your actions.”
“Excuse me, college girl?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s easy.”
His voice gets deadly when he whispers, “Is that so?”
“Yes. Stop ringing the damn bell. You’re turning people into Pavlovian dogs.” Behind him, Layla and Ruby snicker.
He whirls on them and they both try to stifle their laughter, but not the bartender. She chortles, “Surprised your big…brain didn’t come up with that one, Levi. Must have had it thrust into other things at the time when they taught that in psych.”
“Shut. The. Hell. Up.” He bellows.
“Yeah, the chances of that are slim.” She comes from around the counter and holds out her hand. “Caroline Mars.”
“Fallon Brookes.”
Without waiting a beat, she says, “Ignore Levi. Y’all are hired.”
“Goddamn it, Caroline,” he snaps.
“We need waitresses, and we need ones who think with their brains and not feel the need to fall to their knees to suck your cock first,” she fires back. She points at me. “She thinks and presumably so do her friends. Stop dicking around—or worse yet, hiring our staff with your dick. Bring people on who will keep bodies in the seats before our profits cause us to close the doors.”
If this was a cartoon, steam would be escaping from Levi’s ears. Still, he tempers his ill will down enough to grit out, “It would be appreciated if you could start training this week.”
I shrug. “Sure. Do you need our school schedules?”
Levi throws up his hands. “Work that shit out with Caroline.” Then he storms off and slams out the back door.
I’m about to repeat the question to Caroline when one of the few daytime die hards hands me a twenty. I cock my head to the side. “What’s this for?”
“A thank you. If I don’t have to sing that song every time some drunk asshole rings that bell, lassie, I’ll consider it a miracle. A few times a night, sure. Every bar has its shtick. Last weekend, those drunk dipshits rang it fifty-seven times.” His voice is aggrieved.
“You deserve a medal.”
He lifts his beer. “I’ll take a refill.”
“I’ll get right on it.” I pat his shoulder as I make my way toward the high-polished mahogany bar. As soon as I reach it, Caroline finishes pulling a fresh draft. Immediately I drop the twenty into her tip jar. She winks before declaring, “I’m going to like you, Fallon.”
“Same.”
“You don’t seem to mind shoving Levi into place.”
A flash of Ethan’s face comes and goes in my mind before I reply, “I’ve generally found most men are worth screwing well.”
Her lips curve into a smile that transforms her face from stunning to exquisite. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”
I wave Layla and Ruby over. “It’s going to be a hell of a lot more than that.”