Chapter 2
THE BABY CHICKEN DISASTER
When I said nothing, just gaped at him like a moron, Sky rocked back onto his heels and tipped his head to the side, one hand still holding the door. His tousled, mink-brown hair fell over his eyes.
Eyes that looked a little…bewildered.
Okay, and a touch concerned.
Which was fair. He’d just found me hiding in the prep closet mid-dinner rush, launching conspiracy theories like badly aimed bottle rockets at whoever opened the door.
Conspiracy theories about aliens.
Oh my god.
I’d just ranted about aliens to Sky Acosta.
Kill me now. Just bury me in the silverware basket and call it a night.
With a quick look over his shoulder at the dining area, Sky released the door, leaving it propped open. It let in enough light to illuminate the way he swept an assessing glance around the closet. Like he was searching for a hidden-camera prank-show host.
I stared at him, caught in a confusing quagmire of horror and fascination.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize anyone was in here,” he said. His quiet, deep voice filled the small space in a way that made it feel smaller. More…intimate.
When I continued to stare, Sky blinked a couple times and rubbed the back of his neck, which caused his bicep to bunch up beneath his short-sleeved shirt.
I noticed because the universe hated me and I, tragically, had eyes.
I yanked my attention away from the ripple of muscle…
only for it to get caught on the lock of dark hair that’d fallen across his forehead.
It looked soft. My fingers itched to brush it back.
He was giving me a strange look now.
Maybe because I still hadn’t answered him.
“Um,” I said brilliantly, finally managing to close my mouth but failing entirely to stop myself from checking him out.
Bartenders didn’t have to wear the ridiculous neon Hawaiian uniforms like the rest of us. I suspected management let it slide as an offering to keep our very skilled, very efficient drink-slingers happy. After all, nobody looked great in lime green.
If anybody was going to, though, it’d be Sky.
His dark shirt clung to the sculpted muscles of his upper body, tapering into a narrow waist and faded jeans. He was built like a swimmer: long-limbed, broad where it mattered. Practically meant for tiny scraps of Spandex.
My mouth went dry. Not only had I launched into a crazy-person rant, I was now gazing directly at his abs and imagining him in a Speedo. A Speedo. Seriously? What was wrong with me?
I closed my eyes.
Could a person die of embarrassment? Possibly, if my growing numbness was any indication. At least sweet death would spare me the rest of this interaction.
Alas, I remained alive for the time being. Needing something—anything—to do with my hands, I turned around and dropped the silverware bundle in the general direction of the basket. It bounced off the side and hit the floor with a dramatic clang, unspooling.
Before I could scramble to grab it, Sky spoke again.
“That’s an interesting theory.”
Amusement. That was amusement coloring the casual statement. My flush returned with a vengeance, the blotchy kind. Sweat beaded on my forehead.
What was he talking about?
Oh. Right.
The alien thing. My alien thing.
Out of every possible thing I could’ve said to Sky Acosta, I’d gone with the tinfoil-hat manifesto.
My back to him, I opened my mouth to do some damage control, but all that came out was a tiny, squeaky noise that sounded suspiciously like a baby chicken. A meep.
Okay, maybe skip the silverware-basket burial and just chuck me right into the dumpster. Because this whole night was trash.
Dread pooling in my stomach, I gave up on the fallen silverware and slowly turned his way.
Sky scanned my face, as if taking stock of my slow descent into mortification. He wasn’t laughing, per se, but there was a softness to his mouth as he studied me. I could see the thoughts churning inside his sapphire eyes.
His eyes had always been my favorite. That deep, clear indigo, like ocean water right before nightfall. You could write songs about those eyes. Those chiseled cheekbones, too.
I mean, I couldn’t. I wasn’t Ed Sheeran. And also, I was currently mute. Except for poultry sounds.
We looked at each other in silence, me screaming internally, him entirely too composed and seeming more amused by the second.
The faintest smile finally broke free and tugged up the corner of his full mouth.
“Aliens, huh?” he said, flashing white teeth in a slight grin.
Say something, Rae. Say anything. Stop being a malfunctioning Roomba.
“Um,” I said again. Stellar. My gaze slid sideways to his shoulder, a safer place to focus than those eyes. “No. I mean, yes. Well, Kelly said…I don’t actually think…”
What had Kelly even said? What was I saying?
