Page 20 of Bastard Bartender

“Okay, I get it. You’re not interested.” He holds up his hands in surrender.

“You bet your sorry ass we’re not interested,” Marie yells out as he walks away toward the front of the bar.

I drop my head to my chest, shaking it in shock as I inhale.

Nic slides a drink toward me, which makes me look up. His eyes float from me to the back wall, where Quinten is now standing, and back to me with a please forgiveme expression.

“I take it, that wasn’t good?” he says, acting afraid to hear my answer.

“If I wanted to head back to his hotel and help him cheat on his wife, it would have been perfect.”

“That asshole,” he bites.

Marie rubs my back. “His cherub look was deceiving. It’s not your fault he was a douche bag.”

“I had a feeling,” he says.

My head pops up to him with a scowl.

“You had a feeling? I thought you were the master of body language and reading men based on what they order?”

“He ordered white wine,” Nic says with a smirk. “He was either a serial killer, married, or both.”

My jaw drops as I take offense to the rather poor selection in men. “I would have been better off with the hippie child who brushes his grandma’s hair.”

“Probably, but you’re the one who said—what was it? ‘I have to give the first man I meet with that letter a chance. No matter what.’ ”

That damn lopsided smile of his is prominent as he looks so proud of himself for calling me on my stupid rules.

No, wait, they’re not stupid.

God, why do I let this man in my head?

Marie sits back in her stool and runs her tongue along the back of her teeth, shaking her head at Nic, like she’s in on a little secret.

I hit her in the arm. “Don’t go looking at him like that. Whose side are you on anyway?”

She lifts her glass and makes a cheers motion. “Yours, girl.” She moves it over in Nic’s direction. “And his too. Most definitely his.”

If I could shoot laser beams out of my eyes, I would be doing so right now at both of them.