Chapter 2 Neon Moon
Neon Moon
At around eight o’clock, there’s a lull in the action, and it’s time to start the annual candy hearts exchange.
Heading to the storage room, I take the heart-shaped bowl from its perch at the top of the shelf. Then I dump in dozens of packets of candy hearts inside and carry it to the front door.
Luke watches me approach, his bright crystal eyes flicking from my face to the bowl of candy hearts and back again.
His gaze doesn’t linger on my body.
Which is fine. Totally fine.
I’m not everyone’s type. It’s cool.
I put the bowl of candy hearts by the door and lean against the frame.
“Here’s the deal,” I explain. “We have a dumb but entertaining Valentine’s Day tradition here at Mad Dog’s.” I pat the bowl. “Everyone who comes in gets a packet of candy hearts. Then, they’re supposed to give it to someone else inside.”
“I see,” he says, in a way that makes me think he doesn’t actually see. He looks vaguely skeptical of everything I just said, so I figure he needs more explanation.
“Sometimes,” I continue, “you get two people who give their candy hearts to each other, and love—or at least a date—or a hookup—happens.”
He nods. “Smart business strategy. Give all the single people a reason to come out and drink on Valentine’s Day.”
“Or, you know, give them the chance at a brief moment of happiness and connection in a cold, hard world.” I flip my hair behind my shoulder. “But yeah, it’s good for business too.”
His eyes track my hair flip. “Anything else I should know?”
“Whoever ends the night with the most candy hearts given to them wins the grand prize.”
I point to a pink, heart-shaped, red velvet cake from the best bakery in town, currently sitting in its plastic box under a decorative reading light I put over it to make it fancy.
“It’s a really good cake,” I sigh. There’s more than a hint of longing in my voice. “Red velvet is my fave.”
I start to walk away when Luke says, “How many times have you won it?”
I stop. “What do you mean?”
“I assume you’ve won the grand prize plenty of times.”
He thinks I’d be that popular?
My cheeks heat. “Nope. I’m off-limits.”
The next few hours keep me busy at the bar. For singles, Mad Dog’s is the only game in town. We get big groups of women doing a “Galentine’s Day” and we get plenty of guys who know the ladies will be here.
By midnight, I already know who’s walking away with that cake at the end of the night.
Because it turns out our new bouncer is a very popular addition to Mad Dog’s.
I watch nearly every woman who walks through the doors stare at him or do a double take.
A couple of the guys, too.
I see girls get on their phones and I watch the screens light up with text messages.
More girls show up as the night goes on, dressed to impress in a way that Mad Dog’s really doesn’t warrant, even on Valentine’s Day. And I watch it happen, time after time, as they grab their packet of candy hearts from the bowl and immediately give it to Luke.
He receives the candy hearts given to him with confusion at first, but it doesn’t take him long to understand what’s happening. As the night goes on, he adds them to his giant stack with unwavering, neutral politeness.
As the hours go by, he’s on the receiving end of so many little touches—those kinds that girls give to guys they’re into, little taps on the arm and shoulder—and he just observes it happening, never touching back or leaning into it.
He gets flirted with, but doesn’t flirt back.
His eyes never linger on anyone except to check IDs, and then once he waves them in, they barely exist to him.
Okay then. Good to know he can keep it professional, I guess.
I have to admit, I turn out to be wrong about Pretty Boy.
He can handle his shit.
Not in the way I was expecting of a bouncer, though.
It starts when two guys start getting in a heated fight over who’s going home with Michelle, who’s recently divorced and running a train through the local bachelors in revenge on her cheating ex -husband.
Before fists start flying, Pretty Boy steps in. I don’t hear what he says to everyone involved, but it ends with the two men standing down from their little fight, and all three of them leaving in Michelle’s car for what I assume is a little Valentine’s Day menage-a-trois.
So… good for them.
And good for Pretty Boy.
As midnight rolls into one o’clock, things slow down enough that I can take my ten minute break without totally screwing over Jenny, my co-worker.
It’s feeling hot and stuffy and everyone’s perfume and cologne is starting to make my head hurt, so I grab my winter coat and head out back to get some fresh air. It’s a chilly night and the sky is full of stars.
When I was little, I used to wish on the brightest star in the sky that my mom would come back to me. That she would change her mind and decide she wanted to be part of our family after all.
At some point, it started to hurt—making that same wish over and over again.
It hurt too much to keep waiting for it to come true.
So now I wish on the brightest star for other things.
Depending on my mood, there are realistic wishes and impossible wishes.
I wish for my dad’s bad back to quit acting up.
I wish for my dog, Buster, to be the first dog in the world to live to a hundred years old.
I wish for more days spent with my paintbrushes.
I wish for someone to love me at my worst, not just at my best.
Like I said—realistic and impossible wishes.
I take in a deep lungful of icy air.
Technically, it’s February 15th. So I made it through Valentine’s Day without making any bad decisions, which is admittedly a rarity for me.
The door to the back opens. Turquoise eyes peer out at me from a handsome face, backlit by the bar behind him.
“Mind if I take my break out here too?” Luke asks.
I shuffle aside to make room for him against the back wall. He positions himself next to me and leans against the wall, letting out a breath.
He smells like spearmint gum. I bet he’d taste like it too.
“I’m surprised you managed to get away from all your admirers,” I say. “How does it feel to be fresh meat?”
“Is that what’s going on here?” He shakes his head. “I was thinking it was some kind of Valentine’s Day joke I wasn’t in on.”
“Oh, please. Don’t act like you’re Tarzan and this is your first time in civilization. You know exactly what you look like.”
“Pray tell.”
“Like you’re a teen heartthrob playing a cowboy in a hit TV show.”
