Chapter Three #5
“We’re not fixed,” I said.
“No.”
“I still don’t trust you with my bar.”
“I know.”
“I like the mark.”
His gaze cut to my neck.
Heat moved through the room again, slower now.
I pointed at him. “Don’t look proud.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“You’re failing again.”
“I know.”
“I also still owe money to your terrifying uncle.”
His face changed at that. His jaw set, and the warmth in his eyes cooled.
I grabbed my keys from the desk. “There he is.”
“Nella—”
“No. I’m not ruining my own post-shark-sex hydration by pretending the debt left because your mouth did fun things.”
“I didn’t think it did.”
“Good. Then you can help me carry two cases of tequila from the storage room, and after that you can tell me what parts of this mess you’re allowed to say out loud without your uncle sprouting gills in my office.”
He held my stare for a second.
Then he nodded. “Yes, boss.”
Downstairs, Bite Me had shifted from lunch recovery into happy-hour prep. Shay spotted my changed clothes and loose hair immediately because bartenders were legally required to be dangerous.
Her eyes paused at my neck.
I lifted one finger. “No.”
“I didn’t speak.”
“Your eyebrows did.”
“They’re independent contractors.”
Mari came through the kitchen door with a tray of prep. Her gaze went to Nico, then me, then my neck.
She stopped.
I lifted the same finger. “No.”
Mari glanced at the mark, then back at me. “Do I need to sharpen anything?”
“No.”
“Do I need to pretend I didn’t see anything?”
“Yes.”
“I can do that badly.”
“That’s all I ask.”
Dusty walked by with bar towels, glanced at the three of us, then immediately turned around and walked the other direction. “I’m sensing a management-level conversation, and I choose life.”
“Good choice,” I said.
Nico coughed once into his fist.
I did not laugh.
The rest of the day came at us with sunburned shoulders, damp dollar bills, sunscreen slick on the patio rail, and tourists who believed happy hour was a constitutional right.
“Table four can have spicy pineapple or classic lime,” I told Taryn while I shoved a garnish tray into place. “Nothing frozen until the blender gets five minutes to stop questioning its life choices.”
Taryn tucked menus under one arm. “I’ll sell them on spiritual growth.”
“Sell them on tequila.”
Mari slid a tray of fried mozzarella through the pass. “Nella, tell patio eight the roasted peppers aren’t free because they smiled at me.”
I grabbed the plate. “I’ll tell them smiling costs extra.”
Dusty appeared with a rack of clean glasses. “The bachelor party wants to know if they can order something off-menu called a Shark Attack.”
Nico, standing two feet behind him with two tequila cases in his arms, went very still.
I pointed at Dusty. “Tell them the Shark Attack is a classic lime margarita with an upcharge for imagination.”
Dusty nodded. “Capitalism with a garnish. I understand.”
Nico carried the tequila where I pointed. He stacked clean glass racks when Shay ran low. He stood near the patio rail when a bachelor party got too loud, and somehow eight grown men remembered their mothers had raised them better.
He didn’t take over.
He didn’t call me fragile.
He didn’t touch the mark on my neck in public.
Every time I caught Nico noticing it, heat flickered through me. Every time that happened, I found a customer doing something wrong.
“Sir,” I called toward a man trying to wave an empty glass over two waiting women, “the margaritas come in order, not by arm length.”
Shay laughed into the service well. “Beautifully handled.”
“I’m a professional.”
By closing, my feet ached, my hair smelled like lime and fryer oil, and the drawer looked better than it had any right to look on day two of a five-day countdown.
I sat at the tiny desk upstairs with the night’s receipts spread in front of me. Nico stood by the window, looking down at the boardwalk and the dark strip of ocean beyond it.
I had let him come back upstairs.
He stayed by the window instead of behind my chair.
“You did well tonight,” he said.
“I always do well.”
“You did better than that.”
I sorted the card slips by batch and refused to soften. “Careful. Praise makes me itchy.”
“I’ll insult the margaritas tomorrow.”
“That would be familiar and comforting.”
His phone buzzed on my desk.
Both of us looked at it.
The name on the screen made my stomach go tight.
SAL TORRETTI:
You said the bar was full. Send numbers before noon. If the place is pulling that kind of summer money, five days may be too generous.
The room went very still.
Nico reached for the phone, then stopped when he saw my face.
I read the message again.
Five days may be too generous.
The mark on my neck warmed under my hair, but my hands went cold.
“He thinks I can pay,” I said.
Nico’s jaw set.
I looked down at the receipts spread across my desk. The paper edges dug into my palm when I pressed my hand over them.
Every slip proved Bite Me could survive.
Every slip gave Sal Torretti another reason to want it.
I set my palm flat over the stack and looked at Nico. “Tell me exactly what your uncle thinks he can take.”