Chapter 7 Stopped Being That Man
STOPPED BEING THAT MAN
“Well, hello there again,” Chance said on Friday night.
The last person he thought he’d see in his pub was Jocelyn McCarthy.
Seemed they had been seeing a lot of each other in the past two weeks. More than they had in the past fifteen years.
“Hi,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”
Interesting.
“You came for me?” She lifted her eyebrows some, but hesitated to answer. “Hold that thought.”
He moved over a few feet to cover a customer raising his arm for a beer.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the woman who returned.
Not one he had to chase.
But boy, did he want to.
Years ago, and again tonight.
He wasn’t sure what had changed and maybe it wasn’t wise to question it.
After he looked around the bar to make sure everyone else was covered, he slid back to her.
“I’ll take ginger ale and vodka.”
“Moscow mule?” he asked.
“Yep. Didn’t know if you had ginger beer here or not and didn’t want to sound pretentious.”
“We don’t,” he said. “Or I don’t.” He mixed her drink. “Lime and mint?”
“Just lime works. See, I don’t care for the mint, so you know, not really the same thing anyway. I put my twist on it at home.”
“I bet you put your own twist on a lot of things.”
“Life isn’t much fun if you don’t,” she said. He put the drink in front of her. She handed her card and he took it off the bar, then printed the receipt and handed it back. Guess she wasn’t starting a tab.
She put the drink to her luscious lips.
“Is there a reason you came in here tonight?” Chance asked.
“I might be looking at it.”
He returned her smirk.
Her lips were unpainted. Her eyes held a quiet simmer, not from makeup, more like the glow of the dim bar lights catching something just beneath the surface.
Her lashes were darker, naturally so, but otherwise she wore little to no makeup.
Never had. Not like the other girls she used to hang out with.
“Good to know,” he said.
As much as he wanted to hang by her side and chat, he had a job to do and a business to run.
He could flirt and work like he’d always done.
No woman other than his grandmother could come before the dollar to get him ahead in life.
He continued to work as she sat there and watched him, chatted a bit with him and others in the bar, then got up to go to the bathroom.
Her drink wasn’t empty yet. He wanted to refill it, but would hold off. Even if it was to give her water.
No way was he letting her out of his sight in that outfit.
Another pair of fitted jeans hugging her ass with a snug black T-shirt tucked in.
She was toned and had curves in all the right places.
She wasn’t sending come hit on me signals to those in the bar. Probably didn’t even have heels on her feet, but it’s not as if he could tell unless he left the bar to find her. Or leaned over to look at the ground when she returned.
He’d do neither of those things.
He wouldn’t appear desperate. No reason he had to. He’d never let a woman have the upper hand in his life.
When she returned, he moved toward her and pointed to her glass. “Another? Or something else?”
She looked at her watch. “I drove here and am not used to drinking more than one.”
“I can make it light or skip the vodka.”
“Make it really light,” she said. “Don’t want you to think I’m too much of a dud.”
He laughed. “It never crossed my mind.” This time he made her drink with half the alcohol. She put her card on the counter and he shook his head at her. “On the house.”
“Thanks.” She brought the drink to her mouth and took a sip. “Hits the spot.”
The way she was staring at his arms made him wonder what was going through her mind.
What spot was getting hit.
Jocelyn had always watched him back in high school. Looking back, he hadn’t recognized it for what it was. Maybe she hadn’t even meant to.
But she was doing it again and this time there was arousal behind it.
There was no way he’d insult her just to score a chance to leave together when his shift ended. She wasn’t that kind of woman and he wasn’t that kind of man anymore.
“Chance.”
He turned his head. His grandmother was coming behind the bar. “What’s up? I thought you were leaving soon.”
She was working the hostess stand even though he told her to leave. They were down a server so the hostess took those tables rather than the stand.
It was close to eight at this point. The dinner crowd would thin out in another hour and then the servers could take care of it if someone came in.
“Another hour,” his grandmother said. “I was going to grab something to eat quickly if you can watch the door.”
“Of course,” he said. “Take your time.”
“You’re a good boy,” his grandmother said, patting his hand.
What the hell was this? His grandmother had never said those words to him before. Unless she was being sarcastic and her tone didn’t give off that vibe.
Nor the gentle pat to his hand.
He felt Jocelyn’s eyes on him but wouldn’t be embarrassed over what his grandmother had done.
Then it hit him. His grandmother would have noticed him talking to Jocelyn or at least putting more attention on her.
“Says not too many people,” he said. Jocelyn snorted, then laughed, knowing she’d been caught when he glanced at her.
He filled more drinks, chatted with others at the bar. Some regulars, others just stopping in for a bite to eat or a place to chill.
When Jocelyn’s second drink was gone, he still didn’t want her to leave, so filled up a glass with only ginger ale and lime, then replaced the one she had. “Mocktail.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be swimming in bubbles tonight, but it’s worth it.”
“Do you want water instead?”
“No, this is good.”
“It will slow down soon,” he said.