I trailed off, certain I was about to spontaneously combust from sheer shame. Not that I wanted to die. I couldn’t die. I was finally talking to Sky, actually talking to him, and not just the standard “here’s your shift drink,” “table four wants a whiskey on the rocks,” and “have a great night.”
Six months of stolen glances and overthinking everything. Six months of mentally scripting this very moment, and this was what I delivered. My rehearsals in the shower had gone so much better. In those, I was witty and clever and absolutely zero percent baby chicken.
God.
It wasn’t like I didn’t know how to talk to guys. I wasn’t a nun. I’d had my share of boyfriends. A few casual flings. Amelia and I had hit the party scene hard when we turned twenty-one. There had been experiences.
None of them had looked like Sky Acosta…but still. I wasn’t a virgin. I wasn’t some teenager wallowing in new hormones.
And yet…this was Sky. And Sky was different.
It wasn’t just me. I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed him. If you swung that way, it was impossible not to. Even Kelly, whose standards were somewhere in the clouds with Everest, had pointed him out my first night.
“That’s Sky Acosta,” she’d whispered, yanking me around the corner and motioning to where the guy in question was making a dirty martini.
His profile was to us, his attention on the pour, but I still felt myself flush—despite the fact we were hiding behind a fake palm tree, lurking in the faux foliage.
“He lives above the place,” Kelly continued, stage-whispering like we weren’t clearly stalking him. “Rents the apartment from the owners. He always does his own thing, keeps to himself, never stays after to hang out. Never comes when we go out to Crescent or anything.”
The last part came with a pout.
That’s when I discovered she’d tried her luck with him and struck out. Hard. Kelly didn’t get turned down often (read: ever) and Sky’s polite but distant rebuff hadn’t gone over well.
She wasn’t wrong, either. I’d never seen him at work events. He had no social media, no online presence at all. No one ever came in to visit him like with the rest of the bartenders. He was, for all intents and purposes, a loner. A quiet, sexy-as-sin enigma.
The crush had been instant. And since then, it’d only grown.
I’d caught myself watching him during our shifts more times than I could count.
Occasionally, he’d caught me, too. I’d panicked each time, slapped on a weird grimace-smile, and fled like a scared rabbit, but hey—eye contact! That had to count for something.
At this point, he probably thought I had a staring problem. Or a personal vendetta.
And now he probably thought I didn’t know how to talk, period.
Crap. I was still gazing stupidly at him.
Focus, Rae.
I forced out a shaky breath and scooped the silverware from the floor, crumpling the napkin in my palm. The cutlery clinked as I shoved it into my apron pocket for a later sink dunk. The napkin went straight into the hamper and landed clean.
“Nothing but net,” I muttered.
Small wins. I’d take any size tonight, on the shittiest of all nights.
I faced Sky again.
I’d imagined this moment more times than I could count.
Since that first night I’d watched him behind the bar, I’d fantasized about mustering the guts to flirt…
or, in some wild reality, telling him how I felt, even though I knew better.
Sky Acosta was miles out of my league. He was GQ-level intimidating.
Deeply uninterested in any of us mere mortals.
But once—once—he’d said my name.
Well…almost my name.
Okay, he’d called me Riley. But he’d gotten the “R” right, and I was hanging onto that.
Like I said, small wins.
But this? This tiny room with three feet of air between us and no one else in sight? This was a first.
Even as I stared at the wall beside the door, I could feel his attention on me. Like a spotlight. It made my skin buzz. I inhaled slowly and caught a whiff of his cologne. Spicy and earthy, mixed with something uniquely him. Like night air.
My stomach fluttered. With effort, I turned, tried a smile, and picked up my tray, using the moment to gather my thoughts enough to form words.
“Sorry. I’m…well. Whew, you know? One of those shifts, and I was just taking a quick break.” I hunched a little, preparing to slip past him. “I’ll get out of your way.”
“You’re not in my way,” he said without missing a beat. His easy tone surprised me enough that I looked up and met his eyes without instantly melting. That felt like progress.
He’d leaned a shoulder against the doorframe and crossed his arms, his biceps doing that flex thing again that should honestly be illegal. For once, he didn’t seem distant. He seemed…curious. About me?
Then he said, “Tell me more about this alien theory of yours.”
I plummeted straight from cloud nine back to Earth. In flames.
Oh. That checked out. That was why he was still here. He wanted to hear the crazy girl’s alien rant. Fascinating stuff.
Of course he wasn’t interested in me. He probably thought it was funny. He was mildly entertained, at best.
