7. Declan
Declan
“Absolutely not.”
Shay doesn’t even look up from his clipboard. He’s got my old Henley hanging loose over black jeans, and the bite mark at the side of his neck peeks over the collar every time he moves his head.
My bite.
I’m supposed to be helping Knox, who’s crouched beside a booth, checking the split seam in the upholstery. Instead, I’m just standing here with a screwdriver in my hand, my own scent thick in the air—cedar, whiskey, and something possessive enough to feel like a warning.
Two weeks he’s been at this now. Every night after close, laptop open at the end of my bar, arguing with me about napkin costs like the numbers personally offended him. Two weeks of him showing up in my shirt and daring me to say something about it. I haven’t.
Knox looks up. “You didn’t even hear what I asked.”
“Heard enough,” Shay says.
“I said Mateo can’t keep using duct tape on the back corner.”
“Correct. No duct tape.”
“That’s not what he said,” Benji calls from the next booth over, where he’s supposed to be supervising.
Knox gives him a flat look. “You want to come stitch this?”
“I’m providing artistic direction.”
“You’re drawing skulls on my order pads.”
“They’re morale skulls.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is now.”
By noon, the place is full. Not just full like a decent Friday night, but an invasion. Byrne’s has regulars, students, noise. I know noise. This is different. This is chaos with a plan, and Shay is standing right in the middle of it.
Jude is perched on a barstool, filming everything on his phone like he’s making a documentary nobody asked for, with Rhys standing beside him looking patient in a way that suggests he’s given up.
Milo has commandeered the end of my bar, setting up three bakery boxes with handwritten labels.
Apparently, his cookies require project management.
Callum just carries chairs wherever Shay points, moving them like they weigh nothing.
And Shay. Of course. He’s got his curls pushed back with a black headband, a smudge of dust on one cheek. He thrives on this, wrestling the whole room into a spreadsheet. He makes a low, irritated noise every time someone asks him a question, then answers it anyway because he can’t help himself.
He points his clipboard at Jude. “No more soda shots.”
Jude lowers the tiny plastic cup in his hand. “It’s content.”
“It’s twelve minutes of you yelling ‘Cheers to neighborhood engagement’ while Rhys looks like he’s being held hostage.”
“I look supportive,” Rhys says.
“You look like you’re waiting for the fire alarm to go off.”
Callum leans against the bar. “That’s just his face.”
Rhys gives him a dry look. “I have a very expressive face.”
“Baby, it’s hot,” Jude says, patting his cheek. “But it’s still mostly variations on concerned professor.”
Shay’s mouth twitches. “Can we please focus?”
“On it, boss,” Benji calls from inside a booth.
Shay’s head snaps toward the sound. “I’m not your boss.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“He gets like this when he’s stressed,” Milo says quietly, pushing a bakery box across the bar toward me. “Try one. They’re still warm.”
“I’m not stressed,” Shay says automatically.
The room goes quiet for about half a second. Jude snorts into his hand. Callum keeps wiping down a table, but his shoulders are shaking.
Shay lets out a sharp breath, his gaze sweeping the room without landing anywhere. “Fine. I’m operating with an elevated sense of urgency.”
“That’s stress with a business degree,” Jude announces.
Shay ignores him, pointing his clipboard at Jude. “Photos. Now. And try to get one that doesn’t have Knox’s ass in the background.”
Knox, still crouched by the booth, doesn’t look up. “My ass is good for business.”
“He’s not wrong,” Benji says.
The part of me that runs this place wants to tell them all to get their feet off the tables and stop leaving crumbs on the bar I just polished. But that part of me has clocked out for the day. I pick up a cookie. It’s soft, still warm enough that the dark chocolate melts on my tongue.
“This is good,” I tell Milo.
He gives me a small, pleased smile.
“It’s a bribe,” Callum says, grabbing one for himself. “He’s trying to win you over.”
“Everyone’s already here,” Jude says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “This is a rescue mission. It’s our civic duty.”
A short, rough laugh escapes me.
Shay’s head turns. He hears it over all the noise, and his eyes find mine across the room. For a second, he’s not looking at the project manager or the problem to be solved. He’s just looking at me.
His scent warms the air—sandalwood and dark chocolate—and something deep in my chest goes quiet and vicious.
Mine.
I set the rest of the cookie down before I do something stupid.
He clears his throat, looking away first. “Right. Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to tell me where the extension cords are?”
“Back hall. Storage closet.”
He stares at me. “You have a storage closet?”
“Yeah.”
