The last thing I want to do is irk a regular whose blood is probably forty percent proof.
Bobby’s shrunken, bloodshot eyes rake me from head to toe, then he leans in close, singing my skin with his breath. “Because you’re thebarmaid.”
I swallow and take a step back. “Okay, fine.”
The patron’s eyes are narrowed when I turn to face him. I take a deep breath and close the distance.
“What that about?” he grunts.
“Your tab,” I say, before I have a chance to chicken out. “We need you to settle up before we can serve you any more drinks. Manager’s orders.”
His face scrunches into a monstrous scowl. “And he couldn’t tell me that? He sent a piece of skirt instead?”
I baulk at his tone and his words and his stench and everything, and for the first time since I started working in this dive, I pray for another patron to come through the door. Anything to provide a distraction.
For the first time in months, my prayers are answered.
The doorbell tinkles and a chilly gust of wind floods the small room. I step thankfully to the center of the bar and smooth down the Hollister mini dress I stole from my daughter’s closet. I wouldn’t have been able to squeeze into this a few months ago. It’s amazing what a divorce, a migration and a new life back home with your mother can do for the waistline. I remember buying it from the store in Brentwood, back when we could afford to shop at Hollister in Brentwood. These days it’s Goodwill all the way.
When I look up, I’m half tempted to flip God the bird.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter under my breath.
The stranger from the coffee shop just walked in with two men flanking each side. He hasn’t spotted me yet, but he will.
My stomach tightens as I take the opportunity to peruse his shape—those broad shoulders, the contoured chest beneath his suit, large inked fingers and chiseled jaw that fairy tales are made of.
I hold my breath, watching as he scans the room like a detective searching for exits.
Then his gaze pans to me and locks.
His expression doesn’t give anything away as he saunters casually toward a round table in the corner, pulls out a chair and sits. The other two men follow.
He holds my gaze for an uncomfortably long time, then looks away as a faint smile pulls at one corner of his mouth.
That incenses me. Is he gloating? Is he mocking my situation?
First of all, he spills his coffee all over me. Second, he acts like he’s coming to my rescue by giving me his shirt. Third, he’s sending me twenty very expensive replacements on the assumption—I presume—that I need or want new clothes. And now he’s managed to locate the dingy premises where I work so he can, what, goad me even more?
All the shame I’ve tried to bury after that meet-not-so-cute comes bubbling back to the surface, pulled along by a tether I’ve pretty much come to the end of.
“You need to serve that guy,” Bobby murmurs into my ear.
“No,” I say, firmly. “You’ll have to do it.”
Bobby turns his head so only I can read his lips, and he says in a quiet voice, “I can’t.”
I swallow. “What do you mean, you can’t?”
“He wants you.”
I bark out a short laugh. “No he doesn’t. What on earth makes you say that?”
“Because he’s the Surgeon, Erin…”
“Surgeon?” My gaze drifts over the inked knuckles and beard stubble. “He doesn’t look like a surgeon to me.”
The color drains from Bobby’s face like he’s about to have a cardiac arrest. “He’s a fucking regular okay? And if he wanted the same ole’ service he always gets, he’d have given me the same ole’ signal he always does. Now get your pretty ass over to that table, and take their order. Don’t make me ask you again.”
