I’ll just go and look inside the window, see if she’s there. If I have to walk home alone after this, I have a feeling I will replay my mistake over and over until my frontal lobe falls right the fuck out. The last two steps until I get to the window are fucking torture. I’m sure when I look in, she’ll be gone. C’mon Annie, still be there.
Chapter 28
Annie
Lights: dimmed.
“You know what, Manny?”
He pulls off a long piece of plastic wrap. “What?”
“I’m going to make this place great. You wait and see.”
He grins. “I know.”
“Now you can’t use that whole thing. Are you trying to bankrupt me?”
He laughs and we tear pieces off it, covering the pour spouts of the sweet alcohols to protect them from fruit flies. As we work, I’m trying so hard not to feel disappointed. Why did I leave Italy anyway? You know what? I don’t need this. Brendan Clark can kiss my ass.
“Annie. Someone’s at the window. You want me to tell him to go away?”
I spin to look. Peering through the glass, leaning with his hand over his eyes to shield away the reflection, Brendan smiles, giving me the same little wave as when he left. I walk past Manny to get out from the behind the bar. “I can’t believe it.” Then louder, “Um, Manny, you can take off for the night. Thank you.”
“You sure?” he asks, surprised.
A smile grows in me so strong it fills my whole body. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.” Wiping my hands on my jeans, I pull on the chain hanging from my belt. For the last time tonight the key goes into the lock, but this time lightning quick. “Hey.”
Looking troubled, Brendan steps forward and leans on the doorframe. “Hey.”
Manny scoots by, holding his jacket. “See you tomorrow, Boss.”
With my eyes on Brendan I mutter, “Thanks Manny. Um… You want to come in or would you rather stand there frowning?”
The cloud dissipates around him in an instant as he chuckles and shakes his head. “I just didn’t think you were going to be here. I’m sorry I’m late.” He leans over to hold open the door, to take the weight off me. “After you, Freckles.”
“Freckles? I like it. Come on in.” I walk in, motioning for him to join me. I’m so happy, it’s nuts. I’m not even thinking to hide it. Who can think at a time like this? The door closes behind him, holding the world at bay. We’re alone. And there’s no Corinne waiting in bed on the other side of a door. It’s just us this time.
“He called you Boss. You’re the manager?”
I spin around, walking backwards to answer, “I’m the owner. This is my bar.”
He takes it in with a new appreciation. “Really? Wow. Impressive.”
“Thanks… but I need to get more people in here before anyone gets impressed.” I turn away, but he jogs up and reaches out for my arm. Spinning me back around in the middle of the room, he pulls me toward him so close that I can see black flecks swimming in blue. So that’s why his eyes always seem so dark and tortured.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” I whisper back.
He moves in closer, holding just short of us touching. I wait, the hammering in my chest hopefully not audible. I close my eyes and tilt my head just a little, excitement roaring through me. I can’t breathe. He’s about to kiss me. I can feel it but I can’t believe it. His arms tighten around me. Our lips touch. He presses his onto mine for the very first time, holding there as a shiver floats all the way down to my feet. Stopping there, he pulls away. My eyelashes struggle upward. He smells like heaven, if heaven were made up solely of men.
“What do we need to do to clean this place up?”
“Um… well…” I back away to get my head on straight, tucking my hair behind my ear and looking to the floor for my sanity. “Manny already did the bathrooms so you’re lucky. But I need to wipe everything down. Put the chairs up on the tables so the cleaning crew can do the floors in the morning. I guess that’s pretty much it.”
He smiles. “I can do that.”
My lips are still zinging. “Great. I’ll get you a towel.”
He stops just short of walking behind the bar.
I smile and put one hand on my hip. “You can come back here. You’re an employee now, you know.”
He laughs. “Great, what do I make?”
“Me happy.” I toss a damp towel at his face.
He grins and catches it. “I guess that’s all the payment I’ll need.”
“Oh, you’re so smooth. You know that? But well played. Now get wiping.”
