Chapter Fourteen
▲
Poem
“Poem,” Fox growls, sliding behind me to get to the beer cooler. “Why don’t you make all those tips you’re getting worth their time and actually serve someone?”
Ah. So Mister Communication is talking to me again. And not just talking, but growling. How splendid. How mature. How inspiring.
“An excellent idea!” I declare. I hop up on the bar, grinning at the regulars below me. “Turn the music up, Harry! The boss says I have to earn my tips today.”
The older, bedraggled sweetie pie smiles up at me, silver tooth glinting. “You want rock or roll today, sweetheart?”
I bite my lip, then shrug. “Surprise me!”
“This is a health hazard,” Fox hisses from behind me. An arm knocks my legs out from under me, and I scream as visions of my head splitting open on the bar floor fill my mind.
My scream cuts off abruptly as I land in Fox’s muscular arms, their decidedly not cuddly hardness knocking the breath clean out of my body.
“Are you trying to get the whole bar closed down?” He glares at me, irate blue irises clashing against my gray in a war of… something. Stubbornness? Stupidity?
“I thought you were being nice to me today,” I wheeze when my lungs decide to rejoin the land of free air.
“Decent Employer Fox. Or whatever.” I poke the tip of his nose, squishing it.
“I have been nice to you today, telling you how hot you are and letting you bask in my presence. Then, I follow your instructions immediately, like a good employee, wasting no time to earn my keep, and you try to kill me. This is the second near-death experience I’ve had today!
Second!” I groan, ignoring his grunt as I fling my head back, threatening his balance. “Harry, can you believe this guy?”
Harry’s thick, caterpillar-like eyebrows shoot up as his eyes dart between my face and Fox’s. Harry, clearly, cannot believe this guy.
“Exactly!” I twist back to Fox. “Not only are you being unbearably mean to me, but you’re scaring the customers.
And you think I will be the cause of the Brew’s undoing?
Should I remind you of the time you punched a customer in the face?
Or the time you made them watch an attempted murder—thirty seconds ago? ”
Speechless in the face of my impeccable argument, he stares at me, slack-jawed.
“Are you two going to kiss?” Wilma—Harry’s on-again, off-again girlfriend—asks from three seats down, drawing my horror.
“Kiss?” I ask, nose scrunched in a firm absolutely not. Not for all the butterflies in the world. “Why would we do that?”
“Because he’s quite literally just swept you off your feet?” she asks in return, flicking a hand out to reference me lying in Fox’s arms. “In the movies, they kiss after that.”
I blink. “That was attempted murder,” I inform her. “Not a sweet gesture of love. And, also, this isn’t a movie.”
She pouts.
“It may not be a movie, but it sure is a show,” Harry mutters, eyeing Fox’s hold on me.
I… have no response for that. He’s kind of right, the nut.
“So you’re not going to kiss?” Wilma asks.
“Not today,” Fox answers, finding his voice in the most insane way.
My eyes, wide as saucers, meet his resigned ones. “Stay off the bar, kit. It’s a health code violation.” He pauses, and his Adam’s apple bobs. “Just keep your feet on the ground and your hands moving. I don’t care if you gab, but do it while you fill orders. From the floor.”
“That would be a lot easier if I were, say, on the floor.”
He starts, then grunts, then sets me on my feet. His hands hesitate over my waist, but vanish when it becomes clear that I, a grown woman, can stand all by myself, exactly as he told his brother I could.
“I really would’ve liked a kiss…” Wilma mumbles.
“I could kiss you, darlin’,” Harry offers.
She considers his offer for several long moments, then shrugs. “Sure. I got nothin’ better to do.”
“I told you guys,” Fox rumbles before they can move nary an inch. “If you make out at this bar one more time, you’re getting banned for life. Take it home.”
Wilma’s eyes roll, and mine do, too. “You’re such a spoilsport. Let the young people live!”
He grunts. “Home.”
Wilma and Harry obey, abandoning their drinks to stumble out of Blackwood Brew after Harry tucks a tear-jerking wad of bills into my special tip jar. I yell my appreciation as he walks off, hands going places on Wilma no public setting could possibly approve of, but she clearly does.
“I need bleach,” Fox mutters.
I concur. Love Harry. Love Wilma. Do not love watching Harry and Wilma when they get in a mood. Even if I do support a young quasi-couple’s right to… um… not-quite-groping in public. Just… other publics. Far away from the public that I reside in at any given moment.
Still.
“I think he just paid for half my repairs,” I say. “We can probably cut him some slack on the public displays of… whatever. He’s done his contribution to the general well-being of the population, and now he is off to reap his good karma.”
“He could do that reaping in private,” Fox replies.
I sigh, unable to totally disagree.
“Back to work,” he orders. “Emerson needs another beer, and Eris’ fries are in the window waiting for her.” His hand lands on my waist, then slides across the slice of stomach exposed by my cropped Blackwood Brew T-shirt as he passes me to go back to his end of the bar.
My brows furrow as a fluttering lets loose in my belly, an involuntary response to a large, seriously hot man touching me gently and casually as if he has every right to do so.
And me, letting him, as if confirming that right.
Ugh.
