12. Declan
Declan
“Declan, if you don’t get your ass over here for a picture, I’m telling everyone you cried when Shay showed you the new sign.”
“I did not cry.”
Jude’s grin is pure viciousness. “You got misty.”
“Dust in my eye.”
“You were indoors.”
I point at him with the rag I’m using to wipe down a counter that was already clean ten minutes ago. “You’re banned.”
“You can’t ban me. I’m an institution.”
Rhys, who has an arm wrapped around Jude’s waist, sighs with the practiced exhaustion of a man in love with a menace. “Just take the picture, Declan. He’s not going to stop.”
“That’s the goal,” Jude says, phone already up. “Okay, everyone look successful and not like you’re in a corporate hostage situation.”
“It’s a bar relaunch,” Benji says from his stool. “No corporate hostages. Yet.”
“Give Shay ten minutes,” Knox mutters into his glass.
I look up at that. Of course I do.
Across the room, Shay hears it. He’s over by the new chalkboard menu, talking to a couple of students. His dark curls are perfect, his black shirt stretched tight across his shoulders. The collar doesn’t quite cover the faint purple bruise of my teeth on his neck. A secret. A problem.
He offers the students a smile that doesn’t touch his eyes.
I know the difference now. That’s the fucked-up part.
A few weeks ago, Shay Thompson was just the prickly, beautiful kid who sat at the end of my bar.
Now I know the sharp, polite smile he uses on customers, and the real one he’s been hiding from me all night—the way he rubs his thumb over the inside of his wrist when he’s holding himself together.
He’s been doing it since the doors opened.
Six days since Sunday. Six days of one-word texts and campaign checklists, of him being everywhere in my bar and nowhere near me.
His gaze shifts toward the bar, like he feels me watching him.
Our eyes meet. The noise of the party—the music, the clink of glasses, Diego laughing by the door—thins into a dull hum. All I can smell is him. Sandalwood and dark chocolate and something like cool rain. It cuts straight through the beer and lime and the new citrus cleaner Tessa bought.
The possessiveness that lives under my skin gives a low, ugly twist.
The line of his jaw is tight. That tiny, faded scar through his eyebrow catches the light from the new sign.
My hand tightens on the rag, and I want, with a sudden, stupid violence, to cross the room and put my thumb right on that scar.
To tilt his head back and press my mouth under his jaw where his scent is strongest, and just stay there until he stops pretending this isn’t real.
His expression flattens into something unreadable.
He looks away.
“Wow,” Jude says quietly, right beside my elbow. “You two are doing great.”
“Don’t start.”
He leans his elbows on the bar. “I was going to say the place looks incredible.”
“That’s not what you were going to say.”
“Fine.” He glances over his shoulder at Shay, then back at me. “The place does look incredible. And you look like you’re about to fire your own bouncer for smiling too much.”
I don’t have a response for that.
“Go bother Rhys,” I tell him.
“I am bothering Rhys. He likes it.” Rhys gives him an easy squeeze, and Jude lights up like somebody plugged him in. Normally, I’d smile. Tonight, it just makes something in my chest feel tight and useless.
Everywhere I look, there’s proof that this worked.
The new sign glows green against the brick, the old Byrne’s logo cleaned up, looking like it’s always been this way.
That was Shay. The place is full without feeling like a frat party—students, townies, a few older couples from down the block.
All of them ordering from the promo menu he designed.
People are congratulating me. Congratulating us.
“That’s your guy, right?” a regular named Matt asks as I slide him a pint. He nods toward Shay. “Marketing kid.”
“Consultant,” I say, the word tasting like a lie.
Matt takes a sip. “Whatever he is, he knows his shit. This place has been good for years, but it looks fresh. My wife saw the post online and made me bring her.”
His wife, Diane, raises her glass to me from a few stools down. “The new mocktail’s good.”
“Shay’s idea,” I say. The words are true, and they still feel like they’re being dragged out of me. “He’s brilliant.”
Matt looks from me to Shay. Then he smiles in that knowing way—the one every person gets when they catch an alpha staring at his mate.
“Yeah,” he says. “Looks like you know.”
I don’t answer. I turn and grab another glass because my hands need something to do.
Tessa appears at my shoulder, her dark hair in a knot, black vest still crisp even though we’ve been slammed since we opened. She picks up the stack of clean menus I’ve put down crooked and straightens them with a sharp tap.
“You’re doing the thing,” she says.
“What thing?”
“The thing where you polish a hole in the bar because you’re one bad sentence away from locking yourself in the walk-in.”
“I’m working.”
“Sure.”
I dry another glass. “We’re busy.”