He laughs, looking more and more comfortable. Strolling over to the booths, he begins there, bending over. “Like this?”
I’m already staring at his ass. “Just like that. What kind of music do you like?” I skip over to the iPod, happier than I’ve been since my loan got approved.
Brendan straightens, deep in thought as he tosses the towel from hand to hand. “Got any classic rock?”
“Do I have classic rock?!” I push a couple buttons and Janis Joplin begins the slow crooning of her masterpiece, Piece of My Heart. My hips sway and I close my eyes, dancing in place, caught up in it. I love to dance. I spin around and as soon as I realize what I’m doing, I crack my eyes to see if he’s looking at me like I’m nuts. But he’s dancing, too. Humming along as he works his way from booth to booth. He looks happy. It’s something to see. Boogying my way to the register, I pick up the twenties and start counting; twenty, forty, sixty, eighty…
He calls out over the music, walking to gather dirty napkins off a table in the center of the room. “How was tonight? Get busy after I left?”
One hundred, One hundred twenty… “Nah. We stayed slow all night. The busiest was when you were here. And stupid me – I loaded up the register hoping we’d need the change, but alas!”
He brings the trash to a trashcan behind the bar. I look over, watch him toss it in. He winks at me and goes back to wipe. I can’t get over this. I lost my count. Okay. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty…
“What are you doing to get the word out?”
“Umm… that’s a great question.” That’s all I want to say. Not a fun topic. Where was I? Twenty, forty, sixty…
“So how about a great answer?”
Eighty… I glance to him and see that he’s serious. He really wants to know. “You’re not just making conversation are you?”
Chapter 29
Brendan
Nerves: calm now. Hesitancy: still there. Mind: filling quickly up with marketing ideas.
“I’m not just making conversation, no.” I toss the towel and walk over to watch her count, waiting for an answer. She’s in over her head. I know that. She looks younger than me and running her own business without having a game plan is a common error in small business owners. When you start something, you can’t just go in half-cocked with fairy dust in your brain. It doesn’t work like that.
With twenties in both her hands, she looks at me helplessly. “Well, the truth is, I don’t know how I’m going to get the word out. I’m not great at that stuff. I can run a bar, but this is my first solo show, so…”
“You’ve never done the promoting,” I finish.
She sighs and gives a short nod, putting the money back in the register while she thinks. I give the room a once over again and decide it’s got a great vibe in here. It’s not like the other places up the street so this will appeal to it’s own crowd. There’s kind of a Goth feel to it and people like a dark bar, especially for dates. I can see this hitting it big if she just pushed it right.
She walks toward me, pulling back her hair from her forehead by running her fingers through it while she looks at me. The thought settles in again that she’s addictive to look at, settles in me again. I just stare at her, thinking I could help her make this place great. But I don’t even know her. That’s a hell of an assumption, on many counts.
“I never needed to promote. The place I worked
at, then managed, had been there for years before I got there.” She follows my eyes around the place, seeing her baby. There’s pride on her face, but it doesn’t hide the fear. “I guess I expected because this is a busy area, it would just sell it itself, you know?”
The towel stops. “It’s a busy neighborhood, but these people are loyal to their own and you’re an outsider.”
She winces. Mutters, “Story of my life. Listen, let’s not talk about it, okay?” She turns around abruptly, her hands on the open register drawer, her shoulders sunken. What did I say?
“I’m sorry. I was just saying it like it is, but I could have been a little more…”
“Dishonest?” She throws me a rueful smile over her shoulder.
I can’t help but smile. “Yeah. I guess.”
She walks over and changes the song from Riders On The Storm that just started, to Otis Redding’s These Arms Of Mine. Walking back, she looks a little bit lighter. “I love this song.”
“Yeah. Me too.” I go back to wiping tables. We don’t talk for a little while and I’m running through ideas for what I’d do to spread the word, other than tell my friends and acquaintances. Does she have a page on Yelp? Are their photos? Does she have a Facebook page? How about Pinterest? She could have boards on cocktails and a music playlist with suggestions and… the list goes on and on.
