Clara laughed and I busied myself with wiping down the bar. Brayden had come in at eleven and then stayed until nearly two a.m., while sipping the same beer. Who sipped one beer for three hours?
I must have said that out loud because Clara answered, “Someone who doesn’t drink?”
I frowned. Why come to a bar if you don’t drink?
“He tipped me twenty bucks on a five-dollar beer. That’s annoying, right?”
Clara laughed again. “Honey, he obviously likes you. Probably in town on his way to Canada or something. Why not have a fun night with him?” She waggled her eyebrows and we both giggled. Clara knew I wasn’t into that one-night-stand stuff.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and then grabbed a stack of dirty glasses to bring into the kitchen.
I was just about to walk over and tell Brayden we were closing up, and that he would have to go, when the door burst open and six giant dudes walked in.
“Whoa, is there a football convention in town?” I muttered to myself and stepped out from behind the bar. “Sorry, we’re closing,” I told the dudes, and scurried to step in front of them so they couldn’t get farther inside as I shooed them towards the door.
They all stopped in unison and glared over my shoulder at Brayden.
The big one in front had a shaved head and beady brown eyes and looked like trouble. He was closest to me and leaned forward, inhaling through his nostrils as if smelling me.
Gross.
I blinked and then suddenly Brayden was standing in front of me. Holy moly, he was fast. Maybe they reallywereon a football team.
“Leave,” Brayden growled and the sound seemed oddly familiar.
“Is this her?” the big dude asked, and my head whipped backward. This guy didn’t know me.
“She’smine,” Brayden said, and I froze. Okay, he was definitely an axe murderer. A really cocky possessive one with a nice jawline.
“Excuse me!” I looked up at Brayden with the craziest face I could muster.A face that said if you tried to kill me I would go psycho on you and rip your manhood off.
Brayden looked unfazed by my crazy eyes, so I peered back to the six dudes.
Every single one of them was staring at me.
“Is she—?” one of them said, but Brayden stepped forward and he must have been wearing a scary look on his face because all six dudes stepped away before turning around to leave.
“What the hell, man?” I yelled at Brayden’s back. “Are you in the mafia or something?” Sometimes I couldn’t help the stuff I blurted out. Okay, most of the time.
When he turned to face me, I gasped. His blue eyes were threaded through with honey yellow.
“I have a lot of enemies,” he said flatly.
Okay, so maybe the mafia comment wasn’t far off.
This was the first time I’d seen him walk and noticed he was favoring his left side. Football injury?Mafia injury? Axe murderer injury?
“Are you guys on rival sports team or something?”I said, grasping at straws to explain this weird behavior. Maybe they hadn’t been talking about me.
He swallowed hard. “Something like that.”
Okay. This was super-duper awkward and now I just wanted him to leave. “Well, we’re closing so…”
“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Hey, are you feeling okay?” He pointed to my arm. “You look a bit flushed and I couldn’t help but notice you were injured. I’m a doctor, I could take a look for you?”
I reached up and touched my cheeks.
Damn, a feveragain. I didn’t believe for one second this hot lumberjack surfer in his early twenties was a doctor, but I’m sure the pick-up line worked often.
