Raleigh chimed in. “You’re just an attention whore.”
“That too.”
Iwasgood at what I did. It was a mutual thing: I was extremely grateful they decided to keep me on when they’d bought the bar, but I was also one of the best bartenders in town. And when that town is Vegas, that’s saying something. The hours were great and the pay was even better. The attention that came with it was just a bonus.
Angel and I stocked the bars while Raleigh bustled around turning down chairs. The other employees trickled in through the back door, some joining me and Angel while the other bartenders set up behind the second bar on the other side of the building.
When we finished, Raleigh stood in the center of the bar and took one last look around before meeting his husband’s ice-blue eyes. “Ready?”
He didn’t need to ask me. I was always ready. I damn near bounced in place as he made his way to the door to check IDs. Almost faster than we could blink, a flood of people surrounded the bars. The first customer I locked eyes with stepped up and leaned his arms on the counter. He was little, with spiky blond hair and a dagger hanging from his right ear. His clothes clung tightly to his thin frame. He shot me a green-eyed wink when he caught me staring.
I flashed him my signature grin. “What can I get you?”
His was the last face I remembered for the night. One person turned into another, and eventually faces and costumes just became drink orders in my brain. The bar thumped with Raleigh’s head-banging music, and I lost myself in the constant whirring of blenders, clattering of shakers, and the conversations around me. A smile here, a look there. Most of the time I wasn’t even sure who I was aiming my flirting at—it was second nature.
With the constant moving, midnight came and went, and the crowd started to thin. It was enough for me to focus on the actual customers again. I’d just pushed off a daiquiri and turned to the next person when a curvy brunette in a burgundy corset with dark curls falling over her shoulder smiled at me. A pair of fangs poked out, striking against her red-painted lips. I found myself admiring them. The fangs, not her lips, though those were nice too. They were incredibly realistic for a costume, unlike the ones I used on?—
“Can I get a Vampire’s Kiss?”
My signature drink. I set to work, belatedly kicking myself that I hadn’t thrown in a wink and some cocky line like, “Only if you’ll return the favor.”
I grabbed a chilled martini glass, dunking it into sugar water before placing it upside down into a red-dyed sugar I’d made myself. Ice met shaker, then a bottle of raspberry liqueur spun into one of my hands while my other juggled the Absolut. Mixology gymnastics came naturally to me by this point.
I popped the lid onto the shaker and rattled it in one hand while I flipped the glass over with the other. Once it chilled my fingers, I strained the cocktail and topped it off with champagne. Finally, I added the fake blood and my signature set of plastic fangs to the rim of the glass and slid the drink across the bar, taking the cash the girl was handing out to me.
“Nice fangs,” I called over the music. “They’re so realistic!”
“Thanks!” She flashed a grin, leaning in close to show off the sharpened incisors. “Theyfeeleven better.” She playfully nipped my ear, then danced back into the crowed.
I was surprised at the sting. Who knew plastic teeth could feel so real? Hell, wewerein Vegas—they could have been veneers.
I basically spent all the free time I had at the bar. I had no obligations outside of my job, so The Devil’s Hopyard was everything to me.
You might expect a playboy bartender with barely a care in Vegas to come from a hard childhood, but nothing could be further from the truth. I grew up on the outskirts of Salem, Massachusetts with wonderful parents who retired to Florida a few years ago. Sure, I gave them hell, but what teenager doesn’t? I wasn’t necessarilybad, but I’d always been the type to dodge the trouble others found themselves in, and in turn I’d learned not to take things too seriously.
Like that night on the water tower. Did I stop to think that wemightget into trouble? Not at all. My friends showed up with a bottle of Maker’s and we had nothing better to do than climb the tower after a few shots. Drunk, noisy teenagers tended todraw a bit of attention though, and it wasn’t long before we were caught. I thought I did really well passing my tears off as being fake—it was the only way we got out of having our parents called.
By the time I turned eighteen, I itched to escape the quiet life my parents adored. College seemed like such a long road back then, and not the kind I was dying to use to run away. I applied, and I was accepted, but the closer admissions got, the more I despaired that I was chaining myself to a life I didn’t want. In the end, I didn’t go. I worked some odd jobs for a few years, saving every penny I made. When I turned twenty-two, I got in my car, pointed it west, and didn’t stop until I saw the lights of the Las Vegas strip.
At first, I didn’t plan to stay long. A few days of fun turned into a job offer and a bartending class at what was now The Devil’s Hopyard. Thirteen years later, I’d never looked back. I never returned to Salem, nor did I have any desire to do so. Vegas was my home.
I slid another Vampire’s Kiss across the bar, a collective groan overpowering the music as Raleigh announced last call. We were pushing three a.m. already? It was only then that the full weight of a twelve-hour shift pressed down on me. I stretched, anticipating the last rush as customers swarmed the bar.
I didn’t come up for air again until Raleigh ushered the last few stragglers out the door and locked it behind them. Angel and I rested against the bar while Raleigh killed the music. The big man joined us, Angel fitting into his husband’s arms as if they were made for him, his head falling back against the brick wall of Raleigh’s chest.
Raleigh extended his arm toward me. “There’s plenty of room, Ryder,” he teased.
Angel snatched his husband’s hand and snapped it back tohis own waist. He switched to sign language. “No, there’s not. Go find your own.”
Up until they fell head over heels for each other, Angel had been selectively mute following some trauma when they were kids that neither of them talked about. I actually hadn’t heard him utter a single word until after he and Raleigh got married. So when they became my bosses, I started teaching myself ASL to better communicate with him. On a busy night with music blaring through the speakers and a hundred different voices around us, it paid off in more ways than one.
Raleigh nuzzled his husband’s neck. Angel giggled, which only made Raleigh’s smile grow. “I’ll never get over the sound of you,” he rumbled.
I pushed off the bar. That was my cue to leave. “You two are so adorable it’s nauseating.” I unbuttoned my vest and shrugged it off my shoulders.
“All of this could be yours.” Raleigh dropped Angel’s hands and gestured to the man in front of him.
Angel rolled his eyes and signed, “Doesn’t that go against Ryder’s cardinal rule of double dipping? I’m going to the restroom.”
