Chapter 13
Kian could take as long as he needed in the office. James wouldn’t mind, and he was taking it better than I would’ve. I had been preparing myself for multiple scenarios—even ones where I didn’t tell him the truth—but his true reaction wasn’t even on my radar.
In the bathroom, I leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on my face. I considered what Luke would do. Hell, what any adult would do. There weren’t any resources for this kind of thing. Well, there were , but I highly doubted the books covered vampires and hunters and?—
“Ugh!” Groaning, I jerked a paper towel out of the dispenser to dry my face. I slumped against the wall. I didn’t know what to do with myself. My skin was crawling, my body itching with the need to do something . But what?
I could go home. James and Shi could handle the bar without me, but I didn’t want to be by myself.
So with that, I stomped down the hallway to the front of house.
The bar wasn’t busy, but it was enough to keep James and Shi mo ving. Of course, James was the first one to note my presence. “Please give me something to do.”
He glanced toward the office. “Kian?”
“Wanted some time alone, and I need to get out of my head. So please, put me to work.”
We weren’t exactly quiet, so I wasn’t surprised when Shi spoke up. “I could use a break,” they said, looking to James. “I’m starving.”
Whether they were lying, I couldn’t tell. Regardless, James wasn’t one to let his employees go hungry. He nodded his approval, and Shi let me under the partition as they headed to the kitchen.
“Is everything okay?” James asked quietly. “I mean, as okay as it can be?”
I shrugged. “It could have gone worse. I expected him to lash out. He wasn’t angry like I expected him to be—like I would have been.”
“No?”
“No, he was just… sad. It killed me to watch.”
A man stumbled up to the bar, barely supporting himself with a hand on the counter. He was clearly drunk, and James confirmed my suspicion. “I’m not serving you anymore. I told you that three drinks ago. You’re done.”
Bleary, drunken eyes turned to me. “You haven’t served me yet.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to,” I said, inclining my head toward James. “If he says you’re cut off, you’re cut off. Can I call you a cab home?”
The guy waved his hand dismissively. “I can manage myself.”
James and I shared a worried look as the guy turned away. When I looked back—yep, he was fishing his keys out of his pocket, stumbling toward the fr ont door.
“I didn’t realize he drove,” James said, taking a step toward the partition.
“I got it,” I said. I managed to get to the door first, stopping the guy in his tracks. “You are not driving.”
“Says who?”
“Says me,” I asserted, holding my hand out. “Can I have your keys?”
“I’m not handing my keys to you!”
Okay, I see how this is going to go . I wasn’t muscular by any means, but this guy was heavily intoxicated. He could barely stand up straight. I should have offered to call the paramedics instead of a taxi. He was built, but given his state, I could likely take him.
“Then I guess we’ll have to call the police.” I gestured to where a small crowd was gathering behind us. “These lovely people would like to get on with their evening, so either please leave in a taxi or have a seat until someone can come get you.”
“Like hell. Move.”
I knew the guy’s next move before he made it. He fumbled for my shirt, managing a weak grip before I knocked his hand out of the way, spinning him around and slamming him into the wall.
“I tried to do this the easy way,” I said, straining through gritted teeth. He struggled, but in his inebriated state, he couldn’t muster the leverage he needed to overpower me. A moment later, I pinned him in place.
“Bastard!” he growled, jerking his head back.
I twisted, but I wasn’t fast enough. His skull connected with my lip. I flinched, my tongue darted out, and I tasted metallic blood. “Oh, I’ll show you a bastard.”
I hauled him away from the wall and wrestled him toward the door, shoving him away from me the second we cleared its thresh old. “Get out of here,” I snarled. “If you come back, I will call the police and you can sober up in a cell.”
I spun and went back inside. He shouted after me, but I wasn’t falling for his games. Vegas Ryder might have, but I liked to think I’d grown since then. Besides, it wouldn’t do any good for me to take my frustrations out on that asshole—even if he did deserve it. I quickly cleaned myself up with a napkin, running my tongue along the inside of my mouth to assess the damage. I winced at the sting when I found the cut.
“Let me see,” James said.
“I’m fine.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
I batted his hand away when he reached for my chin. “Well I’m telling you: leave it. It’s just a busted lip.” Relaxing a little, I added, “I’ll be okay. It’ll heal in a few days and it’ll be nothing more than another story about me throwing some drunk asshole out of a bar.”
“Ryder…”
“James.” I tried to match his stern tone. I wasn’t going to budge. I’d spent most of my adult life as a bartender—in Vegas, of all places. Punch-ups were part of the job. I wasn’t going to let a small cut on my lip be the thing to take me down. Sure, it would be swollen for a few days, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. Hell, I’d dealt with worse after that altercation with Dani.
Thankfully, James relented, even if it wasn’t without a look that said he wanted to keep pressing. I could see the concern in his eyes, the way his hands twitched with the need to touch me. I wouldn’t have minded, but we had a full house and even I realized that too much PDA was bad for business.
