Chapter 8 Reva #2
Ever stands behind the bar in his perpetual spot, but he isn’t polishing glasses in beveled-soldier formation today.
His hands are moving faster, drawing drinks and sliding them to customer after customer.
His jaw is set. The precision that defines him is still there—it’s just… weaponized. Controlled chaos.
A glass shatters somewhere behind the bar.
Ever’s head snaps toward the sound. For half a second, something shifts in his eyes—irritation, calculation, an instant inventory of everything that’s breaking down and how fast he can patch it.
He moves—fast—bending to snatch up shards, but another customer pushes in close to the bar, demanding attention, and then another. Shiloh slides into place behind the bar, rolling sleeves up to reveal corded, powerful forearms.
His gaze flicks to me and away. “Sorry, Yank…you’re going to have to bug us some other time.”
This isn’t about me today. Not in the way I wanted it to be. Something in me—something cold, practical, older than pride—clicks into place.
Fine. If I can’t force my way in by being a nuisance…I’ll do it by being useful.
I slide off the stool without asking and step behind the end of the bar like I belong there.
Shiloh’s head jerks up from the beer he’s already busy pouring. “Reva—”
I don’t look at him. I don’t look at Ever. If I make eye contact, someone will tell me no. And no is a wall. I’m done slamming into walls.
I grab the broom Ever was going for and sweep the broken glass up quickly, then grab a bus tub that’s overflowing with empties and glassware. It’s heavier than it looks, but I haul it without incident toward the sink in the far rear corner of the bar.
I’ll be in the way if I attempt to pour drinks, but I can wash a few dishes.
Turning the water on, I take stock. Sponge…soap…drain rack. There’s a stack of lemons on a nearby cutting board and a knife sitting right there in invitation.
I start washing. One glass, then another. Quick rinse. Soap. Rinse again. Stack. Repeat.
The rhythm steadies my heartbeat. A job is a job. A task is a task. I don’t need permission to be competent.
Ever watches. I can feel his gaze without searching it out. That stare, laser-like as it sweeps across the room and pauses on me, recalculating.
Shiloh sets another bus tub down beside me and collects a stack of clean glasses, muttering under his breath. “This fucking girl.”
I keep washing.
Behind me, the door keeps opening, the little bell over top jingling each time. The room keeps filling. Someone calls for a round. Someone wants limes. Someone’s shouting a name I don’t know and yelling at an absent ref.
It’s the kind of morning that turns into a mess if you don’t get ahead of it. I reach for the lemons and start slicing thin even wedges.
Ever’s voice drops behind me, flat and low. “What do you think you’re doing?”
I don’t turn around. “What’s it look like.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“I know that.”
A beat. The room swells around us.
“Stop being an asshole, Ever.” Shiloh leans a hip against the bar, gaze watchful. “You ever worked a bar?” he asks again, but this time it’s not playful. It’s a test.
“Told you I did, didn’t I? Yes.” My lie comes too fast—automatic.
Ever says, flatly, from somewhere over my shoulder. “I said no.”
I set a lemon wedge down and finally turn.
“You know,” I say, wiping my hands on a towel to conceal their tremble, “I’m getting real sick of that word. No. Or maybe it’s the way you say it—all righteous and smug. You don’t strike me as a man who likes to hear it told to him, so maybe you should stop saying it.”
Ever’s eyes hold mine. His chest rises and falls in a deep breath that screams irritation, but he doesn’t respond. He just turns away, giving me his back.
Shiloh lifts an eyebrow and rolls his lips inward.
I lift my chin. “I’m not leaving. You can either pay me or keep seeing my face for the hell of it.”
It’s the first time I’ve stood my ground with this level of insistence. Ever looks past me—to the sink, the stacked glasses, the lemons now cut and ready. He doesn’t like me. I can feel that.
But he likes chaos even less. His mouth twitches—barely. It’s not amusement. More like…recognition. The reluctant kind.
Then, finally, he exhales like I’m the most aggravating creature he’s ever had the displeasure of being pestered by.
“Fine.”
My heart skips a beat, tripping over itself at the sound of it. “Thank—”
“But if you fuck up, you’re done. No second chances.”
Shiloh straightens. “Boss is gonna love this.”
My gut clenches. It’s always something. “I thought you were the boss?”
There’s a world of difference between Ever hiring me and some absentee boss I’ve never met and haven’t been able to charm into hiring me.
Ever passes a drink across the bar without looking at me. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
“That’s not an answer.”
His gaze drops—briefly—to the knife on the cutting board. Then back to my face. As though he’s cataloging exactly what kind of trouble I’m going to be.
“You want the job or not?” he says.
“Yes.” I hold out a hand for him to shake. “I want the job.”
He doesn’t take my hand, just rolls his eyes and nods once, sharp. Final.
Shiloh crosses his arms over his massive chest. “Good. Glad that’s settled. You’re a fucking pain in my ass, Yank.”
I arch a brow. “My work here is done, then.”
His look is heated. “You need a keeper.”
“Are you volunteering? Because you couldn’t wait to shove me out the door yesterday—”
“If you two are going to sit around and bicker back and forth, I’m changing my mind.”
I snap my mouth shut while Shiloh, asshole, laughs softly and moves back to his stool.
Ever finishes with the last of the chaos—sets something straight, barks a quiet instruction to someone I haven’t met, then moves through the door to the storage space.
Leaving me alone with Shiloh and the heat living between us.
The rush apparently over for the time being, I sit beside him and swivel toward him, my knees finding a place between his and locking us together like puzzle pieces.
“It’s funny how willing you were to help a stranger with car trouble,” I murmur, “but once you fucked me, you couldn’t even help me secure a job here.”
The easy slips off his face for half a second. If I hadn’t been watching, I’d have missed it.
“I saw you could handle yourself,” he says. “And I figured if you were coming into my place of business with a lie on your tongue, then I just wasn’t willing to play that kind of game.”
He winks to soften the words.
I blink at him. “You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, I believe some things. I believe something happened to you,” he says, his voice low now and humor faded from his expression. “Especially that night at the bar. But I don’t believe the lies you’re expecting us to swallow down.”
I lean closer. “So all this was because you think I’m not trustworthy?”
“Hell, Yank,” he murmurs, “you lay your cards on the table, and I’ll show you mine.”
I roll my eyes. “You’ve already shown me that. Seen one, seen ‘em all.”
His mouth curves. “You say it like you aren’t impressed. Like you didn’t come all over my fingers and flood around my cock.”
I lick my lips. He’s just doing it to prove a point. To tilt me off balance.
And it works. Heat flashes through me, sharp and unwelcome.
But I know they didn’t hire me because they liked me, or because I was particularly helpful, or even because Shiloh was hoping for another taste of what we started.
My spidey senses are telling me they hired me because they want to watch what I do next for some reason.
And that’s fine. Because that makes three of us.