Chapter 5
5
Kit
H e was here.
At my job. A conquering hero surrounded by his devoted fans.
It was my worst nightmare come true.
He wore black dress pants and a black vest over a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up over those strong forearms dusted with golden hair. He wore diamonds in his ears and gold around his neck, with a big fat Rolex on his wrist.
He was gorgeous, flashing that smile around.
I immediately went into hiding, like a filthy little woodland creature who smelled of beer, sweat and wing sauce.
“Gotta change the Bud keg,” I said to Ben, my manager. Keeping my face averted so Liam couldn’t see me.
Please, I prayed to whatever god was still giving me the time of day, please don’t let Liam see me.
“Hurry back!” Ben shouted, filling pint glasses as fast as was humanly possible. “We’re getting crushed.”
Feeling just a bit guilty, I went down to the basement. What if I just left? Walked away? I could get another job. I mean, it’s not like I had no skills. I might not get a job with tips as good as what I got at the End Zone in my black short shorts and this stupid referee shirt.
I pulled the zipper that most of us wore halfway down our chests all the way up to my neck.
“Kit!” Amber shouted from the top of the stairs. “We’re dying up here.”
I hung my head for one second, unzipped the zipper back down my chest and gave myself the best pep talk I could.
You’re not ashamed of your job.
I swapped out the keg, and then went back up the stairs where the party was just getting started.
For a solid hour, I was able to avoid him. I worked the cocktail tables while he sat at the bar with Henrik, the young guy, and Staski, the slightly terrifying Russian. Fans surrounded them, firing questions, getting selfies.
But as the night wore on, the cocktail tables and the booths cleared out and everyone was at the bar.
I couldn’t avoid it anymore.
Ben was washing glasses and Amber had begged for a bathroom break. It was just me left to serve the kings at the end of the bar.
“Another round?” I asked, standing behind the bar in front of the three hockey heroes. They were big. Really big. Larger than life. Flush with victory and drunk on adulation.
Liam was smiling as he turned to face me, and slowly, so slowly, his smile faded. I watched him process the whole thing, right there on his face. That I was here. That I was behind the bar. Then his eyes dropped to the uniform.
I’m not ashamed of my job. I’m not ashamed of my job.
“Kit?”
“In the flesh.”
Henrik turned at the word flesh and smiled at me. “Hello, gorgeous woman. Can I get another…” he lifted his glass and looked at it like he wasn’t sure what he was drinking.
I pulled out the top shelf bourbon that cost more money than I could make in two weeks and poured a generous amount in this glass.
“What are you doing here?” Liam asked.
“Living the dream.”
His eyes wandered down my body for a second, slow and sleepy. “You work here.”
“And people say you’re dumb.”
Those blue eyes sharpened, and I regretted more than I could say making that dumb joke. I’d deliberately provoked him because I knew it was something he was sensitive about. It was the same with all my dad’s victims. How dumb must they be to invest money without doing their research first?
Evil Liam, because that’s who he transformed into whenever he was around me, laughed and smacked Staski in the shoulder.
“Hey,” Liam said with a flash of snark. “Do you know Kit Barrington?”
“Hi, Kit Barrington,” Staski said, flashing his silver tooth. He was a handsome man if you liked them extremely dangerous looking. “Your name. It sounds familiar. Should I know you?”
All the blood drained from my face. I could feel it. That cold chill of humiliation. Because there was no escaping it. I would never not be Bill Barrington’s daughter.
I lifted my chin and looked Liam right in the eye.
Do it. Tell him who I am. I don’t care. I can’t change it.
I was saved by a woman who pulled Staski into another selfie with a bunch of her drunk girlfriends.
The crowd and the bar faded away. It was just Liam staring hard into my eyes and me staring right back. Feeling like a mouse in front of a lion.
He pushed his glass towards me. “Scotch, neat,” he said.
I got him a fresh glass and a finger of Lagavulin. I pushed the glass towards him and he caught it and my hand.
I would have loved to not react. I would have given all eleven dollars in my bank account to have been able to look up at him and show him nothing. The truth was, he touched me, and like a match to dry wood, I went up in flames.
Worse, I knew he could tell.
I was blushing, my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest. My fucking nipples gave me away every time.
He held onto my hand until I was forced to look at him. Pretending to be all cool while I was the color of a tomato. Of course, he was smiling at me with that stupid mouth of his. That dumb dimple. Those piercing blue eyes.
Then he winked, as if to say, your secret is not safe with me.
After, he turned away, like I was a toy he was bored with.
We stayed open for as long as the NHL stars wanted to be there, and the fans were willing to oblige them. Which was an incredibly long time. The sky in the east was starting to lighten.
“Amber,” I whispered to the only other server left standing with me. “Go on home.”
There were fifteen people left in the bar. Ben and I could handle it. Amber had kids at home who would need to get up for school.
“What about you?” She said through a giant yawn.
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
“No bus,” she said, already grabbing her bag from the drawer where we kept our purses while we were on shift. “Not at this hour. Promise me you’ll take an Uber.”
I promised and Amber snuck out. Finally, it was just Ben and me and the three hockey stars. I was mopping the floor, listening to them argue over the bill. Staski won or lost. Whatever. He put a black credit card on the bar to cover the several thousand dollar check.
“Hey,” a painfully familiar voice said. I turned to face Liam, his shirt now unbuttoned and his hair tussled.
He was drunk, but not wasted. I’d worked plenty of bar jobs to know the difference. He stood there looking like a sexy cologne ad and I smelled like spilled beer, sweat and BBQ sauce.
Still, the electricity of being near him straightened my spine. Made my legs clench in memory of him between them.
There was one magical night when he looked at me like I was amazing.
Now, all I got was disdain.
“Hey,” I said back, leaning against the mop because I was so tired I couldn’t quite stand up straight. I'd been on my feet for over twelve hours. I wanted to keep my defenses up around him, but I was so tired.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Just doing my job.”
“So. I’m wondering.” He pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and started counting out twenties. He even licked his finger like some cartoon character bad guy. “Is this tip just going to show up at my house on Sunday? Like, is it even worth giving it to you?”
Son of a bitch.
“We pool tips,” I said. “If you don’t tip me, you don’t tip any of the people who stayed late.”
“Hmmm,” he said, his low voice rumbling through the air, stroking my skin. Even my exhausted nipples perked up. “That’s what I figured. So, what’s your cut?”
“Are you kidding right now?” I asked.
“Just a curious consumer,” he said.
“There were five of us working tonight.”
He held the cash out to me, but when I reached for it, predictably, he pulled it away.
“Is everything a power play with you?” I asked with a huff.
He stepped forward until he was in my space. Way too much in my space. He grabbed my hand and slapped the cash into my palm, but didn’t let go.
“Only when it comes to you,” he said. “One of these days…”
“One of these days, what?” I snapped, tired of his implied threat.
With his free hand he reached up and pushed some of my hair off my face where it clung damp with sweat.
“You’ll admit, to my face, what you did, and you will beg me for forgiveness.”
I jerked. Shocked by the touch of his hand on my face. I let go of the money. So did he. Fifties and twenties showered the floor, sticking to the damp surface I’d just mopped.
“See you Sunday,” he said and turned away.
I waited until he was out of the building before I stooped to pick it all up.