Chapter Two #2
Mari lifted a ladle. “Dusty, if that towel lands anywhere except the laundry bag, I’m going to explain consequences in a language you’ll understand physically.”
He caught the towel before it hit the floor. “I accept this growth opportunity.”
At twelve twenty-six, Nella wiped the bar in long, hard strokes and pretended not to notice I was still on the stool.
“You’re closed,” she said.
“I noticed.”
“Most people leave when that happens.”
“I’m not most people.”
“Tragic for the general population.” She tossed the towel into a bin and untied her apron.
Her hair had fallen looser around her face, and a damp curl stuck to her cheek.
“Taryn, go home. Shay, stop recounting. You were right the first time. Dusty, if you sleep in the storage closet again, I’m charging rent. ”
Dusty paused near the back hall. “That happened one time, and I woke up emotionally closer to the paper products.”
“Home,” Nella said.
“Yes, captain.”
Mari stepped out from the kitchen with her bag over one shoulder. She looked at me, then at Nella. “You want me to stay?”
Nella didn’t look away from me. “No. I’m fine.”
Mari waited.
Nella finally turned. Her voice softened by one careful inch. “I’m fine. Lock the side door when you go.”
Mari nodded, but she pointed one finger at me. “If she yells, I come back with a knife.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” I said.
“She has better knives than yours,” Nella added.
Mari smiled. “I know.”
The bar settled as the staff cleared out in stages, leaving behind tired footsteps, half-finished jokes, and closing-shift exhaustion. Not quiet. Never quiet. The ocean still moved beyond the patio. The neon shark hummed over the back mirror. Somewhere under the counter, a cooler clicked on.
Nella stacked receipts into a neat pile and didn’t sit down.
“You can go too,” she said.
“I told you. I’m observing.”
“The customers are gone.”
“You’re still here.”
Her hand stopped on the receipt pile.
I should’ve let the line sit there and done nothing else. Waiting had always worked for me. People filled silence when it got too heavy, and then they handed you the part of themselves they should’ve hidden.
Nella didn’t fill it.
She picked up the empty paper boat from my stuffed peppers and carried it toward the trash. “You know what your problem is?”
“I’ve been told it’s my shirt.”
“That’s one problem. You’ve got layers.”
I followed her because staying away from Nella had started to feel harder than stepping close.
She pushed through the swinging half door into the back-bar space, where the floor was damp, the walls held the day’s heat, and the walk-in cooler breathed cold around its metal seams. Citrus crates lined one wall.
A tub of clean bar tools sat by the sink.
The narrow room smelled like limes, soap, garlic, and the edge of the ocean drifting in from the service entrance.
“My problem,” I said, “is that I accepted your five-day counter-deal instead of keeping this on paper.”
Nella turned so fast her hoop earrings swung. “Paper?”
Wrong move. Her shoulders squared, and the air changed.
“I meant the debt,” I said.
“You absolutely meant the bar.”
“I meant the challenge.”
“The challenge is the bar. The money comes from the bar. The staff gets paid from the bar. The people who came in tonight came because this place gives them something they want, and I built that. Me. Not your uncle, not your company, and not the bank that smiled at me like I was a little girl asking to borrow a yacht.”
I took one step closer. “I know you built it.”
“Don’t use that voice.”
“What voice?”
“The one that sounds like you’re trying to be reasonable while standing there in two thousand dollars of beach villain linen.”
“It’s not two thousand.”
“Don’t correct me on the villain part.”
I almost smiled. “You want me unreasonable instead?”
Nella looked up at me.
The back room held too little air.
“I want you to stop looking at my bar like you already know the ending,” she said.
I looked at her and said nothing.
I moved until only one clean step separated us. “I don’t know the ending.”
“You came here to collect one.”
“I came here because I was sent.”
“And now?”
The walk-in motor kicked on behind her. Cold air slipped around her bare legs and moved the loose curls at her neck.
“Now,” I said, “I’m still here.”
Her breath changed.
Not fear. I knew the sound of fear too well, and this wasn’t it. This was her breath pulling in, holding tight, and waiting for mine to break first.
“Nico,” she said, low and sharp, “if you kiss me because you think I owe you anything, I’ll break something expensive on your body.”
I held my hands where she could see them.
“If I kiss you,” I said, “it’s because you tell me to.”
Her eyes dropped to my mouth.
Heat moved through me hard enough to make my fingers curl.
“This doesn’t change the debt,” she said.
“No.”
“It doesn’t mean I trust you.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t mean I’m scared.”
“I never thought you were.”
Her hand shot out and caught the open edge of my shirt. “Then stop being careful like I’m made of glass.”
I looked down at her fingers twisted in linen, then back to her face.
“Tell me you want it,” I said.
Her chin lifted. “I want you to kiss me.”
I reached for her slowly enough that she could move away.
She didn’t.
My hand settled at her waist over the cotton of her tank, and I bent my head.
The first taste of her was lime, sugar, and temper.
Nella made a sound against my mouth that nearly put my teeth in her skin.
I turned us and set her back against the stainless prep table instead, hard enough to rattle the clean bar spoons in their tub and gentle enough not to trap her. She grabbed my shirt with both hands and kissed me like she’d been angry about wanting to do it since the moment I sat down.
Angry, I could work with.
Angry, I might even survive.
Her mouth opened under mine. I kept one hand at her waist and braced the other on the table beside her hip. I didn’t go lower. I didn’t slip under her tank. I kept my teeth out of it, because teeth changed everything.
Her fingers slid up my chest and caught my chain. The little tug sent heat straight down my spine.
“You’re always this controlled?” she asked against my mouth.
“No.”
“Good.”
She kissed me again before I could answer like a civilized man.
My cock went hard behind the thin fabric of my swim trunks, and I shifted my hips back before she could feel too much too soon. Nella noticed. Nothing in that narrow room got past her. Her smile turned dangerous against my mouth.
“Running away, Torretti?”
“Keeping my hands where they belong.”
“And where’s that?”
“Where you put them.”
Her eyes flashed.
She took my wrist and set my hand higher on her side, still over cotton, just below the curve of her breast.
Every muscle in my arm locked.
She smiled like she’d won something.
“You’re very obedient for a man sent to ruin my night.”
“I’m selective.”
“Select better.”
I kissed her harder.
The walk-in motor hummed behind us. Her body pressed warm through her clothes, one knee brushing the outside of my thigh, her fingers tight in my shirt.
I wanted to put my mouth on her neck. I wanted to scrape my teeth along the place where her pulse beat too fast and feel her go soft, loud, furious, mine.
I broke the kiss and put my forehead near hers, breathing until my teeth settled back where they belonged.
Nella’s fingers loosened. “What?”
“You don’t know enough yet.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That sounds like an excuse.”
“It’s a warning.”
“I hate warnings.”
“I know.”
From the back hall, Dusty’s voice floated in. “Nella? The alley gate is doing the thing again, and I’m sorry to interrupt whatever energy is happening back here.”
Nella closed her eyes. “I’m going to throw him into the Atlantic.”
I stepped back immediately and dropped my hands.
Her eyes came back to mine.
I left space between us. I kept my hands down. I wasn’t angry at the interruption, and I wanted her to see that stopping didn’t cost her anything.
Then I turned my head toward the hall. “What thing?”
Dusty appeared with both hands lifted. “The latch thing. The metal part is making choices.”
Nella shoved away from the prep table and smoothed her apron even though it was already untied. “The metal part is a latch, Dusty.”
“That’s what it wants you to think.”
I followed them to the service entrance, where the alley gate sat crooked against its frame. Nella crouched, tested the lower hinge, and scowled.