Chapter 4 Natalie
NATALIE
“Are you okay?” Rosa asked as we finished cleaning up the bar.
I sighed, knowing I had to lie.
No, I was definitely not okay. I was tired. I was bewildered. I was disgusted by how many men commented on my ass, my tits, my curves, my mouth, my hair.
“Yep.”
She rolled her eyes at my curt reply, too smart to take it at face value. With a heavy exhale, she came closer to hug me with one arm wrapped around my back. “Stupid question. You’re the opposite of anything okay right now.”
I hung my head and wanted to groan at how well she could read me. Ten years older than me and with the experience of being a bartender for just as long, she had become something of a mama bear with me. Taking me under her wing, she was patient and understanding. To an extent.
“Look, I’d like to tell you that it gets easier.”
I wouldn’t believe you.
“But you know,” she said as she stepped aside and shrugged, “some people are cut out for certain jobs, and others aren’t.”
I cringed and leaned my butt against the sink’s edge. “At least you’re honest about it.” I tried my hair back in a ponytail and yawned. “I know I’m not the usual kind of outgoing and energetic bar girl who’d make sense in a place like this, but—”
“No. No. It’s not that.” She beamed at me as she resumed sweeping. “I was a na?ve, innocent thing like you back in my prime.” A naughty wink accompanied her confession. “We all gotta start somewhere. I meant that you still need to get some backbone, girl. Some grit.”
And here I thought I had grit to be employed here at all.
“Haven’t you had to deal with any assholes like that before?” She gave me a skeptical side-eye. “As nice as you are, as hot as that body is, you can’t tell me that no moron’s tried to bother you before.”
“Are you insulting me or hitting on me?” I teased.
“Ha! But seriously, Nat. You aren’t some young teenager just setting out in the big, bad world.
” Once more, she proved not to be pushy, looking down as she swept and kind of danced to the music she had playing with the bar closing up.
“You seriously have no experience with telling men off or standing up for yourself with losers like them earlier?”
Honestly, I didn’t. I had no clue how to explain that to her without making myself appear more pathetic, though.
Fitz and I were high school sweethearts, growing up together in the small town outside the Big Apple before he wanted to come here for college.
We stayed together, exclusively. Once he started his studies and won an engineering award at a contest, we got our condo and married.
Our wedding happened just days before I turned twenty, and even though I’d been dabbling with some classes here and there, trying to figure out what major I wanted to stick with, Fitz eventually convinced me to put it on hold.
We immediately tried to start our family.
The condo needed lots of work, and I did the DIY thing while he was in school.
Working a couple of part-time jobs, like at the library as a page and as a virtual assistant for a small business owner, kept me busy too.
When Maisie was born, all thoughts of working or going to school faded.
Being a wife and mother were what suited me.
Fitz’s award and hard work meant we could be one of those rare single income families so long as we were frugal and conservative with our living expenses.
And it had worked. Blissfully. Perfectly. Until he was gone.
Because I’d always been with him and had never been a single woman in a bar, I didn’t have experience dealing with creeps like that. I never had to experience any jerk harassing me because I’d always been with my boyfriend or husband. Protected and spoken for.
“Not really,” I admitted to Rosa, hanging my head and sighing as I realized how horribly sheltered I’d been all this time.
I hadn’t criticized how submissive I ended up being with Fitz acting like our sole provider, but now, in hindsight and with him gone, I had to admit how lacking my confidence was.
How much I had to go in learning how to be hardier and more at ease with society without a man to rely on.
“Well, that’s the small-town effect, huh?” Rosa said, slightly laughing so it didn’t come across as too mean.
“Yeah. I guess.”
She patted my back as I finished setting the clean glasses on the last rack. “You go on home, girl.”
“Really?” I smiled up at her. “I can give you a cut of my tips to finish closing. Again.”
She shook her head. “Nah. Go on. I know you got your baby girl to get home to.”
“I know. But I won’t take advantage of you.”
She barked a single laugh. “Girl, you’re not the kind of person to take advantage of anyone or anything!”
Now, that sounded like a compliment, and it was one I liked. Even if I had to learn how to be tougher and scrappy without Fitz to provide for me or defend me, I preferred to hang on to some softness in my heart.
“Daria’s good to watch Maisie for another hour yet,” I reminded her, referencing the college student I’d lucked out to find in our apartment building. She was a smart and patient young woman, and I appreciated how well Maisie took to her babysitter.
“Go on.” Rosa shooed me out. “Go on. I’ve got this.”
I hugged her and accepted her offer to handle the rest of the night.
Outside on the sidewalk, I glanced around me.
Scoping my surroundings was a habit I picked up as soon as I learned I was pregnant with Maisie.
The city could always become a dangerous setting in the blink of the eye.
Being responsible for her life, even before she was born, was the prompt for me to always be aware of any threats or concerns. Because her safety was on me, not Fitz.
