“You know better,” I said. “You’ve got no right to trash talk a guest, especially one under my protection. When you disrespect her, you disrespect me. Get out now.”
She finally scoffed and walked away, with as much dignity as she could manage.
Winter just stared up at me with a confused expression. “Um, wow. That was a lot,” she murmured just before taking a sip of her beer.
“Charity’s new but she knows better than to mess with guests,” I responded as I waited for her to walk out the door. “And that comment about being sold to the highest bidder. We don’t do that kind of shit. Back at the rally was about getting you out of that situation.”
I left her to think that over while I went to fetch our food.
By the time we were three bites in, most of the tension had evaporated between us, or maybe it just seemed that way because we were concentrating on our food. Winter ate carefully at first. She took small bites. Her eyes still flitted around theroom but eventually hunger won out and she focused on the food instead of what was going on around her.
I took a drink of my beer and ate a few more bites before bringing up the job. Celt’s words about giving her something to do were stuck in my mind. She needed this so I pushed the words out.
“Have you ever tended bar before?”
She glanced up, cautious. “What? No. I’ve hung around some sports pubs and watched the bartender mix drinks, but I’ve never mixed anything before.”
“That’s alright,” I said. “It’s not that hard to pick up. We’ve been short staffed. Rosie helps out when she can, but she and Thunder own a bar in town. She can’t be in two places at once.”
She squinted at me, evidently confused. “Why are you telling me this?”
“The club is lookin’ to hire a new bartender. I thought it might be a nice job for you. You’d have a way to earn your own money.”
“Is this how I pay you back?” she asked.
“No!” I exclaimed. “Maybe I should have started out with an offer. I know you’re probably gonna be with us for a bit, and I thought that if you had something to do it might make it less boring. No obligation. If it ain’t for you, just say.”
Her expression went from guarded to bewildered. “You’re offering me a job? One that pays money I can keep?”
“Yeah. Like I said, it’s not all that complicated. You’d mostly be pulling draft beers and making simple mixed drinks. There’s a drink mixing book behind the counter. If you can read and measure, you’ll be fine.”
She stared at me, obviously not expecting to be offered work.
I leaned back in my chair, pulling my elbows off the table. “The job does have a couple of perks.”
“Like what kind of perks?” she asked, bringing her drink to her lips again.
“For starters, you get to keep your suite upstairs.” Then I joked, “and you also get to have lunch with me every day. That’s the real prize.”
A half smile flitted across her face. “You want to have lunch with me?” Her voice was steady but there was some emotion lurking beneath the surface that I couldn’t quite identify.
“Well now, if that’s not enough incentive, this job puts you squarely in control of the booze. If any of the club girls give you a hard time, you can just refuse to serve them. Most of them would fuckin’ wither away and die if they didn’t have a steady amount of alcohol in their system.”
She gave me a faint smile. Then her hand immediately went up to tenderly touch the side of her lip that was split. I hated that smiling at my stupid joke caused her pain.
She mumbled, “They’d probably just help themselves.”
I shook my head vehemently. “They wouldn’t dare. Club girls or prospects helping themselves to alcohol is an instant permaban. Nobody here touches the alcohol unless the bartender serves it. Everyone knows how that works.”
She absorbed that little nugget of information as her hand came down from her lip.
“It’s steady work,” I added. “The pay is decent.”
“How decent?” she asked cautiously.
“It’s about twice minimum wage.”
She froze with her fork halfway to her mouth. Her eyes searched mine.
