The bet was one that he made with our two cooks, that he could get both me and Alaina, the other new waitress at the time, to sleep with him before his last shift, which was supposed to be at the end of the spring last year. But here he is, still working here.
“Honestly, Tristan, whatever. I just decided I don’t even care anymore whether you did or didn’t make the bet. Let’s just move on.” But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Because I do care. So much so that you’d think my name was Sloane Vendetta Sawyer. I just couldn’t let go of the past. But when I think of Jonah, and how I wish that I could’ve had just one last conversation with him... I am willing to try.
“Oh.” He’s taken aback by my sudden change of heart. “Okay, great. Let’s get this shift started then, bar buddy.”
Tristan opens the doors right at 11 a.m. and in walks Asher McCavern.
“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mutter.
He takes a seat right in the middle of the bar. “I’d like a beer.” He flashes an arrogant smile that makes me want to punch him.
“And I’d like you to leave,” I say, putting my hands on my hips.
He remains seated and pulls his phone from his pocket. He types something in and then lays his phone on the bar. It rings Annica. I quickly grab it and hit the end call button.
“What kind of beer do you want?” I toss his phone back at him.
“What’s on draft?” he asks.
It’s a wine bar: The entire back wall of the room is lined with hundreds of bottles on shelves with a rolling ladder attached. Whenever I have to use it I think of that scene inBeauty and the Beastwhen Belle slides across the library on one. Except these aren’t books—they’re wine bottles—and I guess that makes me Beauty and the Bottles. Unless I’m hungover like today, then it’s more like Bottles and the Beast.
I point beside me at the only three draft handles we have. “Use your eyes,” I say.
He only huffs a laugh at my blatant rudeness. He chooses the IPA and I grab a glass to pour, purposely not a prechilled one because he doesn’t deserve it. It’s the little spiteful things.
“I actually came here to talk to you,” he says.
“Our arrangement was free drinks, not conversation.” I set his room-temp glass down in front of him.
“Fine, then I’ll talk, you listen.” He takes a long sip of the beer and sets it down, before casually running his hand through his hair in the same exact way that Wes does. “I think we can help each other out. You want Wes, and I want the family business.”
I blink at him, confused. “How do these things even relate?”
“Our family’s resort in Colorado is run by his dad, so naturally it goes to Wes, but he doesn’t want it. I do. And I only get a shot if he passes on it.” I know all about their fancy ski resort inVail. Their grandfather started the business and passed it down to his oldest son, Wesley’s father, but he and Asher’s father work together on it. Or so I thought.
“What does this have to do with me? And how do you know he doesn’t want it, did he tell you that?”
“No, but I can tell. His dad wants him to move out there after graduation and run the day-to-day at the resort. Wesley hates it there but is too afraid to disappoint his dear old dad. That’s where you come in. I can help you win him over, if you can convince him not to take the job.”
“Why would you think he even wants me in the first place?”
“My experiment, remember? I suspected he’d be jealous. I just needed to confirm it.”
“Then why would he say he just wants to be friends?”
Asher shrugs. “He likes his girls to be predictable, like Marissa. Cookie-cutter sorority girl with two brain cells, but her dad is on the board of trustees for the school and I hear she gives good head.”
I roll my eyes.
“But you, Sawyer, are unpredictable. And so is whatever would come out of a relationship between the two of you. The whole dynamic of the group could implode, which, honestly, I would enjoy seeing.”
“There is something wrong with you,” I say. “And by ‘unpredictable’ you mean I’m not up to his standards, is that it?”
“Well, you sleep with married men and drink and drive. I don’t think you’d be my aunt’s first pick for her son,but”—he holds up a finger to silence me before I can even get started—“I can help with that.”
“So that’s how I’m going to win him over? By making him jealous? With you?” I laugh at how ridiculous that sounds. “Like anyone is going to believe that I’d ever date you.”
“Ouch.” He takes down the rest of the beer in a few gulps and sets the glass on the counter. “Just think about it,” he says, before walking out of the bar.
