5. Char
CHAR
I watched the fan whir over my head as I laid there on my bed.
A week. It had been one week since those men had come into the bar that night, and they hadn’t been back.
It shocked me, honestly. With how frightened Miss Lilly had been of them, I was sure I’d have seen them again.
Every night I worked, I made sure to dress well.
I put on my best outfits, splashed on a bit of perfume and makeup, and bided my time.
But, day after day—night after night—they left me hanging.
They didn’t come back for drinks, or more of DeShawn’s incredible crispy French fries.
They didn’t come back for anything, not even to flirt, and I had to admit I was sorely disappointed.
I thought Dallas and I had a good thing going that night.
Still, it didn’t matter. If they hadn’t come back, then that meant whatever Miss Lilly had been afraid of wasn’t the kind of threat she had made it out to be.
I figured she had been paranoid about the whole thing.
Every small town had their own boogeyman story, that much I knew for certain.
Layborn wasn’t the first small town to catch my eye, it was simply the most recent one.
And if there was one thing I had learned about small towns, it was that when everyone rallied against you, it stayed that way.
So, maybe they hadn’t done anything at all. Maybe they had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now the entire town thought they were nutjobs.
“Get over it, Char,” I groaned as I rolled out of bed, “you’re overthinking things again.”
I planted my feet onto the floor and stood just as the wondrous smells of DeShawn’s prep work came wafting through the floor at my feet.
Miss Lilly had been kind enough to rent out the small studio space above the bar to me for a place to stay when I was first hired on.
She took pity on me when no one else did.
She gave me a place to live. A way to make a living for myself.
A job that I could be proud of and training that she never expected payment for.
She had been a godsend in my life. A shining beacon during a dark time when I was close to succumbing to the gutters in the back alleys of whatever town was destined to swallow me whole next.
I wanted to repay her so badly.
“If only I could talk her into being more than a bar,” I whispered as I dragged myself toward the bathroom.
The mirror above the sink caught me off guard, like it always did.
Three years bartending and I still hadn’t gotten used to the face staring back.
Blonde hair that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be wavy or straight, so it settled for both at once.
Ice blue eyes that people either found arresting or unsettling depending on their mood.
A body built for curves. Full hips, a chest that made tank tops a necessity and underwire a luxury, thighs that had never once been anything but exactly this size and had made peace with it.
I wasn’t the kind of woman men wrote poetry about.
I was the kind they wrote other things about.
The kind that made a living off a well-timed smile and knowing exactly when to lean over the bar.
It worked well enough.
I knew she could make so much more money if she opened the bar for meal times as well.
Not even breakfast, but just a lunch-and-dinner kind of thing.
DeShawn’s food needed to be shared with the masses, and I for one knew the town would turn up to eat his cooking if we gave them the hours to do so.
Plus, more customers meant more revenue, and it didn’t take a genius to know that the bar was being held together with duct tape and prayer.
And God knows I could’ve used the extra funds.
Not that Miss Lilly hadn’t done her best to make me comfortable, but Layborn wasn’t where I wanted to stay for the rest of my life.
Don’t get me wrong, the place was great.
It was just… not very exciting. It was the same thing, day in and day out.
Same foods. Same schedules. Same volunteer work.
Same, well, everything. I wanted something to look forward to every morning.
I wanted excitement, and adventure. I wanted to live my life, not watch it pass by from the windows of the bar.
There weren’t a lot of options in this world for people who didn’t have a GED, however.
Maybe one day.
The shower was invigorating, but the second I heard my cell phone buzzing against the bathroom countertop, I sighed.
No one called me. Or texted, for that matter.
DeShawn and M.J.? They’d just come knock on my door.
Or, they’d fish the spare key out from behind the bar and let themselves in.
No one ever called, except for Miss Lilly.
So, I leaned my body out of the shower long enough to check the incoming text that I had from her.
Bosslady: Lunchtime meeting. 1 o’clock. Urgent. Attendance is required.
A knot formed in the pit of my gut. I set my phone down and darted back into the shower and cleaned myself up at an exponential rate.
I was the kind of person that took a shower until the water ran cold.
I loved standing beneath the spout and letting the boiling hot water pour over my head.
Sometimes, it made me feel as if my sins were being washed away.
As if my past could somehow scream as it swirled down the drain.
That kind of shower would have to wait, though.
I only had fifteen minutes to get ready and head downstairs.
With my hair still damp and my burnt orange tank top clinging to my skin, I decided on something easy.
I pulled one of my full-length skirts out of my dresser and slid it up my body.
It was my day off, and I intended to stay as comfortable as possible.
So, after pulling my damp hair up into a bun at the crown of my head, I shoved everything into my purse and headed down to the bar.
Where the smell of food greeted me the second I walked through the back door.
“Smells like DeShawn’s hard at work in here!” I called out as I walked through the backroom and appeared behind the bar.
“One of everything on the menu,” DeShawn said as he came out with a tray of desserts.”
“Thank you, Chef,” Miss Lilly said with a nod of her head.
I came out from behind the bar and reached for a fry. “Is this for us?”
She swatted my hand away, however. “The food isn’t for you guys, so don’t touch it.”
I held up my hands in mock surrender, but not before I plopped that fry right into my mouth.
Miss Lilly glared at me, and in the three years I had known her, she’d only ever given me that look one other time.
