Chapter Seven
Everett Young
The bar is loud and full despite it being a Sunday. The only slow days that Seabird truly has are Monday through Wednesday—Thursday is karaoke, and Friday through Sunday are considered the weekend.
Everyone wants to party on the weekend. Especially when Sinclair Public College is right around the corner, and all its students have very few options when it comes to hang-out spots.
Kelly and I navigate the crowd, taking our usual seats at the bar as Skylar makes Kelly her favorite cocktail and grabs me a beer.
He’s wearing his work uniform: a pair of black jeans that are too flattering for my taste and a gray shirt with the Seabird logo on it. His curls are perfectly disorganized and disheveled—the epitome of a beautiful, spritely bartender.
Loud, warm laughter rises above the rest of the noise in the bar, and our attention is drawn to the back corner. I recognize a lot of the people in that group; they’re in my department. Ash’s voice is ringing in my ear, reminding me to make new friends.
Appropriate ones.
But I have very limited desire to walk away from Kelly or Skylar; I’m quite comfortable where I am. Maybe another time.
“Here.” Skylar sets our drinks down on the bar.
He has a rag thrown carelessly over his shoulder now, sweat lining his forehead from the packed room and running from corner to corner of the bar top. He’s only been on the clock for an hour, but it’s been busy since he arrived.
“Thanks, Sky. When do you get off?” Kelly asks, stirring her Mermaid Water.
“I close tonight, so—”
“Bartender! I need another!” A patron yells, interrupting whatever Skylar was going to say next.
That he gets off around 2 a.m.; that he’s tired; that he’s irritated. Those are all of my best guesses.
He sighs. “Hold that thought.”
Then Skylar is rushing off to serve the blond at the other end of the bar top, smiling politely as he grabs a fresh glass—his venomous fangs are retracted.
“Poor guy.” Kelly chuckles.
I make an affirmative sound, soaking in the way he moves and the comfort that watching him brings me. I think I could watch him forever. Like my own personal version of The Truman Show, I’d follow his every move.
“So, what really happened in that bathroom, Ev?” Kelly suddenly questions.
I jump in my seat, head whipping in her direction to eye her knowing smirk. “What?!”
She just laughs. “Please, I saw your face before you went in there; you were pressed as hell. Was it because I kissed him? Or because I didn’t kiss you?”
I can’t breathe under her piercing gaze, let alone think of a lie, so I do what I always do: deflect, avoid, run.
What can I truly say to her anyway? That it has nothing to do with her at all, but my own possessiveness when it comes to Skylar, and my resentment over how soft their kiss was? Nah, I’m good.
“Oh, hey,” I start, and even I can hear how shaky the syllables sound as they leave my mouth. “I know those guys; I’ll be back.”
I slip off the stool with my beer in hand, walking away from her laughter as if it’s a toxic substance. I guess I will be making new friends today.
Truthfully, as I said before, I do know these guys. In fact, most of them probably consider me a friend. But we don’t hang out, not like this—I’ve never really cared to.
“No way! Everett?” Caleb, one of the guys from my junior-year economics class, sees me first.
“Sup, man,” I greet him, dabbing him up the way the guys our age tend to.
I acknowledge a few other guys I know, either from classes or baseball, smiling politely at a few girls I do not know and ignoring glares from the ones I do.
They always agree to casual in the beginning, but once they come so hard they cry, they backtrack. And suddenly I’m the devil since I won’t commit.
It’s confusing.
“You never come out with us; what’s the occasion?” Andrew, a friend from baseball who happens to be in my International Business lecture, asks me.
“Just ended up here at the same time, I guess,” I answer.
He nods, grinning at me. “Well, good. We’ve missed you since the season ended, and you’re so boring in class.”
I laugh, mostly because he’s not wrong. I’m usually very attentive in classes; if I don’t excel, Ash gets angry. “My bad, man.”
“No biggie. Here, let me introduce you to Ashley; she’s been asking about you.” Andrew gives me a wink, stepping away before I can stop him.
But not to worry; he returns quickly with a beautiful blonde. Her hair is long enough to reach her hips, and her eyes are a soft brown and rounded, making her resemble a tamed baby doe.
“Hi, I’m Ashley.” She extends her hand for a shake, emphasizing her full breasts to appear even more enticing and seductive.
The first thing I notice when she speaks is that her voice is casual, not high-pitched and squeaky the way plenty of college girls sound when I met them—when they’re trying to seduce me.
Which tells me that she doesn’t feel the need to put on a cute act; she believes she’ll reel me in either way. And, truth be told, she doesn’t need it. Her face and her body speak for themselves, and confidence is so sexy.
