The hell?“I know you’re not telling a woman to calm down, Charlie English.”Did this man have no survival instincts?
He leaned forward, closing the space between us. “I would never, Ada. Now try the damn shot before I pry your mouth open and pour it down your throat.”
Welcome to our daily shit show. “You wouldn’t fucking dare.”
He picked up the shot and wiggled it in front of my face. “Ally told me you said I was a sex predator. She said it was part of her training. So yeah, I would fucking dare.”
My cheeks turned as red as Ally’s. “I didn’t say you were a sex predator. God, you make it sound like I’m calling you a criminal.”
He raised an insolent eyebrow. “You told her I prey on every new server.”
“Okay, but I didn’t attach felonies to it.”
“I get it.” By the cold, calculating look in his eyes, I wasn’t exactly sure what he got. But he was definitely confident about it.
“What do you get?”
“It’s hard for you to see me with someone else.” His eyebrows dipped together in a sympathetic sort of way. If sociopaths could feel sympathy. “But Ada, jealousy isn’t your color.”
Make that arrogant sociopath.
“I’m not jealous, Charlie. I’m just over having to train a new server every week because you’ve broken the last one’s heart.” I had more important things to do than watch training videos and ask background questions.
He put the shot glass to my lips. “This will help you relax. You’re going to scare away the customers.”
I bit back a scream of frustration—he had no clue how obnoxious he was—snatched the shot out of his hand, and tossed it back. Who could put up with this? Who could put up withhim?
The only thing more insufferable than managing Charlie English was genuinely watching those stupid training videos that made me want to gouge my eyes out with my pen.
The shot went down smoothly, and I managed not to cough because there was no afterburn. After a second, I had to admit that it was tasty. It only vaguely tasted like 7 Up, but I understood the correlation to the original flavors, and I didn’t hate the name.
He was waiting for me with a smirk, all smug satisfaction. My stomach flipped in some latent, out of control reaction to how inhumanely sexy this man was. It wasn’t that I wanted to think he was sexy. It was that he was so universally sexy I couldn’t seem to convince my body otherwise.
At least my brain knew better. It was a veritable fortress of Fuck Charlie English.
He reached up and rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip, wiping away a rogue droplet of liquor. “You like it.”
“You can promote it tonight,” I told him, stepping back, away from his hand. “But get Ally to change the sign. Do not try to do it on your own.” I cleared my throat and took another step back. “And make sure Miles knows how to make it exactly like this.”
Charlie grinned at me. It was wild and reckless and so charming I had to take another retreating step lest I got swept up in his charismatic orbit and accidentally smiled back.
“Whatever you say, boss.”
The irony of Charlie calling me “boss” when he owned one-third of the bar and I technically worked for him was too much for me to tolerate. I spun around and retreated to the kitchen, where Case modeled prep work and what it meant to be a competent employee.
“You good, Ada?” he asked after glancing at me.
I swallowed a riot of emotional fury. I wanted to punch something. I wanted to punch Charlie. But I settled for smacking my clipboard on the cold metal counter. The bang echoed through the small kitchen, making my heart jump in my chest and shocking me back into normalcy. “I’m good,” I said calmly. “Why?”
Case pressed a hand to his own chest. “Warn a guy next time.”
“Sure.” Looking around the kitchen, I noticed it was uncharacteristically quiet. “Uh, where’s Joey?”
He mumbled curse words at the onions he was julienning. I caught “doctor’s appointment” and “fucking could have let me know sooner” and “she better be dying.”
Smiling—because Case could easily handle prep on his own—I ducked into the office and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Eliza sitting at her desk. She smiled at her phone as she typed out a fast text.
“Tell Jonah I say hi,” I said, smirking.