One other time, when she had to fire the young woman who had been the bar manager before me because she had been stealing from the till.
Holy fuck, was someone else stealing from the bar?
“You got any idea what we’re doing here?” M.J. asked as she came to stand by me.
I snickered. “I was hoping you had some answers for me.”
“Think DeShawn knows?”
He walked up behind us. “DeShawn does not know.”
I peered over my shoulder. “This isn’t good, is it?”
DeShawn simply shook his head. “She came in this morning, called me in at nine to start cooking, and has been in her office up until a few minutes ago.”
“Oh, boy,” I muttered.
“You think someone else is stealing?” M.J. whispered.
“My thoughts exactly,” I whispered back.
The bell above the front door dinged behind us and my immediate reaction was to turn around and greet whoever was coming through the door. I drew in a curt breath before I caught my tongue, having to remind myself that I wasn’t clocked in. But, I didn’t have to work hard to keep my words to myself.
Not with the shock that rolled over my system when those three familiar faces walked straight toward us.
“Holy shit,” M.J. hissed.
“They’re back. Why are they back?” DeShawn asked.
Dallas looked at me and tossed me a wink as the three men walked around us. Miss Lilly came down the hallway, standing before us as those three men took up their places behind her. My heart leapt into my throat. Blood rushed through my ears as panic filled my veins.
I had no clue what in the hell was happening, but it didn’t look good.
“What are they doing here?” I asked.
Dallas clapped his hand over his heart. “You wound me with your words.”
“I’m not talking to you,” I said as I kept my stare locked with Miss Lilly.
“Lil,” M.J. said as she cleared her throat, “talk to us. If you’re in trouble?—”
Deacon grinned. “Cute.”
“You shut up,” I said harshly, “we’re talking to our boss.”
They loomed over her like tattooed Greek statues carved from the finest marble from the heavens.
They weren’t clad in their leather jackets any longer, and it provided more for my eyes to scan.
Dallas had what looked like sleeves running up and down both of his arms. Geometric designs with highlighted colors that provided enough to catch my eye while still making him look grizzled and war torn.
But, it was Mr. Behemoth’s tattoos that caught my stare.
He had them down his arms. Up his neck. Creeping out from under the collar of his shirt like they were trying to escape.
“What the hell is going on?” DeShawn asked.
“Is that how you always talk to your boss?” Dallas asked.
“Miss Lilly?” he asked as his attention dropped to the woman that had taken care of us for so many years.
And when her words left her lips, I understood exactly why she had been so afraid when they had come in before.
“I’m retiring,” she said plainly.
“What?” we all asked in unison.
Miss Lilly drew in a deep breath through her nose. “I’ve received an offer on the bar that I simply can’t refuse. So, once the proper paperwork processes, the bar will officially be owned by the three men standing behind me.”
“The Metal Reapers,” DeShawn whispered.
Must be my time.
Is this what she meant? Did she know what was happening when those men came into the bar a week ago?
“The men behind me have a great track record with creating flourishing and booming businesses around here. They’ll do well by you if you do well by them,” Miss Lilly said.
We all looked around at one another, and I found stunned faces wherever my stare fell.
“So, without further ado,” Miss Lilly said as she stepped off to the side, “this is Deacon, Gauge, and Dallas. They are going to be overseeing not just the transition of ownership, but in the renovations that will start taking place. They’ve got big plans for this bar.
Plans I would’ve never been able to execute.
Work with them, and they’ll work with you. ”
Gauge. My eyes lingered upon his mountainous form. It was a fitting name for a man that size, that much was for certain. But, it didn’t take long for the questions to start flying.
“How much longer do you have here?”
“What if we do some things first?”
“We always talked about opening up for dinner. Why don’t we do it for lunch, too?”
“Do we need a menu change? Because that isn’t a problem.”
But, there was only one question I wanted an answer to, and I locked my gaze with Dallas as I asked.
“Are we being fired?”
I flickered my gaze to all three of them before settling back on Dallas, whose cheeky grin was nowhere to be found any longer. Instead, there was a stone-cold face. A downturned frown. Disapproval in his stare. The stuff of nightmares, really.
And to be honest, it reminded me a bit of how my father used to look at me.
“You guys were in here a week ago,” I said as I found my voice once more, “so I can only assume it meant that you were scouting things out and figuring out what you were going to change once you bought the place out. So, tell us: are we losing our jobs?”
“No,” Dallas said.
Though, Deacon was there to clarify. “Not immediately, anyway.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Well, let us know sooner rather than later, because some of us will have a harder time finding jobs than others.”
I felt their stares on me as I turned and headed back toward the bar.
“We aren’t done yet,” Dallas said.
I turned around in the doorway of the backroom. “Are you guys the official owners of this place yet?”
Miss Lilly cleared her throat. “Once the paperwork processes.”
“But, has it processed yet?”
“It will be by the end of the day,” Deacon said as anger bubbled in his voice.
I nodded. “Sounds like you don’t own it now, though. So, if there’s nothing else, can I go back to my day off, Miss Lilly?”
The terror that filled her face was unmistakable. But, she still nodded her head. So, after pinning each of those men with one last look, I pivoted on the balls of my feet and headed back out toward the stairs that led up to my studio apartment.
It was time to start the job search.