“We are,” she agrees. “Which is why you need to stop looking so miserable about it.”
“I’m not miserable.”
Tessa’s eyes narrow. “Is there anything in your life you enjoy that doesn’t involve an alcohol license?”
I look toward Shay again before I can stop myself.
Tessa follows my gaze. Her face softens for about half a second. Then the professional bartender is back in place.
“Don’t push him tonight,” she says, her voice low enough that it’s just for me.
“I’m not.”
“Good. He looks like he’s about to bite someone.”
I rub the fading teeth marks on my forearm without thinking. “Already did.”
Her eyes drop to my arm for a second. “Right. Well, don’t give him a reason to do it again.”
Diego barrels up to the bar, grinning, face flushed from working the door. “Boss, the line’s still around the block.”
“Good.”
“And that girl from the campus paper wants to ask Shay some questions.”
“About what?”
“The rebrand. The vibe.” He shrugs. “Her word.”
Tessa points a thumb toward Shay. “Send her to him.”
Diego’s smile wavers as he looks from me to Shay and back again. He’s been trying to act normal all night, and Diego has never managed to act normal about anything in his life. “Yeah, okay. I’ll get her.” He leans closer to me first. “Hey.”
“What?”
“This is really cool.”
The simple, honest praise from him almost guts me. I clap a hand on his shoulder. “Get back to work.”
“Yes, boss.” He weaves back into the crowd.
Tessa watches him go. “You built something good here.”
I look out over the room. At the booths Knox helped me patch himself, the leather worn and soft.
At the framed coasters Benji drew on and still pretends to hate.
Milo is by the back table, passing around cookies I told him not to bring, while Callum stands beside him, broad and quiet, a human wall.
Jude is trying to get Rhys to pose for a picture by the new sign, and Rhys looks like he’d rather be anywhere else on earth.
My gaze lands on Shay.
He’s talking to the reporter now, his face composed, polite. He gestures to the timeline of old photos we hung on the back wall, and the reporter laughs at something he says. He’s good. So damn good. He knows how to sell a story, how to make this place feel like it belongs to everyone.
He made it feel alive again.
Pride swells in my chest, so sharp it feels like a blade.
Because every time someone calls him my partner tonight, my whole body jumps for it like a starving dog. And every time Shay hears it, he freezes for a split second before that polished, distant smile locks into place.
Temporary arrangement.
The words have been scraping around in my head for hours.
By nine, the bar is a wall of sound. By ten, we’re running low on the drink specials. By eleven, I’m exhausted, buzzing, and still standing behind this counter with a smile plastered on my face while people tell me how great everything looks.
“Your boyfriend did a hell of a job,” a regular says as I ring him up.
My jaw tightens.
Shay is three feet away, lining up a stack of coasters on the service mat. His movements are small, precise. He doesn’t look at either of us.
“He did,” I say.
The guy takes his receipt and wanders off into the crowd. The space he leaves feels huge and cold.
Shay keeps lining up the coasters, his movements small and exact.
“Don’t,” I say, my voice too quiet for the noise in the room.
His hands freeze. “Don’t what?”
“Pretend you didn’t hear him.”
He turns his head, just enough to catch me in his periphery. “I heard him.”
“And?”
“And I’m working.” His voice is flat. Final. A door shutting in my face.
Before I can push, Tessa is there with a clatter of empty glasses on a tray. “I need both of you to look like you’re having a good time at the party you’re throwing. Think you can manage that?”
Shay’s expression is unreadable. “I don’t have a problem with Declan.”
Which isn’t an answer. It would be easier if he did. He turns and walks away without another word, disappearing into the crowd near the back booths. I watch him go, the space he leaves behind feeling cold.
Tessa nudges me with her elbow. “Don’t make this a thing.”
“We’re not a thing.”
She gives me a look that could curdle beer.
“Bad phrasing,” I mutter.
“Try again when you’re not being an idiot.”
My gaze follows Shay. He’s standing near the table where his friends are packed into a booth, but he’s not talking to them. He’s just watching.
Then I see Soren, the youngest of the crew, let out a soft, surprised gasp. It’s barely audible, but Milo is on it in a second, leaning over the table. “What is it?”
Soren’s staring at the seat beside him. There’s a small wooden bird sitting next to his glass, no bigger than his palm. It’s carved from some pale wood, wings tucked in, head cocked like it’s listening to the music.
He picks it up like it’s alive. “Oh.”
Benji leans in. “Is that a pigeon?”
“It’s a sparrow,” Soren breathes, turning it over in his hands.
“Okay, Audubon,” Benji says. “Who left it?”