“And you didn’t think to mention this when I was making the master supply list?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“That’s not a system, Declan.”
He walks toward me, clipboard held like a shield against his chest, and stops too close. Close enough that I have to either stand my ground or take a step back.
I don’t back up.
I can smell the sandalwood and dark chocolate that is purely him, but underneath it, woven into the cotton of my Henley that he stole, is me.
Cedar and whiskey. My scent on his skin, in his clothes.
The combination hits me like a fist. Every instinct I have screams to close the last few inches of air between us, press my nose to the side of his neck, and make the scent stronger.
His gaze drops to my mouth, then snaps away.
“Storage closet,” he says, the words clipped.
“Back hall.”
“I heard you the first time.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
He looks back at me then, eyes narrowed. “You’re enjoying this. Watching me run around your bar with a clipboard.”
“You’re not doing it by yourself,” I say, and it comes out too fast, too earnest.
Shay’s expression flickers. Just for a second, a tiny crease appears between his brows, and I know he’s about to put the wall back up.
“Right,” he says, his voice dry. “We’ve also got Knox and his emotional support staple gun.”
From across the room, Knox lifts the tool. “It’s just a staple gun.”
“Everything’s emotional support if you love it enough,” Jude says cheerfully.
A laugh breaks the tension in the room, but Shay’s still looking at me. The corner of his mouth softens for a half-second, so small I almost miss it. Then he shifts the clipboard under his arm and brushes past me toward the back hall.
His shoulder connects with mine. It’s not an accident. The deliberate press of it vanishes as soon as it’s there, but the warmth stays, a jolt that goes straight through me. My hand tightens on the screwdriver I’m still holding.
I watch him go, the sway of his hips in those black jeans a problem I don’t have a solution for.
The urge to follow him, to hook my fingers in the collar of my own Henley and drag him back, is a physical thing.
I want to put my nose to that bite on his neck and just breathe until the world narrows to the mix of our scents.
Instead, I just stand here like an idiot.
“You look normal,” Tessa says, appearing at my elbow with a bucket of cleaning supplies.
“I am normal.”
“Sure.” She shoves the bucket into my hands. “Go help Callum with the windows before you start scenting the furniture.”
“I’m not—”
Her gaze slides to the bar towel Shay left on a stool, the one I haven’t been able to stop looking at.
I pick up the bucket.
“That’s what I thought,” she says, her mouth a flat, satisfied line.
By midafternoon, the place looks better than it has in years.
The booths are scrubbed down, and the split seam in the corner upholstery is gone, replaced by Knox’s neat stitches.
Benji’s left a stack of coasters on the bar, covered in sketches of snarling knots and crooked whiskey glasses.
They look like they’ve always been here.
Tessa’s already talking about getting a batch printed.
Jude’s photos are a blur of motion and noise.
He gets one of Callum leaning against the bar while Milo laughs into his shoulder, and another of Rhys pretending not to smile while Jude drapes himself over his back.
In the background of one shot, Knox is crouched by a table, and Benji’s hand is tucked into the back pocket of his jeans.
Then Jude turns the phone on Shay.
“Okay, marketing genius,” he says. “Your turn. Stand by the new taps. Give me ‘secret weapon of the Byrne’s revival.’”
Shay doesn’t look up from the laptop at the end of the bar. “No.”
“C’mon. The campaign needs a face.”
“The bar has a face,” Shay says, still typing. “It’s yours. You’re in every shot.”
“My face sells.”
“It sells trouble.”
“Nightlife branding, baby.” Jude lowers the phone and looks at me. “Declan. Tell him.”
Every head in the room turns my way.
He’s standing there with the sleeves of my Henley pushed to his elbows, curls escaping the black headband, the dark mark of my teeth just visible over the collar. He looks tired and sharp and so much like he belongs here it feels like a punch to the gut.
“A picture probably helps,” I say. My voice sounds rough.
Shay’s head snaps up. The look he gives me is pure betrayal.
Jude lets out a triumphant gasp. “See? The owner has spoken.”
Shay exhales through his nose, a sharp, angry sound. “Fine. One. Then you’re deleting it if I hate it.”
“Deal.” Jude waves him over. “Stand closer to Declan.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Jude.” The word is a warning.
“Just stand next to him. Look like you’re on the same team.”
“I’m not posing for some fake couple photo.”
The room goes quiet. The kind of quiet where you can suddenly hear the hum of the beer fridge. Shay’s scent turns sharp, the dark chocolate note going bitter.
I keep my voice steady. “You don’t have to.”