I unbent my spine and stood tall. I wasn’t going to melt. I wasn’t going to spiral. I was going to be calm and rational and—
I rolled my eyes. At myself. At him. At this. Everything.
“It’s not my theory,” I said, trying for confident and landing somewhere near defensive. “I don’t believe in aliens.”
Sky’s brows slowly angled upward. “Oh, really? That’s…interesting.”
Something flickered in his expression too quickly for me to recognize. That gaze was direct but unreadable. Trained on me.
My fluster was coming back, tangling my tongue into knots.
“Well, not these aliens.” I took a deep breath.
“This is something some online nutjob posted. Kelly buys into it. I don’t.
It’s ridiculous.” I shook my head and gestured weakly.
“I mean, yeah, okay, sure. My texts haven’t always been sending the last few days.
But I don’t immediately assume we’re being invaded by the Borg.
” No little green men or massive Independence Day ships had been spotted.
Kelly and the rest of these people were just…
delusional. I twisted my lips. “If aliens were going to make a dramatic entrance, I doubt they’d start by screwing with the power grid… ”
I blinked. Sky was the one staring now. Too late, I realized I’d made a Star Trek reference. Great. All I needed was a phaser to go with my tinfoil hat and I’d complete the look.
Everything about this night was officially Too Much. Capital T and M.
Shoulders slumping again, I dropped my gaze to my white canvas shoes. “Excuse me, Sky. I need to check on my tables.”
“In a minute. They’re fine. Sandy’s bribing everyone with hand-delivered Seaside Samplers. Jackie’s losing their mind.”
None of that was surprising. I huffed a weak laugh. What was surprising, though, was Sky stopping me. Surely he had better things to do than talk about conspiracy theories in the prep closet.
I dragged my eyes from the floor, back up to his face. His mouth was still curved in that close-lipped half-smile as he studied me. Intently. A whisper of uncertainty stirred in my gut.
“Whose theory did you say it was?” he asked.
Why was everyone so hung up on this ridiculous alien crap?
“Kelly’s,” I muttered, shifting my grip so both arms wrapped around the tray like it was a shield. Maybe it could block the tide of ridiculousness sweeping through this place.
When Sky gazed at me blankly, I tilted the tray aside, lifting one hand to mime curves in the air. “Blond. Hot. Pink…well, everything. That Kelly.”
“Oh.” Recognition lit his face—predictable, albeit annoying—and he nodded. “Right. Kelly. She came up with that?”
I snorted. “Hardly. She probably saw it on a reel. She loves reels.” Focusing on my shoes again, I pinched the inside of my cheek between my teeth and nodded at the door. “Look, I really need to get back to work.”
I stepped forward, waiting for him to move. There was a chip in the doorframe, like someone had slammed it hard once. Relatable.
I wanted to slam something.
“Yeah, sure,” Sky said, after a beat had passed. “Sorry.”
Finally, he stepped aside, arm extended like some kind of gallant knight, gesturing me through. I was going to have to pass close. Like, inches close. A fresh thrill of nerves zinged up my spine.
Swallowing hard, I darted a glance up.
He gave me that same infuriatingly dimpled smile, a slight tug at the corner of his mouth so smooth I’d believe he’d practiced it in a mirror. His dark eyes sparkled. “After you. Good talking to you, Rachel.”
Rachel. Not my name, but another random one that started with an R. Talk about adding insult to injury.
I ripped my gaze away, gripping my tray hard enough I was surprised the plastic didn’t creak. I felt the weight of his attention on my downturned face. Like he was willing me to look up. Which, of course, I didn’t.
Damn it. Rachel. Really? I was wearing a name tag, for God’s sake.
I didn’t even correct him. Didn’t bother. Just tucked my chin and brushed past, heat burning up the back of my neck. Somehow, I felt worse than before. Like I’d lost a contest I hadn’t known I’d entered. Like someone had taken the air right out of my shiny balloon.
Dejected, I shuffled to my section. Everywhere I turned, Seaside Samplers sizzled.
I made it two steps before I couldn’t stop myself from looking back over my shoulder.
Sky was gone. Along with what remained of my dignity.
This night was officially the worst.
If Kelly was somehow right about the aliens, maybe a spaceship should come get me. At this point, getting abducted sounded better than surviving the rest of this shift.
I snorted a bitter laugh.
Of course, that was about to become cosmic-level ironic.