I sighed in despair at how often he was creeping into my thoughts tonight. He’d been gone for one year now, and still, time wasn’t healing “all”.
Tightening my coat around me, sure that no one would pop out and bother me on my walk home, I wondered when the loss of my husband would fade so I could be happy again. When I would gain enough street smarts that I wouldn’t always be so tense.
It’s just because of those two men tonight. That’s all.
Seeing those drunk creeps helping themselves behind the bar had left me unsettled. That was why I was so uptight now with lingering nervousness.
If that man hadn’t been seated there…
I shook my head as I walked, regretting how I froze and clammed up. Rosa would’ve turned around eventually and gotten them away from me. She would’ve called for Peter to come kick those idiots out.
But that man…
He saved me.
I had no clue who the man was, but the haunted look of anger and frustration that he’d shown me when I was cornered clung to me.
Even now, as I thought back to how he’d stood up and gotten those men to back off, I was shaken by the violence he was so clearly capable of.
The ease and fluid athleticism he’d proven when he cranked that man’s arm the wrong way.
The indifference to having to resort to pain to get his message across.
And all for me.
I huffed a weak laugh of incredulous wonder that he’d cared enough to step in.
With my gaze lowered a bit, I almost reacted too late for when he stepped in front of me.
Here, on the sidewalk.
I gasped, jumping back before we actually collided on this square of the path. “Whoa!”
He didn’t flinch like I did, but the surprise registered on his face too as he looked up, almost as if he hadn’t been watching where he walked near the alley at the corner. “Oh.”
Catching myself from stumbling back too far, I brushed my hair from my face and peered up at him.
Without the dimness of the bar and the stink of alcohol, sweat, perfume, and weed, he seemed so much clearer now.
I could smell the spice of his cologne, clean and distinct.
I could see the details of shadows from his lean face.
And without backing up again, I could feel the heat radiating from his big body.
Whoa, indeed. I stepped back again, unnerved by how much I noticed so many details about him. Looking down, I frowned at the wet stains on his dark shoes. Blood?
“I’m sorry to startle you,” he said in that rich baritone. Something else that hit me crisply. Unlike the loudness in the bar, this mild night allowed me to hear him clearly.
“No. No.” I shook my head. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” Hoisting my purse strap higher on my shoulder, I hated that I had the urge to fidget under his intense stare. “If anyone should be apologizing, it’s me. I’m sorry those men bothered you at the bar and—”
He smirked, laughing once. “They were bothering you,” he corrected. “And I hate that you had to put up with that at all.”
A slow smile stretched over my face. “On that note, thank you.”
He dipped his head in a slight nod of acknowledgment.
“But… why?”
His brows rose. “Why? I’m not fond of anyone harassing women.”
“No, not that. I mean…” Breaking eye contact seemed mandatory. This was the most I’d talked to a man in a long time. “I mean, why did you care to help me? We’re strangers.”
He extended his hand. I glanced down at it, intrigued by the hint of tattoos just at the edge of his cuff. That suit screamed business but the callused grip of his big, warm hand and the ink on his skin suggested that he could be a bad boy, too.
“I’m Sergei,” he said, encasing my hand with his.
“Natalie,” I replied.
“There. We’re not strangers, after all,” he teased gruffly.
I shook his hand, nodding dumbly. The simple contact of our hands together like this shouldn’t have sent this bolt of awareness through me.
We were shaking hands. A common gesture between two people in an introduction.
No ulterior motive hid behind our touching like this, yet, the longer I hesitated to release his warm strength, the warier I became.
Losing Fitz was a hard lesson of independence that I was still trying to navigate. With what Rosa had asked me, I was acutely aware of how this seemingly innocent introduction and handshake could twist into something unintentional.
I hadn’t expected to see this man again to have the chance to thank him. I was glad I did. And I had. I told him thank you. That deed was done.
But nothing else would follow, right?
He wouldn’t ask me to prove that I was thankful or anything like that, would he?
His good deed allowed me to have a tiring night instead of a terrifying and harrowing one. But I almost winced at the possibility that I’d be indebted to him.
After Fitz’s death, I understood how confining my life was by being indebted to him and counting on him for everything.
“Thanks again,” I said, wishing I sounded stronger and more sincere. I was. But under his blue stare, I was intimidated.
“You’re welcome, Natalie.” He released my hand, sticking his in his pocket like he wasn’t bothered or nervous at all. “Have a good night.”
I smiled, moving past him. “You too, Sergei.”
Without another look back, I continued on my walk home, impatient to see my daughter. The further I moved from the strong man who’d proven that good people still existed in this world, I wanted to cave and see if he was still there, watching me go.
The idea that he’d be watching over me, even from a distance, lit a little thrill inside me.
When I peeked back, he was gone.
Oh, well.
For the best.
I wasn’t ready to invite any man in my life. Not even one brave enough to step in for me when I choked and froze in the face of a threat.