1
KIERA
“Who doesa girl have to blow around here to get a drink?”
My volume startled even myself, but as the bartender shot me a dirty glare, my shoulders tightened and I doubled down. “I’m trying to give you my money!”
She gripped the shaker tighter and shifted her icy eyes back to the man in front of her: designer suit, designer face, designer watch. Certainly not from here.
Figures. Play her cards right, and he’d probably tip her a month of rent.
Propping my elbows up on the bar, I raked my hands over my face before remembering my makeup — too late. Black smudges already painted my palms. And from what little of my reflection I could see in the bar’s mirrored wall, my face didn’t look much better.
“Fuck me…”
With the bartender still distracted, I reached over the bar and grabbed a fistful of flimsy napkins, trying to make order of my face.
As I wiped the edges of my eyeliner, my eye caught on the missing poster taped to the mirror. She was young, the womanin the picture. Couldn’t have been more than 22. Looking from her image to my own, I shook the nausea that bubbled in my stomach.
I needed these shots, like, yesterday. Gabe had finally invited me out with his work colleagues to celebrate. It was a chance to finally meet the people he spent so much time with in the office, to see him in his element.
And already, I was blowing it.
He was pissed at me for being late. And for looking so…plain. He hadn’t said the latter, but he didn’t have to. I could see it in his gaze, that cold appraisal that was always aspiring to impress, to elevate. I’d learned well over the years how to play that tendency of his to my advantage, but tonight…
“Tonight is a fucking nightmare.” I laughed, pain bubbling from my chest. As if to corroborate my point, a sharp pain shot through my ankle as my heels wobbled beneath me. I grabbed the counter just in time to right myself before I ate shit in the middle of the bar.
It didn’t matter that the whole reason I was late, that I couldn’t find anything better to wear, was because he didn’t invite me until the last minute. It didn’t matter that he’d told me the wrong start time; I would still pay the price for the failure.
From what I could make out between the tall liquor bottles against the wall, I’d cleaned up most of the smudges just in time for Mr. Moneybags to ask for the restroom, tucking a platinum wedding band into his pocket as he walked off.
With nothing better to do, the bartender finally crossed over to my section, assessing me with all the warmth of a glacier. “What do you want?”
I pressed four crumpled twenties against the counter. “Sixteen shots of Grey Goose.”
Her resulting laughter made my blood boil. “Oh honey, you need more money or less expensive taste.”
I held back the urge to roll my eyes, leaning in closer across the counter as I tried to reason with her, girl to girl. “Listen, I’m sorry I was rude earlier. My boyfriend is out to celebrate his promotion, and he specifically requested Grey Goose. Is there any way we can work something out?”
She eyed me skeptically. “He wants Grey Goose, and this is all the money he sent you with?”
My fist tightened around the wrinkled bills. “This is my money.”
All of it, in fact, but she didn’t need to know that.
Then suddenly, her gaze shifted from disdain to something much, much worse: pity. Her eyes shifted over to the restrooms, ensuring that her payday was still occupied before offering me a sad smile. “Okay, here’s what I can do. You’re gonna get Stoli for $5 a shot, and you’re not going to tell anyone, alright?”
My shoulders tightened, Gabe’s angry voice already ringing in my ears. “But?—?”
“You’re with those assholes, right?”
She nodded across the bar to the wall of suits encased in the velvet-roped VIP section. My expression was enough to confirm it.
“Fuckers like that can’t tell the difference, they’re just paying extra to feel important. You bring over the Stoli, you let him feel like a big man, and you never tell him. And if he wants Grey Goose so goddamn badly, he can come pay for it himself. Got it?”
I hardly had a chance to nod back before she was zipping off across the bar with the last of my money, grabbing a bottle from one of the middle shelves and arranging shot glasses on a brass, art deco shot tray.
I took a deep breath, smoothing my hair and trying to let the mask slip back on. I needed collected, easy, fun Kiera, not the shivering mess I’d become huddled up against the bar.
