7. Declan #2
His eyes find mine, and for a second, I want to tell everyone to get out. But he doesn’t need rescuing. He needs me not to make this a thing.
Jude lowers his phone, his expression suddenly serious. “Okay. Sorry. My bad.”
Shay’s jaw works. He looks back down at the laptop, then shuts it with a soft click. “It’s fine. Let’s just get it over with.”
There it is. The wall, going up clean and fast.
I move before I think, coming around the bar to stand beside him. I don’t touch him. I leave three solid inches of air between my arm and his, enough space that he can’t feel trapped.
It doesn’t matter. I can feel the heat coming off his skin anyway.
My own scent, cedar and whiskey, is clinging to the Henley he’s wearing, and the mix of it with his sandalwood hits me hard.
My fingers twitch. All I want is to close that gap, slide my hand to the small of his back, and hold him in place. Just hold him.
I stand there, fighting the simple, animal urge to erase the distance between us.
The flash goes off.
“Okay, that’s actually good,” Jude says, looking at his phone. “Declan, you look like you own the place.”
“It’s my name on the door.”
“Yeah, but now it looks like you’re not miserable about it.” Benji leans over Jude’s shoulder. “Shay looks like he’s about to kill someone.”
“He looks like he’s in charge,” I say.
Shay’s head turns. He just looks at me, his own expression unreadable. I don’t take it back. A flicker of something I can’t name crosses his face before he looks away.
“Right,” he says, his voice a little rough. “Competent is fine.”
Rhys closes the folder he’s been reading at a high-top. “So, I have some thoughts on the lease renewal.”
Shay is moving before he finishes the sentence, all that nervous energy finding a target. He pulls a stool up to Rhys’s table. “Tell me.”
“The proposed rent increase is steep, but the language around the renewal terms is the real problem. There’s a clause here that gives the landlord way too much latitude to amend the contract after you’ve signed.”
A familiar, cold weight settles in my gut. I’ve read those words a dozen times, but hearing them said out loud in my own bar makes the threat feel solid.
Shay leans in, his shoulder almost brushing Rhys’s. “Can they do that?”
“They can write it down,” Rhys says. “Doesn’t mean you agree to it. You need a counteroffer. And you should have a lawyer who specializes in this stuff review it before you sign.”
“I’ll find someone,” Shay says, all business.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say. The words are out before I can stop them.
He turns on the stool, and his eyes are already shielded. “It’s marketing. A business that closes isn’t a good look for the campaign.”
It’s a clean dismissal. Back off.
I just nod. “Okay.”
His fingers tighten on the edge of the folder.
Rhys glances between us, a flicker of understanding in his eyes. “I know a couple of people through the university’s legal clinic who do pro-bono work for local businesses. I can send you their names.”
“Yeah,” Shay says. “That’d be good. Thanks.” The words come out quieter, the fight draining out of them.
Milo walks over and sets a cookie on the table beside Shay’s elbow. He doesn’t say a word, just places it there and goes back to wiping down the counter. Shay stares at the cookie for a second like it’s a puzzle he has to solve.
I watch them all. The easy way they move around him.
They know how to feed him without asking if he’s hungry.
They know how to offer help in a way that lets him pretend he’s the one in control.
They’re here on a Saturday, scrubbing my floors and reading my legal documents and making my bar feel less like a tomb.
They’re not here for me. They’re here for him.
And the distinction, which should sting, doesn’t.
My bar has always been just mine. My responsibility. My failure to protect. I kept it small after the first one went under, manageable, something I couldn’t lose. I’ve spent years thinking this place was my life.
It’s not. It’s just a room with beer taps.
The life is the noise. It’s Milo leaving a cookie on the table. It’s Jude arguing about photo angles and Knox stitching up a booth like it matters. It’s Shay, shoulders squared, getting ready to fight a battle that’s supposed to be mine.
My hands are flat on the bar top I polished this morning. All this time, I thought I was building a business. I was just waiting.
Tessa appears at the far end of the bar, wiping a glass. She doesn’t say anything. She just gives me a long, knowing look.
The afternoon light turns the front windows to gold. Callum stacks the last of the chairs, and Milo packs up the leftover cookies, leaving a few on the bar like an offering. Knox wipes grease from his hands with a rag while Benji picks invisible dust off his jeans.
“I have upholstery lint in places I didn’t know I had,” Benji says.
“You sat on your ass for two hours,” Knox tells him.
“It was emotionally taxing.”
Jude’s phone hasn’t stopped buzzing. He’s been posting photos for the last ten minutes, narrating the comments. “Okay, some dude named Brad says the new booths are sick. Kelsey wants to know if we’re doing trivia on Thursday. Oh—my aunt wants to know if you’re single.”
He’s looking at me.
“Tell her no,” I say.
The words are out before I can catch them. The low hum of conversation just cuts off. Every head in the room turns in my direction.
Shay’s too.
Heat rushes up my neck. I’m a thirty-five-year-old man who has dealt with bar fights and burst pipes, but this is apparently what it takes to make me feel like a complete idiot.
Jude’s eyes are wide. “Oh?”
“I mean,” I say, clearing my throat. “Tell her I’m busy. The bar is busy.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“It’s what I meant.”
Benji makes a soft, knowing sound. “He’s so gone.”
“Benji,” Shay says, but the word has no edge.
Knox just watches me, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Yeah. He is.”
“I hate every single one of you,” I mutter into the sudden quiet.
“No, you don’t,” Milo says, his voice gentle.
And the worst part is, he’s right.
They leave in a noisy wave of last-minute instructions and scraped chair legs. Callum claps me on the shoulder, a solid, friendly weight. Rhys gives me a nod, promising to send those lawyer contacts over tonight.
On his way out, Jude points two fingers at me. “Don’t let him work all night.”
“I won’t.”
Shay makes a sound of protest. “I’m right here.”
“I know,” Jude says, and lets the door swing shut behind him.
And then it’s quiet.
Not empty. There are still crumbs on the counter, a coaster with Benji’s doodles on it left on a stool. The air is a mix of their scents—coffee and wool and old leather, layered over the sweet vanilla of Milo’s cookies.
Shay is standing by the door. He has his bag slung over one shoulder and the clipboard is tucked under his arm.
He looks worn down at the edges, his curls finally loose from the headband.
He keeps rubbing his thumb over the corner of the clipboard, like he’s trying to wear the plastic smooth.
In his other hand, he’s holding the bar towel he’d left on the stool earlier.
“I should go,” he says.
He doesn’t move.
My heart is beating a heavy, stupid rhythm against my ribs. There are a dozen things I could say that would send him walking out that door. Too much, not enough, the wrong kind of pressure.
But he’s standing there in my shirt, holding the towel I use to wipe down my bar. He looks like he’s waiting for a reason not to leave.
“Stay,” I say. The word comes out rougher than I intended.
His head lifts. His eyes find mine across the room.
I swallow. “For the night. As, uh. A consultant’s fee.”
Jesus Christ. A consultant’s fee. It’s the dumbest string of words I’ve ever put together.
For a long moment, he just looks at me. I watch something shift in his expression, a flicker of uncertainty before it’s gone. His scent, which had been sharp and focused all day, softens. The whole room fills with the warm smell of sandalwood and dark chocolate.
Then he gives a short, single nod.
“Okay,” he says.