“Hey there,” I greet. “I’m Everett.”
“I know.” She smirks as she shakes my hand, her eyes sizing me up. “You with someone tonight?”
“I’m not.”
She places herself right next to me, a hand wrapping around my bicep and squeezing softly. “Good. Now you are.”
She’s beautiful—exactly what I would normally go for. Ashley looks like a girl who knows what she wants; like she’d want me to lay her down and tell her how perfect she is, how great she feels. Like she’d make me worship her.
Only, as she squeezes my bicep like this, I can’t help thinking of the bathroom last night; of Skylar stopping me from leaving before opening his mouth to give me a taste.
Almost instinctively, I search for him. He’s behind the bar where I left him, emptying cups into a built-in, stainless-steel sink.
But Skylar is already watching me, his eyes flickering between Ashley and where her hand is grasping me.
As he catches my stare, he turns away, ever so calm and collected as if he’s barely noticed me anyway.
I just can’t fucking read him sometimes.
“You’re a business major, right?” Ashley asks me, pulling my attention back to her.
“Yeah, what about you?”
She nods. “Me too. We’ve had a few courses together the past couple of years.”
How I haven’t noticed her until now, I’m unsure. She is fucking beautiful.
“Huh. And we’re just now meeting?”
Ashley grins even harder, angling her body further into mine. “A damn shame, huh? I was in a long-term relationship until this past summer, so I didn’t really hang around a lot of guys.”
“That makes sense. And very good of you, as a girlfriend, I mean,” I compliment.
She blushes as she peers up at me. “Thanks. I thought so too.”
We stare at each other for a long moment, all smiles and warm eyes, and I try to imagine a future where it’s me on the other end of her kindness. Where I’m the boyfriend she respects boundaries for, and we go on cringey dates.
“So, what are you going to do with your degree?” I ask, mostly to keep the conversation flowing rather than out of actual interest.
I fucking hate business.
She considers the question for a moment before replying, “I’m considering opening my own bookstore. I love reading, and I want to be in that environment.”
“Oh, wow, that’s cool as shit.”
And a bit surprising. She doesn’t look like a book nerd; I’d steer more toward the sorority girl type, if anything.
“I’m hoping to get out of Sinclair before I pick a location, though. I’m thinking…” Her voice fades away as my eyes trail back to the bar, spotting Kelly talking to a girl I’m not familiar with.
But more importantly than that, I notice a guy I don’t recognize, leaning over the bar top on his forearms—all bulging muscles and lazy smiles. He’s definitely bigger than me, maybe even bigger than Dante, and his black hair is neatly styled.
I can only make out the side of his face, his full lips, so I can’t see much more than his profile. But I can see the way he’s devouring Skylar with his stare as they converse.
Skylar is pouring him a handful of shots—what appears to be Crown—and they’re laughing, Skylar grinning widely. The guy looks like he’s winning some kind of game, like his night is improving by the second.
And I bet it fucking is.
Kelly approaches the two of them, shaking hands with the giant before saying something to Skylar, the three of them laughing again.
As she disappears, the guy extends a hand, and I watch Skylar’s eyes widen before he hands over a pen from behind the bar. He scribbles something onto a napkin as Skylar’s smooth cheeks blush fully.
But his gaze—that is the biggest problem. Those big blue eyes are no longer cold and vicious, but so innocently shy and just begging, begging for someone to show him what being touched will feel like. To teach him.
As if he’s already promising this man a pure, soft canvas to destroy.
In this moment, he is not a venomous snake who is poised and set to strike, and he is not my little puppy, curled up to rest on my lap after a long, hard day.
This version of Skylar is not stuffed into the folder I have dedicated just to him, hiding away in the back of my mind. I do not know him, and it scares me.
“Excuse me for a moment.” I cut Ashley off, unaware if she was actually talking anymore.
With several large steps, I approach the bar just as the napkin is being placed firmly into Skylar’s open palm. Their fingers brush.
“Hey.”
Skylar startles at the sound of my voice, his cheeks darkening even further as he shoves the napkin into the front pocket of his jeans. The giant turns his attention to me, and I actually have to tilt my head back slightly to meet his gaze.
Vivid green eyes, dark brows—shit, he’s handsome!
“Hey, man,” he says, voice deep and husky.
“Everett,” Skylar prompts, his eyes wide like he’s just been caught stealing from the figurative cookie jar.
“What are you doing?” The question leaves me far too accusatory, far more interested than I intend it to be.