His grandmother had just left. There were only half the tables full now and most were finishing their dinner. He’d be down to one server by ten to cover if anyone came in. Only one cook in the kitchen too.
“I’ve got no place to be,” she said, then he walked back to another hand held up.
“He’s a hot one, isn’t he?” he heard one woman say to Jocelyn. Customers didn’t think he could hear their conversations even if he was only a few feet away.
“I think he knows he is,” Jocelyn said to the stranger.
“A night of fun,” the woman said back. “I bet he’d get some screams out of you, but you know, he’s just a bartender. Can’t bring him home to Dad. But for the night, yes, please.”
He didn’t want to see Jocelyn’s reaction to that. That it was just another reminder of what he was to women.
“Here you go, ladies,” he said, putting their drinks down. “Enjoy.”
They both giggled and left, Jocelyn rolling her eyes at him. As if she knew he’d heard their comments about him.
He wasn’t sure she was the type to sit in a bar alone on a Friday night. Few women did unless they were looking to pick someone up.
He’d never put her in the same category as the two women who just left, but who the hell was he to say if she wasn’t one of those women out to find some fun for the night?
Twice a man sat next to her to chat. She gave them minimal attention and shot down what they might offer. He couldn’t explain the relief he felt over that.
He’d wanted to slip in and fend the guys off, but he had no hold on her. No reason to intervene if it was what she wanted.
Didn’t seem she wanted attention from anyone but him.
At least he was telling himself that.
At ten, there were only three tables with people finishing their meals. The bar had about twenty customers at it. Most would be gone before midnight and he’d be cleaning up anyway.
“So, did you come here to watch me work? You know, so you could see me at both my jobs?”
“Seeing you on the firetruck surprised me,” she said. “Maybe I was more surprised than seeing you here last week when I picked up lunch.”
“Don’t forget about a few days ago. At your job. Which I have to say surprised me. Not sure I thought of you on the sites. It’s the first I’ve seen you.”
“I work in the office,” she said. “Managing the finance department. Trying to do more, but my mother isn’t so keen about loosening the reins.”
He laughed. “My grandmother is the same.”
“Is that who came to talk to you earlier? You look alike.”
“It is. Rhea.”
“I think it’s very sweet she works with you here.”
“She’s been here for decades,” he said. “I bought this bar a year ago hoping she’d slow down and retire. It’s not working out the way I hoped.”
“Awww,” she said.
“There my ego went splashing to the ground.”
She winked. “I think your ego is plenty strong enough to take a woman finding it sweet you did that for a loved one.”
“Few think I’m sweet,” he said.
“Then maybe they haven’t seen the real you.”
“Is that something you want to find out? Or just testing the waters? Because you know, speaking of water. It’s like mixing oil and water with the two of us.”
She angled her head. “Only you think that,” she said.
He narrowed one eye at her. “No. Many have in the past. You and me, we’ve got nothing in common.”
“Again, your assumption.”
He leaned closer to the bar. “Oh, I know a lot of things that we might have in common, but once we catch our breaths again, we’re back to square one.”
Chance was pushing it and wasn’t sure why.
He was slipping back into the same person he’d spent years trying to leave behind. Acting like a dick made it easier to keep people at a distance. If they never got close, they couldn’t find out more and decide to walk away. He’d rather be the one to control when and how they left.
She laughed at him though. As if she saw through his words.
“You’re thinking pretty highly of yourself, or not enough of me. I, for one, am in pretty damn good shape. It takes a lot for me to be out of breath.”
She downed the rest of her ginger ale, threw a twenty on the bar, then stood up and gave him the same salute he’d always done to her.
The one he’d done when he was watching her in his gear last week and had lifted his face shield.
He hadn’t expected her to get the last word, and damn, if it didn’t turn him on that she managed to slip one past him.
“Now that the chick is gone you’re flirting with, are you frustrated you’re going home alone?”
He turned to see his grandmother standing in the bar's doorway to the kitchen.
“What are you still doing here? I thought you'd left almost two hours ago.”
The last thing he would have done was talk or act like that to Jocelyn if he had thought his grandmother would witness it.
“I was going to but got a few things done I never have time to do otherwise. And you know, I needed to see if my grandson was still picking women up for the night even when he told me he stopped that.”
He looked around the bar and saw a few snickers to those words. Not people he knew. Or knew well enough by name.
“Jocelyn and I went to school together. We’ve run into each other a few times in the past couple of weeks.”
“She doesn’t look like the type of girl you would have hung around with in school.”
“We didn’t,” he said and turned back to the bar to clean up some.
“And she just happened to come in here to have a few drinks?”
“Seems it to me,” he said.
He didn’t have any other explanation. It’s not as if he got her number.
Though he could find her if he had to.
The same as she could with him. Just like she had.
Could be she was playing some game.
The princess coming out of the castle to mingle with the workers of the land.
“Nothing is ever what it seems,” his grandmother said. “The sooner you realize that, the easier life will be.”
She turned on those parting words.
Life hadn’t been easy for either of them and he never expected otherwise.