Bodies are stupid.
No time to deal with that, though. Emerson really does need another beer, and his sister, Eris, really does need her food.
I move, jolting across the floor to grab the Wright siblings’ food and drink.
I deliver it with a smile while doing my best to ignore the lingering effects Fox-induced butterflies have on my tingling nerves.
“For my favorites!” I declare, dropping Eris’ fries in front of her, then replacing Emerson’s beer.
Emerson meets my smile with his own. “Thanks, Po.” His head tilts, and he glances at Fox. “You doing okay? Haven’t fallen off of any ladders lately, have you?”
I snort. “I’m dandy, Emmy. You know me. I’ve never seen a ladder I can’t best. Plus, have you seen that tip jar? I’m going to be able to tip you at this rate.”
His lips press together as he shakes his head. “You know we don’t take tips. You also know that we aren’t worried about money. You have an emergency. We’re fixing it. We can discuss cost—or lack of—later.”
I… know no such thing. How would I know that? Why would I know that?
“Aren’t worried about money?” I ask, skeptical. “Don’t you have a business to run?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, but we have a fund at the office specifically for situations like this. Helping when someone’s house burns down or a tree falls on a single mother’s home or a beloved member of the community tries to recreate a biblical flood in her dwelling.
We’re community-oriented at Big Ron’s Contracting.
” He smiles, coffee-brown eyes sparkling with kindness and warmth, and I think I fall just a little bit in love with him.
Until I remember that Almond is in love with him, so actually, no, I am not.
Plus, he’s huge. At least four inches on Fox and even wider in the shoulders, he’s probably the tallest, largest, strongest man I’ve ever seen. I can’t imagine he could hug a person without accidentally crushing them.
It’s a good thing Almond loves to be crushed.
“We all love you, Poem. We love having you in October. We love the light you bring to the bar and to the town. It’s nothing but our pleasure to be able to help you, and I’m more than happy to be in a position where that help is as stress-free as possible for you. You deserve it.”
What begins as a prickle of the eye turns quickly into something more like an outpouring of salty tears, and I worry that soon Fox will need my apparently useless tips to pay for his own post-flood reconstruction.
My goodness, the people in this town are angels.
“He’s right,” Eris says, soft blue hair tumbling over her shoulder as she tips her head in agreement. “We do love you. All of us.” Her deeper-than-her-hair-blue eyes narrow. “However, if you get tears on my fries, I will reach over this bartop, find a knife, and stab you with it.”
I laugh, and Emerson does, too, though his chuckles are a lot less water-clogged than my own.
Eris does not laugh.
Eris, I know, does not play about her potatoes.
Carefully, I take a step away from her plate, which she covers with her body as if my tears are going to fly out of my face to assault her food.
“I’ll keep my crying away from your fries,” I assure her. “Though, really, they might make it taste better. Extra salty.”
She sniffs. “I’ll not be finding out.”
Fair enough.
I crinkle salty eyes at her, then let them linger on her brother for one, two, three counts of gratitude.
“I’m booking you for Almond’s longest service,” I decide.
“Extended shampoo. Deep condition. Mini-facial. Anything and everything she’s got.
” I consider the state of his hair. “Maybe a dye job…”
His brows rise. “No dye,” he says. “But I’ll accept the rest, if Almond is willing to take me on. Last time I talked to her, she seemed…” he trails off, face going distant as he searches for the word to use.
“She seemed terrified at the mere thought of you in her chair and like she’d rather be shot than forced to find the bravery to survive in your presence for more than four seconds,” Eris finishes for him dryly.
He clears his throat, massive shoulders shrugging. “Yeah, that.”
I contain my amusement. Mostly.
“That’s just how she shows her excitement,” I lie. “You know Almond.”
Eris snorts, but Emerson’s eyes soften and he says, so foolishly hopeful, “Maybe the appointment will make her more comfortable with me.”
I haven’t the heart to tell him that his appointment will result in many a nervous breakdown from Almond. By my estimations, it will take no less than twenty appointments before she can even pretend to be comfortable around the behemoth that is Emerson Wright.
Eris, however, has plenty of heart for crushing his dreams. “That girl is never going to be on the same page as you, Em. You gotta move on.”
I protest, immediately and vehemently, “Or, instead of that, you could practice patience and hotness until she falls madly in love with you and you have cute, giant, pink-haired babies.”
Eris frowns.
Emerson blinks, a glimmer of hope growing in the depths of his irises. “I can be patient,” he says. “I can be hot.”
I nod. “Good. Yes. Do that.” I give Eris the stink eye. “Moving on is for quitters.”
Eris stink-eyes me back. “He’s going to die old and alone, and it’s going to be all your fault.”
Doubtful. Almond is shy, not stupid.
“I’m not worried about it,” I reply.
Her frown deepens.
Emerson’s hope grows.
Down the bar, my name is called.
I thank Emerson again for using his goodwill fund on me, stick my tongue out at negative-nelly Eris, and then answer the call before Fox can do more than glare at me for being too slow.
As I pour a Jack and Coke for one of my less favored regulars, I do it with a smile on my face.
Almond might kill me. But.
My bestie has a date.