Chapter Five
This was a disaster, with a capital D and seventy-two exclamation points, with thick bold lines underlining the disaster this was.
No, this was whatever was worse than a disaster—it was catastrophic. A ten-point-seven earthquake. A category-five hurricane. Whatever tornadoes were measured in, right before they touched down and demolished an entire town.
Pete, Mason, and Ryan. Three of my bosses, along with Calli, Mason’s woman, were at the Vault.
And did I mention Ryan, because that was worth the repeat, especially when he was the one watching me dance with what could be described as disgust on his gorgeous face.
Holy freaking shit.
This couldn’t get any worse.
It was the longest four minutes and fifty seconds—give or take thirty seconds—of my life.
As soon as the last echoes of Billy Idol’s raspy voice faded, I double extra quick beelined back to my section, which was thankfully on the other side of the room from my bosses’ table.
Bosses.
Fuck me sideways.
“Hey, pretty lady, can we get another round?”
Pretty lady.
Yuck.
With my best smile I looked to the table and the two men currently occupying it.
One filthy rich, the other with enough money to pay the membership fee, drive a fancy car, and live in a ridiculously big house—all on credit.
Maybe he was new money. Maybe he had an inferiority complex or maybe he was just a dick, but he was nowhere near as wealthy as the man sitting across from him.
He knew it, I knew it, and the other man—who’d introduced himself as Sterling—knew it.
“Len,” Sterling chastised.
Len. That fit. Though when Len had introduced himself, he did so as Mr. Taylor.
One of the reasons I knew he was new money and a dick.
The show of superiority was unnecessary, yet he felt the need to flex his perceived dominance.
I was nothing more than a lowly waitress there to serve him. It was arrogance personified.
“My apologies,” Len muttered. “Chloe, right?”
I ignored his half-assed apology.
“As soon as the bar reopens, I’ll bring your drinks right over, Mr. Taylor.”
I transferred my gaze to Sterling and gave him the same fake smile.
Another difference between the men—Sterling didn’t allow his conceit to cloud his awareness.
He was astute in a way Len was not. Which meant he read my smile, knew it was total bullshit, and gave me one of his own—his wasn’t fake, it was amused.
I’d peg Sterling as a man in his sixties.
Though, as the universe often did with men, his good looks didn’t take a hit with his age, and when his lips curved up into a smile, I couldn’t deny it took years off his face and gave him a silver-fox appeal I was positive meant he had no trouble finding a date.
Incidentally, I had noted he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
“Thank you, Chloe.”
Another confession: He had a great voice. And when it wrapped around my name it was almost as nice as when Ryan said it.
Almost.
But nothing beat the way Ryan’s smooth drawl made my lady parts contract. One day, if I wasn’t careful, I’d let a moan slip out when Ryan was talking to me.
Ryan.
No. Pete, Mason, and Ryan.
“Be right back.”
“Take your time.”
I hoped Sterling meant that, because I needed a five-minute break in the back room to pull myself together.
With my eyes studiously glued to Lori, I wandered through the crowd in her direction.
Lori was a pretty blonde bartender who had a way about her that drew a crowd to her end of the bar.
That had a lot to do with her quick wit and comebacks as well as her girl-next-door vibe that men ate up.
By the time I made it to her, I was proud I hadn’t looked at Ryan’s table.
Pete’s table.
Pete and Mason were there, too, and for some reason I always considered Pete my big boss. Sure, all the guys didn’t equally own the Plank; it was just that Pete was the stern one out of the bunch. And he was there too. Yet my brain was stuck on Ryan.
“Chloe, a word,” Muriel said, coming up beside me.
If Pete was my big boss at the Plank, Mason was the easygoing boss, Fallon was the anything goes boss—in that if you went to him with a shift change, his response was always, “As long as you all have it worked out, there’s no problem.
” Aiden and Gavin were just Aiden and Gavin.
They came and they went, and they always had smiles on their faces, but they passed the buck to one of the others.
Not in mean way—they were always friendly.
I just got the feeling they deferred to the others for whatever reason.
Muriel was my mysterious boss. She was aloof while managing to be friendly-ish. Standoffish but pleasant. This being my third shift, I hadn’t been able to suss her out fully, but I was leaning toward no nonsense and no second chances.
In other words, she kind of scared me, and I really needed this job, so her asking me for a word didn’t give me the warm and fuzzies.
“Sure. Here or . . .” I let that hang.
“Here’s fine. Cynthia is a no-show tonight. Could you stay on and cover her section?”
Internally I groaned. Externally I smiled.
“Absolutely.”
With a practical nod, she smartly walked away.
Yeah, no nonsense, and my guess, Cynthia wouldn’t have a job to come back to if she tried to show up for her next shift.
I ordered Mr. Taylor and Sterling’s drinks, waited for Lori to put them on my tray, and didn’t dare look around the room as I stood at the bar.
Surely Pete, Mason, and Ryan wouldn’t be mad I had a second job here.
It wasn’t like I didn’t show up at the Plank when I was scheduled.