In the moonlight, his eyes gleam with amusement. “Ouch. Well, at least you have me in a hit show, not a flop.”
All right, so he’s got a sense of humor. It’s normal for that fact to make him even more attractive. Normal for that to make me like him just a little.
Doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything about it.
The tip of his cowboy boot scuffs the snow-dusted ground beneath it. He says, “I noticed you haven’t given your candy hearts to anyone.”
He’s been watching me that closely?
“I don’t just give away my candy hearts anymore,” I tell him. “A man wants it, he has to earn it.”
From the corner of my eye, I feel him studying me.
“And how might a man do that?” he asks.
“Put in the work. Take it slow. Mean what he says, and say what he means. And actually follow up on those words with actions that match.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“You’d think. But apparently it’s like asking for someone to lasso the moon.”
Damn it. I don’t want to sound bitter. Somewhere along the way I went from being a hopeless romantic to being a cynic, and I don’t like it.
“Anyway,” I say, “Hope you like that red velvet cake. No doubt it’s all yours.”
As I go back inside, I don’t wait for his reply.
While I close up the bar for the night, Luke comes over.
“You got another rag and spray bottle down there?” he asks.
I groan, steeling myself for a nasty clean-up job. “Ugh. Is it puke or blood?”
He blinks at me. “Neither. Just looking to wipe down the tables.”
I look at him through narrowed eyes. “You ever been a bouncer before?”
He rubs the back of his neck. “No.”
“Yeah. I figured. Because cleaning up tabletops isn’t part of the job description. Then again, neither is turning a territorial bar fight into a happy threesome, but you managed that somehow. Nice diplomatic skills.”
He shrugs. “An ounce of de-escalation is worth a pound of force.”
De-escalation. Fancy ass word. What the hell is this guy doing working as a bouncer in a dive bar?
“They teach you that at the United Nations?” I ask, wiping down the bar top.
“Figured it out for myself somewhere along the way.” He gently pulls the rag and spray bottle from my hands. “I got this.”
I shake my head. “You’ve never worked at a place like this, have you?” The subtext being: you fool. People here do their job, and their job only, and they get the fuck out as soon as their job is done.
“I haven’t,” he says. “But I’ve had jobs all my life. And I know that many hands make light work.”
I let him help.
He’s right. Cleaning up goes twice as fast with his help. He’s thorough and efficient and doesn’t ask stupid questions.
Doesn’t ask any questions at all.
The silence feels weird and charged and I’m itching to say something to cover it.
Normally, I’m kind of a blabbermouth. Give me a conversational vacuum and I’ll happily fill it with my rambling, or ask any number of nosy questions.
I like getting to know people. I don’t mind a stranger pouring their heart out to me or just simple small talk.
It’s part of my job as much as serving drinks.
But I get the feeling that the more I know about this guy, the more I might like him. The last thing I want is a crush on my co-worker.
I’ve made a lot of romantic mistakes, but I don’t shit where I eat.
Fifteen minutes later, the tabletops are gleaming. The floors have been swept. Every surface dusted.
And I didn’t have to lift a finger to do it.
Pretty Boy—okay, I guess I can call him Luke now that he’s proven himself at least a little worthy of putting a name to the face—comes back over with the rag and spray bottle.
“Can I wash up in the restroom?” he asks.
“Down the hallway past the pool table, to your left.”
When he comes back out, his sleeves are pushed up, hands clean but still faintly smelling like soap and lemon oil wood polish.
I hold out the pink box of cake to him. “Congratulations. You’re the grand prize winner of the Valentine’s Day popularity contest.”
He takes the box of cake from me and looks at it for a second. “I’m kind of hungry. You want to share some?”
The question takes me so off-guard that I find myself blurting out, “Sure” before I can think the better of it.
I grab two forks from the silverware container while Luke takes down two of the chairs that he propped up on the tables when he swept and mopped everything.
As I sit down and open up the cake box, he goes to the jukebox and puts a coin in.
A moment later, “Neon Moon” by Brooks & Dunn comes crooning through the speakers.
“I love this song,” I tell him as he comes back over.
“I thought you might.” He points to the neon sign of a moon behind the bar. “You put that up, I’m guessing.”
Damn, he’s observant. That’s a vanishingly rare quality in a guy.
“Felt fitting,” I say. “Given the song lyrics.”
As he settles in, I hand him a fork. Our fingers brush as he takes it, and a funny little zing of electricity goes through me.
He cuts off a bite of cake and spears it on his fork. But instead of taking it for himself, he hands it back to me. “Ladies first.”
Our fingers brush again. Another little electric zing.
As I close my lips around the little wedge of cake, his gaze drops briefly to my mouth.
The taste of chocolate and frosting hits my taste buds in an explosion of sweetness. My eyes flutter closed.
“God, that’s so good,” I say, once I swallow.
Is it just my imagination or are his pupils way more dilated than they were a second ago?
He wrenches his eyes away and takes his own bite of cake. Nods thoughtfully. When he’s done eating, he says, “I’m not a sweets person, but you’re right. That’s pretty damn good.”
“Not a sweets person?” I repeat disbelievingly. “You just haven’t met the right kind of sweets, then.”
An almost-smile curves one corner of his mouth. “Maybe that’s true.”
“If you’re not a sweets person,” I ask, “What were you going to do with this cake? Please don’t tell me you’d throw it in the trash. That would be a crime against sugar.”
“I was gonna give it to someone.”
“Girlfriend?” I guess.
My heart sinks a little, despite my better judgement.
The almost-smile lifts just a little more. “Actually, I was gonna bring it back to my mom.”
Oh, he’s so cute.
Fuck, I’m in trouble.