“No, thank you,” I tell her, politely brushing her off because I’m not in the mood to turn on my usual charm just to be nice. I plant my hands and lean over the bar top. “Mike, seriously, man. Morrison can handle the bar for five minutes.”
Mike drapes the hand towel over his shoulder, sends me an exasperated look, then walks to the end of the bar where Morrison is wiping down the bar top. Mickey has one pride and joy, not counting his son Mike, and it isn’t the establishment I’m standing in. It’s the antique wood bar he bought from an old Irish pub in Kilkenny that was to be torn down. He had it carefully disassembled, then shipped over to the States. Every night before locking up, Mickey polishes it from top to bottom until it gleams.
Morrison nods at whatever Mike says to him. Mike tosses the hand towel into a small plastic bin under the bar, then angles his head at me to indicate the kitchen.
Taking out my wallet, I toss three twenties next to the martini the brunette hasn’t touched. “Your next drinks are on me. Nice meeting you, Stacy.”
“It’s Steffi,” she huffs.
Still don’t care.
I lift the bar flap and stroll behind the bar, resisting the urge to grab one of the pre-chilled bottles of beer sitting in the ice bucket. As soon as I push through the swinging door that leads to the kitchen, I lift my hand in a wave to Mickey, who’s chopping greenery at the cold station.
“Hey, Pops. Taking a short break,” Mike says, and I have no choice but to follow him out the back door and into the humid early evening air.
I’m immediately hit with the stench of the garbage bins that are kept enclosed behind a six-foot tall wood fence on the other side of the employee parking area. When the heat jacks up to over a hundred during the summer, the smell can get pretty bad back here.
“So, what’s up?” Mike asks, all casual, but his body language speaks otherwise. He’s tense.
“Why don’t you tell me?” I step in front of the back door and lean against it, preemptively blocking his way in case he tries to bolt, which he looks like he’s thinking about doing.
He scratches the scruff on his chin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do. Otherwise, your left eye wouldn’t be twitching.” That’s another of his tells.
He slaps a hand over his eye, rubbing it a few times, and curses. “I hate it when you do that.”
“I hate it when my best friend is keeping something from me.”
“I am not.”
His left eye starts twitching again, and I raise a knowing brow.
“Goddammit!” he seethes and cups his hand over his eye like a pirate’s patch. Idiot.
Folding my arms over my chest, I cross my legs at the ankles, settling in. Hopefully, no one will come through the back door in the next five minutes.
“What’s up with you and Douglass?”
Again, that flash fire of jealousy punches me out of the blue at the thought of the two of them together.
His jaw hits the gravel of the lot before he quickly clamps it shut. “Nothing is going on between me and Douglass.”
“Uh-huh.”
Mike drops his hand from his eye. It’s no longer twitching. “I’m telling you the truth. I haven’t seen her since you—” His words stop abruptly.
“Since I what?” I prod.
He doesn’t answer, only shoves his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans.
“You’re keeping something from me, and you’re going to tell me right now what it is.”
His shoulders hunch. “I can’t.”
“Can’t?” I take a menacing step forward.
I can count on one hand the times Mike and I have ever come to blows over something. The first time was when we were ten and liked the same girl. The last time was when he confronted me about my drinking, but I wasn’t ready to listen or hear how bad I’d let myself fall.
