“This is ahealth hazard,” Fox hisses from behind me. An arm knocks my legs out from under me, and I scream as visions of my head splitting open on the bar floor fill my mind.
My scream cuts off abruptly as I land in Fox’s muscular arms, their decidedlynotcuddly hardness knocking the breath clean out of my body.
“Are you trying to get the whole bar closed down?” He glares at me, irate blue irises clashing against my gray in a war of… something. Stubbornness? Stupidity?
“I thought you were being nice to me today,” I wheeze when my lungs decide to rejoin the land of free air. “Decent Employer Fox. Or whatever.” I poke the tip of his nose, squishing it. “Ihave been nice toyoutoday, telling you how hot you are and letting you bask in my presence. Then, I follow your instructions immediately, like agoodemployee, wasting no time to earn my keep, and you try to kill me. This is the second near-death experience I’ve had today! Second!” I groan, ignoring his grunt as I fling my head back, threatening his balance. “Harry, can youbelievethis guy?”
Harry’s thick, caterpillar-like eyebrows shoot up as his eyes dart between my face and Fox’s. Harry, clearly, cannot believe this guy.
“Exactly!” I twist back to Fox. “Not only are you being unbearably mean to me, but you’re scaring the customers. And you thinkIwill be the cause of the Brew’s undoing? Should I remind you of the time you punched a customer in the face? Or the time you made them watch an attempted murder—thirty seconds ago?”
Speechless in the face of my impeccable argument, he stares at me, slack-jawed.
“Are you two going to kiss?” Wilma—Harry’s on-again, off-again girlfriend—asks from three seats down, drawing my horror.
“Kiss?” I ask, nose scrunched in a firmabsolutely not. Not for all the butterflies in the world. “Why would we do that?”
“Because he’s quite literally just swept you off your feet?” she asks in return, flicking a hand out to reference me lying in Fox’s arms. “In the movies, they kiss after that.”
I blink. “That was attempted murder,” I inform her. “Not a sweet gesture of love. And, also, this isn’t a movie.”
She pouts.
“It may not be a movie, but it sure is a show,” Harry mutters, eyeing Fox’s hold on me.
I… have no response for that. He’s kind of right, the nut.
“So you’re not going to kiss?” Wilma asks.
“Not today,” Fox answers, finding his voice in the most insane way.
My eyes, wide as saucers, meet his resigned ones. “Stay off the bar, kit. It’s a health code violation.” He pauses, and his Adam’s apple bobs. “Just keep your feet on the ground and your hands moving. I don’t care if you gab, but do it while you fill orders.From the floor.”
“That would be a lot easier if I were, say,on the floor.”
He starts, then grunts,thensets me on my feet. His hands hesitate over my waist, but vanish when it becomes clear that I, a grown woman, can stand all by myself, exactly as he told his brother I could.
“I really would’ve liked a kiss…” Wilma mumbles.
“I could kiss you, darlin’,” Harry offers.
She considers his offer for several long moments, then shrugs. “Sure. I got nothin’ better to do.”
“I told you guys,” Fox rumbles before they can move nary an inch. “If you make out at this bar one more time, you’re getting banned for life. Take it home.”
Wilma’s eyes roll, and mine do, too. “You’re such a spoilsport. Let the young people live!”
He grunts. “Home.”
Wilma and Harry obey, abandoning their drinks to stumble out of Blackwood Brew after Harry tucks a tear-jerking wad of bills into my special tip jar. I yell my appreciation as he walks off, hands going places on Wilma no public setting could possibly approve of, but she clearly does.
“I need bleach,” Fox mutters.
I concur. Love Harry. Love Wilma. Donotlove watching Harry and Wilma when they get in amood. Even if I do support a young quasi-couple’s right to… um… not-quite-groping in public. Just…otherpublics. Far away from the public that I reside in at any given moment.
Still.
“I think he just paid for half my repairs,” I say. “We can probably cut him some slack on the public displays of… whatever. He’s done his contribution to the general well-being of the population, and now he is off to reap his good karma.”