I don’t know what’s giving me the urge to help, but I know that I can. Isn’t that enough? She might shoot me down. It was hard enough to talk her into seeing me tonight.
Looking at her silence as she counts, her hair pulled over one shoulder; I decide I’m going to give it a shot. She can always say no. I’ll just walk over and offer my services to her. Tell her I’ll do it for free; help her get set up and she can take it from there. But without a map, how can you get anywhere? Why am I nervous? People pay me for this.
She looks to her right and sees me standing next to her behind the bar. With her pen suspended in the air from writing the final drawer count, she says, “Oh! I didn’t hear you walk up.”
“Look, I didn’t mean to get you worried.”
“You didn’t. I was worried already.”
I scan the bar again, building up the courage to say it. “I could help you.”
She blinks, still holding the pen. “What do you mean?”
Glancing to the floor, I weigh the dirty, now crumpled-up bar towel in one of my hands, looking at the dark crinkles. “Well, this is your baby, so forgive me for imposing. But I think I could help you market it, if you’ll let me. Marketing is my thing. It’s what I do.”
She brings her hand up to her mouth, the pen stuck between her fingers. She looks pretty cute. On a whisper, she finally manages, “Why would you do that?”
I really don’t know why. Because I like the place? Because I can? Something tells me it’s more than that. “I feel like I could help. I want to.”
She drops the pen and brings both of her hands up to hold her head like she’s afraid it might explode. “Are you being serious? You’re not just saying this?”
I smile. “I’m totally serious. You know what’s cool?”
“Having someone help you?”
That makes me laugh and I shake my head. “No, it’s offering to help someone and have them appreciate it as much as you just did. Great. So it’s a plan?”
Staring at me, she’s speechless. She just nods. Chuckling to myself, I walk back out and grab a chair to turn it over on the table. As I do, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap comes on, by AC/DC. I glance to the iPod player, impressed that she has this on it.
“Great song.”
Chapter 30
Annie
Mind: blown, with pieces caught in my hair, on my clothes, and in the rubber mats under my feet. What the fuck just happened.
I finish the ledger and slide it into a drawer, struggling to accept that this night isn’t a dream. It has to be. “Of course you love it. All men love AC/DC.”
“That’s because all men have good taste,” he throws back.
“I disagree with that.” I grab a clean towel, dunk it in the sink, wring it out and wipe the bar counter down as we talk. Many, many times, I steal looks at him, watching him picking up those chairs with his muscles tensing each and every delicious time.
“That’s because you women don’t get the genius. Women hate AC/DC.”
His smile is challenging, and it stirs up my competitive streak. “See, now that’s bullshit.”
His eyebrows fly up. “Is that so? Bullshit, you say?”
I make a pffth sound and nod, moving the pile of napkins over so I can get under them. “Total bullshit. We don’t like AC/DC because most of us mistakenly believe that there was only one singer, not knowing that Bon Scott died in his own vomit, thereby leaving the band to have to settle for the screaming fuckhead who took over. It’s the screaming fuckhead we don’t like!”
“Because who would like a screaming fuckhead.” He’s stealing glances at me, too, but I’m too caught up in my argument to notice.
“Yeah! When women – any woman I’ve ever made listen to them – when they hear Live Wire, amazing. Dirty Deeds, priceless. It’s A Long Way To The Top? Awesome. And they’re confused, thinking, hey this is pretty funny stuff. But it’s AC/DC so they blow it off and discount it, because they are forced to stick to their guns and think men just love that screaming fuckhead and Lord only knows why.” I grab the condiment tray and almost spill out the olives when I see his face. “What?”
He puts down the chair he’s holding, and crooks a finger my way. “Come here.”
