Page 7 of The Bartender Special

But the parking lot said otherwise.

Jack had already counted the vehicles and done the damage in his head.

There were four cars, two trucks, and a bicycle. One truck was his, one car was his cousin Dixon's, and their only server and part-time cook Santana cruised between the bar and her house a block away by bike.

The math wasn’t great. It hadn’t been since The Drinking Spot, the brand-spanking-new bar twenty minutes outside of Arbor Bay, had opened. Instead of trying to compete with the city, the owner Thomas Bleuth had decided to come for Cassidy’s locals.

And, for the last six months, he'd been getting more and more of them.

That math, that reality, that kick-in-the-teeth, kick-in-the-ass annoyance had kept Jack mostly cussing up a storm in his own head when he had first walked through the back door of the bar, through the kitchen, and out into the main room. Even as Dixon tried to show him something on his phone, he was still running numbers and contemplating the legality of sabotaging The Drinking Spot on his night off.

So Jack missed a lot of things all at once.

Right before he finally clued in all at once too.

What started the chain reaction was Miss Pain in the Ass, Carol Robertson herself.

Jack was an Arbor Bay local, but not a career one like Dixon. He'd transferred in as a sophomore in high school and had the great fortune to be two years older than Carol. Which meant Jack had missed living through her tyrannical reign during high school and, since then, had been able to keep ahead of it as they'd gotten older. Sure, he talked to her every once in a while—it was hard not to talk to someone in a town this size—but Carol never seemed to care all that much about forming a connection past that. A blow to his pride in any other situation but, in this instance, he'd been grateful. High maintenance didn't quite do the woman justice. And that was before Dixon had recapped his and Carol’s awful first—and only—date they'd gone on during her senior year.

So when Carol told him to look up the man at the bar, Jack had started to clue in on what was happening in the present and not the lack of vehicles in the parking lot. Not because he had any interest in Googling anyone, but because he wanted to pay attention to what Carol wanted…so he could do the opposite.

People like Carol, with their constant need to remind everyone of their wealth and status, rubbed him the wrong way. Though that might have had more to do with the fact that Felicity had left him for not having much of either.

Thinking, even fleetingly, of his ex only made Jack more rebellious in the moment.

He took the name, Benny De Carlo, and burned it into his brain so he'd make sure to never look the man up. A silent bird-flip to the rich and entitled of Arbor Bay.

But then, the man really looked at him.

Dark eyes set in a face filled with not-so-hidden discomfort.

And it clicked.

The first time he'd met Benny De Carlo he was rosy-cheeked, rocking back and forth on his barstool, and professing his intentions to marry the Marcus Robertson.

“I'm going to put a ring on his finger,” he'd pronounced, index finger soaring through the air over the bar between them. “Yep. I'm going to be the one who proposes too. I'm just going to do it. Like Nike. I'm going to just do it!”

His voice had risen at the shoe company's slogan. Then he had ended the fantasy with a laugh.

Because that's what it was. A fantasy.

One of the many Jack had heard over the last six years he’d spent bartending. Everyone of a certain age had either wanted or currently wanted a Robertson. And while Jack had been lightly surprised that Benny had had his eyes on the male counterpart, the facts didn’t change.

It was a fantasy.

A fantasy that Jack had never had about the male Robertson.

Marcus Robertson was the biggest, richest, model-looking stick in the mud in town. Just like his twin.

The shorter, dark-haired man who'd been swaying on his barstool across from him would have to stand in a long, long line to get on that ride.

But what kind of bartender would he have been to point that fact out?

In the moment Jack had decided to appear supportive.

“Confidence like that is commendable,” Jack had decided on when the man seemed to be waiting for some kind of response.

He'd apparently appreciated the one Jack had picked. His mess of hair had bounced as he nodded.