Chapter 8
Zoey
Ifelt restless aswe closed down and cleaned the floor of the restaurant. Cami and Jeff were still broken up, the longest break up on record for them, apparently. From the way she was glowering at him, and he was ignoring her, it may be the last leg of their crazy relationship.
At least she was working, though. That was helping everything to get done faster as we went through the routine. “Thanks for giving me that table today.” Krista beamed up at me, then handed me a fifty. “The guys tipped well. They told me to make sure you got half too.”
I looked down at the fifty-dollar bill she was pushing into my hand. “Really? I only got them their drinks and took their order before I switched with you.” I tried to hand the money back to her. “You should keep it.”
“Hell no girl.” She backed away and held her hands up. “You need it more than I do, and I would have given you the full hundred-dollar tip if I thought you would actually take it.”
“I don’t deserve this much.”
“Girl, I didn’t deserve that much either, but they gave it, and the guy told me specifically to make sure you got your half of the tip.” She waggled her eyebrows. “No clue who he is, but he looks rich as fuck and gave off tons of B.D. E.”
B.D.E. Big dick energy was right. My body still felt his presence after I switched tables with Krista. I tried my best to ignore him, but I could feel his gaze on me as I was working and a few times our gazes collided and held. Each time that happened, I felt the bottom of my stomach fall out as if I was riding a roller coaster and going over the edge of that first big drop.
“I don’t know why he did that.” I muttered, shoving the fifty-dollar bill into my pocket with the rest of my tips.
“Curious.” Krista smirked. “You didn’t ask which one I was talking about? Could it be you noticed a man’s raw masculinity today, Zoey Bryant?”
I felt my cheeks flush because she caught me. There was no need for her to tell me which one of the two men had given the tip. Both men had been big. Both men looked well off, but only one man made my nipples tighten and my core flutter with an unmet need for fulfillment.
“Not everything is about sex, Krista,” I muttered, turning away from her as I went back to work. I needed a distraction from this conversation and the feelings of need that even the thought of the guy from earlier brought flooding back.
“Zoe.” Krista’s serious, calm voice got my attention. “It’s okay to need something. To need someone. You don’t have to do this alone.”
I shook my head and gave her a small, sardonic smile. “He was a customer, Krista. Not my knight in shining armor, ready to whisk me away to a castle and fight my dragons for me. Real life doesn’t work like that. We don’t live in a romance novel.”
She sighed. “I know, but damn, it would be nice, wouldn’t it? Because he was hot and so was his friend.”
I laughed. “You could have any guy you want, Kris.”
“I’m a one-woman wrecking ball. What can I say?”
“Or, you want the one man you can’t have.” I gave her a knowing look.
Krista had a massive crush on her brother’s best friend, but he was off limits as a longtime friend of the family and as close to her brother as an actual sibling would be. It also didn’t help that he looked at her like a bratty little sister instead of a woman. She’d complained to me about that more than once.