Oh, shit. Am I in trouble? I walk around the bar to him, and as I meet his eyes again I see that the only trouble I’m going to have is keeping him out of my pants. In other words, none. He’s looking at me like I’m meat and he hasn’t eaten for two years. I stop just short of climbing onto him without further ado. “Yes?”
“You’re too far away.” He pulls me in to him. “And you’re wrong about AC/DC.”
“I’m not.” He smiles, and shakes his head briefly. I gaze up at him as he ebbs closer.
“You make a very compelling argument but you’re wrong.”
I close my eyes and say on a whisper, “Back In Black is a screeching disaster.”
His eyes dance. “You’re very, very wrong.”
He kisses me, opening my mouth with his. The soft tip of his tongue touches mine and we move on each other. My fingers languidly slip into his wavy hair. His hands travel up my back and he firmly pulls me in as close as he can, our bodies becoming smashed. He’s growing hard against me, the strength of him so powerful. Our kiss moves faster, until we’re gasping and urgent. I want to dissolve every moment we’ve ever been apart. I want to give myself to him. Every cell. Every pulse.
“Wait. Wait.” I say on a gasp, pulling away. “Not in front of the window. It’s my business and I…”
“Of course. You’re right.”
“So move me out of sight already.”
He laughs. “Oh.” Picking me up in a standing position, my feet slightly off the ground. I feel the wall come up against my back as our mouths move on each other and he sets me down. Reluctantly, he pulls away to look to the window, check to see if we’re hidden. We both glance over. All clear. He mutters against my lips, “If we can’t see it, then it can’t see us.”
He pushes me hard up against the wall. His hands fluidly move down my body and back up to hold my breasts, cupping and massaging them while we kiss. With tantalizing slowness, he nibbles down my neck. I close my eyes, losing myself to the feelings, aching for him. Through the halter fabric he flicks my nipples with his thumbs, bites me, tugs on my neck, pulling it between his lips. He’s the man and I’m the woman. He wants me to know and I want nothing else. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. My leg wraps around him to press against the bulge in his pants. His fingers slip behind me, down inside the back of my jeans and under the wisp of lacey fabric below. He presses hard into the flesh of my ass, massaging me in time with
kisses as he takes my mouth again in his.
Suddenly he pulls back to look at me, eyes hooded. His hungry smile fades quickly. He searches me. I stare back at him, my breaths shortened now. “What? What’s wrong?”
“There’s something familiar about you.”
No! Not now! You can’t recognize me now!
I shake my head. “I’d remember you.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Totally sure. Very sure. Kiss me again.”
He grins. “Fair enough.” Rock-hard, he pushes against me again, his lips so close to mine I can feel the heat of his breath as he hungrily tells me, “I’d like to do more than just kiss you. I want to rip off these clothes and take you right here against this wall.” I watch him through a haze of need as he comes in and kisses me hard, opening my lips with his to find my tongue again and suck on it. Grinding me mindless, rocking my body up and down, all I want is for him to do that. The delicious burning ache is so intense and so, so good.
I bend my neck as he kisses my earlobe. “I want you, Annie.” The heat of his breath sizzles me, but the words are what really knock me over. I’ve wanted to hear this ever since the first day I saw him. He’d been thumbing through one of his textbooks on the way to class when the shade disappeared and the sun bounced bright off the white page. He’d looked up to the sky and the light caught the blue in his eyes so beautifully that my mouth had dropped open. I’d been sitting under the tree he walked under, enjoying the same shade and doing my usual disappearing act. I just stared at him. Of course he didn’t see me. I thought he was going to leave, but instead he backed up into the shade right in front of me to finish what he was reading, giving me full license to gaze at his profile, memorizing his angled chin, the strength of his neck, his arm taught under the grasp of the stack of books he balanced. When he closed the top one, I watched him walk all the way into the building, thinking, if I married that man, I would be the happiest woman who ever lived. I just knew. It felt like I had always loved him.
Changing For You: A New Adult Contemporary Romance (Anything For You Book 1) Page 11
