Chapter 12
Zara
"You don't look very festive," Jersey says, his eyes turned down to his beer bottle as if the brown glass holds answers to questions he's afraid to ask.
"Figured a Santa hat wouldn't go over very well for anyone in here today," I mutter, my tone matching his.
"Sharon left me," he says, resignation in his tone. "Took the kids to her mom's house."
"Finally had enough of your shit, huh?"
I glare at Carlen, another regular to the bar, my eyes saying all the things I know my mouth never will. I may be the kind of person these people want to spill their secrets to, but I'm in no position to give advice, and I'd never voice my judgments even though they run on repeat in my head most days.
"Yeah," Jersey answers, no anger in his tone.
What stage is acceptance? I can't remember.
"Another beer?" I ask the depressed man because that's what I'm here for.
Once again he stares at the bottle, knowing it's probably the root of so many of his problems. I don't think Jersey is a bad man, but any wife and mother would have a problem with practically being a single parent because their spouse spends all their extra time and way too much money at the bar .
"Sure," he says, releasing the empty beer bottle so I can replace it with a fresh one.
"Edith swindle you into taking this shift?" Carlen asks. "She has worked it every year for as long as I can remember."
"I offered," I tell him with a shrug, wiping down the bar in front of him. "Figured she'd like to spend it with her grandkids."
"The ones she's always bitching about being ungrateful little shits?" he scoffs. "I bet she blames you for having a horrible holiday the second she's back on shift."
The idea of this makes me smile. Edith complains quite a lot, but I think it's just part of her personality. The woman never fails to make me laugh.
The front door opens up, pulling all of our attention, but instead of it being another regular here to drink their holiday sorrows away, Owen walks inside, his eyes locking on mine the second he spots me.
"Fucking great," Jersey mutters, but I ignore him.
Instead of giving Owen a hard time like I did last night, I pull a beer from the fridge and have it waiting on the bar before he can even sit down. He nods his head in appreciation, not bothering to look around the bar to see who else might be here.
He doesn't speak, doesn't taunt me about last night, but the simple gleam in his eyes tells me that he knows I can still feel the echo of him deep inside of me. He twists off the top of his beer, and my eyes drop to his mouth as he takes his first sip, his tongue lashing out to capture a stray drop that clings to his bottom lip.
I swear I feel the swipe of it on my skin, and the sparkle in his eyes tells me every one of his secrets.
I take the twenty he slides across the bar, not knowing how I should feel when he waves off his change.
Is it a thank you for last night? Payment for last night? Is he hoping I leave him the fuck alone? Does he want to meet again tonight?
A million questions swirl in my head as I shove the bill into the tip jar and turn my attention back to Jersey and Carlen, but neither man wants to speak. They'd rather drill holes in the side of Owen's head, the man quite content to just stare in my direction rather than acknowledge the attention he's getting from elsewhere.
Jersey, feeling more than a little sorry for himself, cashes out before leaving. Carlen doesn't stay much longer after his friend, and it leaves just Owen and I alone in the bar.
I could ignore him the way I did last night, but I find it more than impossible to do so with a million questions bouncing around in my head.
I wipe down the counter in front of him.
"It's clean," he says, his voice flat and emotionless.
"How did you know where I lived?"
"I followed you home the other night," he answers without hesitation.
I should probably feel a little worried that a stranger followed me home, and even more so when I realize that I know for a fact that there wasn't a headlight in my rearview mirror because I was looking for one, hoping he would've changed his mind.
"How did my car get to my house?"
I left with him on the bike and he took me home. I was worried about a ride to work when I looked outside and found my car sitting in the driveway.
"Had it towed," he responds, lifting his beer to his lips.
"What do I owe you for the tow?"
"Nothing you didn't pay me for last night."
"If I fucked you for a tow, then I should get your change out of the tip jar."
Instead of backpedaling or growing indignant, that dimple deepens once again, making me want to trace it with the tip of one finger.
I glare at him, but the front door opens, and a group of rowdy women I've never seen before enter with a whoop .
They gather around a pub table, forcing me out from behind the bar like a waitress rather than one of them coming to get the entire table's order.
"Merry Christmas," I tell them as I approach.
Several of them smile in my direction, their eyes already glassy, telling me this isn't going to be their first drink tonight.
"You gals have twenty minutes left to order," I say. "We close a little early tonight for the holiday."
"We're doing a bar crawl," the most sober one says. "They'll all have margaritas. I'll take a bottle of water."
"On the rocks okay?"
She dips her head, and I feel grateful that I don't have to fish the blender out of the back. It's a huge pain in the ass to clean, and I’d rather spend my night doing something else instead.
I'm aware of Owen's eyes on me the entire time I make the drinks. I carry them to the table, smiling when the woman who asked for water urges all of them to drink quickly, because "it's time for you bitches to go to bed."
Laughter from the table swarms around me, but it's only a few minutes later that the women leave, a huge tip for the trouble left behind on the table with the empty margarita glasses.
"I want you again," Owen growls when I'm standing back in front of him.
I can't help the way my skin heats, a flush inching its way onto my cheeks.
"On one condition," I say, watching with alarm when he sits up straighter on his barstool as if this will be the moment he begins to argue with me. "It has to be indoors. I'm pretty certain I have a mild case of frostbite on my nipples from last night."
My eyes widen when laughter erupts from his lips, a sound I would've lost the bet that I'd ever hear it.
Just as I suspected, his dimple is devastating, his eyes alight with humor.
The laughter stops as quickly as it started, but the glint of happiness in his eyes lingers for a few seconds longer, making me feel special .
Instead of arguing, he simply dips his head as if he's agreeing to something a little more basic than another sexual encounter with me.
"I have to clean up some before I leave. You can hang out here or you can wait for me outside."
His eyes dart to the top of the bar where my hand is resting, and I can see the way his mind is working.
"Nope," I tell him before the thought can even take root. "I'm not letting you fuck me on the bar."
"Are you fucking him?"
I tilt my head to the side in sheer confusion. "Fucking who? Jersey?"
It's the only name that comes to mind because his eyes are locked in the direction the man was sitting not long ago.
His eyes slowly take their way back to mine, and I feel like a deer caught in a set of headlights.
"Tommy Wilkinson," he snaps. I should probably be alarmed that he knows the man's name, but, honestly, the licensing for the bar is hanging on the wall, and Owen is nothing if not observant.
"Tommy is my—no I'm not in a relationship, sexual or otherwise with Tommy."
"And that fucker?" he snaps, leaning in a little closer and angling his head to Jersey's stool.
"Not that it's any of your business, but no. I'm not sleeping with anyone at the moment, and if you keep up this bad attitude, I won't be sleeping with you either."
I turn away to get started on my closing work before I have to watch the look on his face that says he could take me or leave me.
He doesn't climb off the bar stool, nor does he pull his eyes off of me the entire time I'm finishing up getting the bar ready for Edith's shift in the morning. Needing to fill the time until eleven when Tommy said I could close it down, I cut limes and lemons for Edith.
I look up at him every chance I get, and I don't see what Jersey sees when he looks at the man.
Jersey told me before that Owen looks soulless, as if he could kill puppies and not feel bad about it or even have a moment's hesitation before ending their lives.
That's not what I see at all.
I see a man who has been let down at every turn in his life, and all he really needs is to find people in his life that he can trust not to do it again.
Owen Clark may be my biggest mistake yet, but it doesn't stop me from feeling a little disappointed when he stands from his stool and leaves the bar without another word.
His bike isn't in the parking lot when I lock up, and maybe it's for the best. Maybe I'm the one dodging a bullet here.
Disappointment fills me every second of the drive back to my tiny, rented house.