“How ya doin’?”he asked.
“Great.You?”I knew my tone didn’t sound great, but hey, I was doing the best that I could tonight.
“Name’s Tommy.And you are…?”
“Busy, Tommy, but thanks for askin’,” I replied coolly.
The guy grinned, clearly not fazed by my obvious brush-off.
“Aww, come on now,” he said with a grin.“I was just tryin’ to be friendly.”
I turned to face him.“And I was tryin’notto be rude,” I told him flatly.
The man seemed to consider that for a moment.“Somehow, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Nope,” I assured him.“We didn’t.If you need another beer, holler.Otherwise…” I motioned to where I'd left the rag on the bar.
“Got it.”He turned and sauntered back to the table.
I'd half expected some sort of snide remark from being spurned, but he didn’t say a word.I'd gotten used to that over the years.Most of the folks who came in knew me and were friendly.However, there was the occasional hothead who didn’t take kindly to being turned down.And then there was Billy, who had never taken kindly to not getting his way.Whenever I didn’t meekly agree with him, I usually endured a rash of shit spewing from his mouth.
I damn sure didn’t miss that.
Of course, those thoughts had me replaying the conversation with Tommy in my head.God, I sounded like such a bitch.
Seemed I was on a roll today.
An hour later,I breathed a sigh of relief.Without wasting time, I grabbed the till from the bar and secured it in the safe before locking the rest of the place down.I made my way out to the main room to find Amy and Wolfe standing there, clearly waiting for me.
“I’m good, y’all,” I said.“Really.You don’t have to wait.”
“You’re right,” Wolfe replied easily.“We don’t have to.But we want to.”
Same thing Lynx had said the other day.
“Seriously, don’t you wanna take your lady home to bed?”I teased, taking off my apron and tossing it beneath the bar.
“Of course,” he said with a wicked smirk.“And if you’d get your ass in gear, I could do just that.”
“Fine.”I knew they wouldn’t leave until I did, so I grabbed my truck keys and headed toward the door.
“I’m not sure why y’all can’t just—” I pushed the door.It shifted slightly but didn’t open.It should’ve swung outward.I tried again but was met with the same resistance.“What the fuck?”
I dropped my hands, shook them out, then tried again just in case, you know, I'd forgotten how to open a door in the last few hours.
Nope.Still wouldn’t open.
Glancing over at Wolfe, I frowned.“What’s wrong with the damn door?”
“Hell if I?—”
That was all he got out before the world erupted in a violent explosion.The earth-rattling boom sent the three of us slamming against the front wall of the building.Chairs and tables launched into the air, glass shattering, raining down all around us.
And the noise.Holy shit, it was so loud.Tooloud.
I landed with a thud on the floor, my head making a solid impact with the hard post that framed the doors.It rang my bell hard, making me see spots momentarily.
Shit.