And I was a waitress, for goodness’ sakes; it wasn’t like I’d signed a noncompete.
Besides, the Vault wasn’t competition. The clientele here was very different from the younger, hip crowd that drank at the Plank.
But it was the look of disgust on Ryan’s face I couldn’t get out of my head.
The music was back to a low hum in the background of a sea of conversation that floated around me as I made my way back to Sterling’s table.
“. . . she’s making waves,” I heard Len telling Sterling. “It might become a—”
“Thank you, Chloe.” Sterling spoke over Len, cutting off whatever he was saying.
I carefully set Sterling’s bourbon in front of him.
I placed Len’s martini down—Monkey 47, of course, with extra olives, and—you guessed it—shaken, not stirred, like he was James freaking Bond.
I’d barely fought back an eye roll when he’d ordered his first one.
Lori, however, did not when I put in the order.
Before I could walk away and leave the men to their conversation, Len stopped me.
“Are you from around here?”
Please, sweet Lord above, do not have this jackhole hitting on me.
“Sure am. Born and raised.”
I made my move to leave, but this time Sterling waylaid me. “Unusual.”
“How so?”
“There are more transplants than natives here in Southern California.”
I didn’t know if that was strictly true or not. What I did know was I didn’t want to get into a debate about it and invite further conversation. But not responding would be rude.
“I never considered leaving,” I told him. “What’s not to love about almost-perfect year-round weather? Not to mention we have the best beaches.”
There. That was perfectly pleasant.
“I take it your family’s close then.”
Well, that was intrusive, not to mention a shot to my heart.
“Indeed, they are. You gentlemen enjoy your drinks. I’ll be back to check on you.”
“Chloe.” Sterling once again stopped me. This time with an offering—a folded fifty.
Thankfully I was able to contain my sigh of impatience. I injected as much gratitude as I could muster when I acknowledged his generosity. “Thank you, Mr. Blackwell.”
“Sterling,” he corrected.
“Sterling.”
Not that I wasn’t grateful. I needed the money badly, but there was something about Sterling Blackwell that had mental red flags waving.
I did a quick walk-around, checked in with my tables, went back and forth to the bar to deliver drinks, all the while managing to steer clear of Pete’s table.
There, I did it. I was just giving myself a mental high five because I hadn’t thought about Ryan for a whole twenty minutes when the devil himself walked passed me, slowing just enough to growl, “You don’t know us.”
Um.
What?
“I don’t—”
“You. Do. Not. Know. Us.”
With that he stalked off in the direction of the restrooms.
Right, so I hadn’t been seeing things. It had been disgust marring his stupidly perfect features.
Whatever.
He could be mad. They all could be. It made no difference to me.
Even if for some reason they fired me, I now made enough money at the Vault to cover my dad’s nursing home.
Even with the change in his circumstances and the cost going up another five hundred dollars a month.
I wouldn’t be replenishing my savings anytime soon if they canned me, but my dad would be taken care of, and that was all that mattered.
I spent the rest of the night doing my best to convince myself I didn’t care what Ryan thought of me.
And since I’d actively avoided making eye contact with Calli and my bosses and had done everything in my power to stay as far away from their table as I could, I didn’t know what time they’d left.
However, I knew that Sterling stayed until twenty minutes before closing—a full hour after Len bid his farewell.
In this time, Sterling hadn’t ordered another drink, yet he left me another hundred-dollar bill on the table on top of the fifties he’d given me upon delivery of each round.
The guy was filthy rich, and if he was throwing around bills like they were burning a hole in his pocket, I’d gladly take them and add them to tomorrow’s bank deposit and maybe even treat myself to a takeaway coffee—something I hadn’t been able to afford in a long time.
I also scratched calling Poppy onto my mental to-do list so I could thank her again for not giving up and pushing me to give the Vault a try.
This place was a godsend.
You do not know us.
Five words I couldn’t stop replaying now that I no longer had drink orders taking up headspace.
On the drive home I’d thought about it, and I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want anyone to know I knew them. I mean, why would someone ask if I knew three men and one woman sitting at a random table?
That was bizarre.
But not my biggest worry.
I’d danced in front of my bosses in leather booty shorts.
I wanted to crawl under a rock and not come out for a month. I was no longer worried I’d be getting fired—I wanted to quit the Dirty Plank and see if the Vault could give me more hours. I wanted to leave California and see if Arizona was really as hot as everyone complained it was.
If my life didn’t include taking care of my beloved father, I would flee. I’d quit the Plank so I’d never have to look at Ryan again.
Unfortunately, these were the thoughts clogging my head when I climbed the stairs to my apartment. Thus, I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings—Safety 101 failure on my part. That meant when a hand wrapped around my arm, my reaction time was delayed.
Hot breath fanned over my neck when an angry voice lashed out. “Do you have a death wish?”
I opened my mouth to scream, another hand went over my mouth, and I was pulled back against a solid wall of muscle.
The last thought I had before flight or fight took over was that Ryan Strong was solely to blame for my demise.