James’s gaze shifted to look behind me. “Shiloh, bring me a Ziploc from the kitchen please.”
Shi froze mid-step, eyes widening as they took in my appearance. They b acktracked, returning with a plastic bag. James filled it with ice and handed it to me along with a clean bar towel. “At least stand in that corner and ice it for five minutes.”
I looked at the ice pack, then back to him, earning an eye roll at my hesitation. “Please.”
Then his eyes went from stern to… damn it, he was giving me the puppy eyes. That was my move! I could never resist those. I guess my resistance had him resorting to desperate measures.
I tried to stay strong but crumpled. “Fine,” I said, snatching the pack from him and tucking myself into the corner and out of the way. James barely managed to suppress a grin. Those eyes sparkled with mischief as he turned back to the customers. Damn it. He’d found my kryptonite.
“What the hell did I miss?” Shi asked, needing to reach over me to grab a bottle.
“Only the chance to see the world-famous Ryder Clark in action. I tossed some plastered dickhead to the curb.”
“You are so full of yourself,” they scoffed, shaking their head and turning away.
“Admit it,” I called after them, but not loud enough for customers to hear, “the scars only make me hotter.”
My five minutes passed, and James walked over to check my frozen lip. He deemed it still too swollen for his liking. He grabbed me by the upper arm and ushered me to the other side of the bar where he plopped my ass down on a stool.
I pulled the ice away from my mouth. The cut was making my eyes water. “I’m fine,” I slurred.
“When you can say that without the lisp that you’ve never had before, I’ll believe you.”
“I didn’t know you were a doctor,” I groused, voice muffled behind the towel.
He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I used to be. ”
He turned away, missing my incredulous look. I’d have to interrogate him about that later, though—Shi was snickering. “What’s so funny, Shi Baby?”
“Nothing,” they said quickly.
I crossed an arm over my chest and tucked it under the one holding the ice pack to my lip. “Keep your secrets. I’ll just sit here and watch you look pretty.”
They spilled their pour, and I grinned in triumph, finally settling back in silence.
“Ryder,” James scolded, “if you keep it up I’m going to start charging you for every ounce of alcohol they spill.”
“Then let me get back to work. I’m useless sitting here.”
“Five more minutes.”
“James—”
“Five. More. Minutes.”
He was giving me that look that made me shrink back in my seat, but I listened. He hovered the whole time, never moving more than a few steps away from me. Once my second round of freezing was over, he finally allowed me to get back behind the bar.
I practically leapt off the stool, tossing the ice pack to James and falling into place next to Shi. James moved to the corner I’d vacated, but he stayed close the rest of the night—almost bumping into me at every turn.
Damn, he was being clingy. It was suffocating.
After a while, James faked a dinner break, finally leaving me alone. Given his behavior tonight, I was surprised he was willing to go farther than two feet from me. I was changing out bottles when someone in the corner of my eye got my attention.
A young woman strutted up to the bar. She stumbled a bit before catching herself. At first, I thought she was drunk, but then I took in more of her appearance. “Can I get another one of these?” she asked, handing an empty seltzer can over to Shi. I discre etly positioned myself at the end of the bar to get a better look. She looked at me, batted her fake eyelashes—and wobbled. She didn’t know how to walk in her shoes.
Shi, however, didn’t seem to notice anything odd about the situation. “Sure thing.”
“Hold on,” I said, making Shi freeze in their tracks. I turned to the girl. The too-high heels, the heavy layer of makeup and… aha: the ring on her finger. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four,” she said without missing a beat.
I wasn’t buying it. “What year were you born?”
“1999.”
I’d been doing this way too long. I knew a rehearsed answer when I heard one. “Name one song by the Killers.”
“Who?”
I grinned. “That’s what I thought. Go home.”
She walked away, defeated.
“Jesus, Shiloh,” I sighed, grabbing the seltzer can from the counter. “You need to be more careful.”
“How did you know she was underage?”
“She had a high school class ring on her finger. One of the oldest tricks in the book: she swiped the can off an empty table. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Seriously, if we get caught serving minors that could be the end of it. You need to pay closer attention.”
“Um, yeah, you’re right…”
I winced. Maybe I’d been a little too harsh. I was feeling on edge, and I didn’t know how to fix it. The night had barely started, but I was ready for it to be over—and that wasn’t like me. I was typically the first one to show up for a shift and the last to leave, but tonight? Last call couldn’t come fast enough.
Shi was looking at me with a strange expression.
I couldn’t ignore it. “What’s that look for?”
“You’re really good at this, aren’t you? ”
I bit off a smile. “Not sure I love that you sound so surprised.”
Before they could respond, a commotion in the back corner of the bar caught our attention: a fight was breaking out. Shi looked at me with panic in their eyes, and their look had me pausing to take a deep breath before I stormed over to separate the fighters. If this was how the night was going to be, I was in for a shitshow.
Turns out, that was only the beginning.