Don't Break This Kiss (Top Shelf Romance Book 5)

by Jessica Hawkins

  He got quiet for his last throw. She watched him, the constriction of his neck when he swallowed, the tautness of his jaw while he concentrated. If he was this self-possessed and powerful looking during a light-hearted game, she guessed he’d be a force everywhere else.

  “Where’d you say you work?” she asked him.

  “I didn’t.”

  “What do you do?”

  He threw his dart, but neither of them watched where it landed. “I’m a founding partner of a venture capital firm downtown.”

  “Those guys you’re with don’t look like colleagues.”

  “They own a tech startup I’m thinking of investing in. I like to take my time getting to know the people behind the project before I make any decisions.”

  “Isn’t that kind of thing normally done in a conference room or over a golf game?”

  He smiled. “Sometimes it’s a golf game. Sometimes it’s a trip to Vegas. For these guys, a local watering hole’s where they’re most comfortable.”

  “What about you, though?” she asked. “Are you comfortable here?”

  “It’s not my first choice.” He looked at her closely. “But I don’t mind a change in scenery now and then. And this is definitely a departure from my usual thing.”

  Lola took her spot at the duct tape and threw. “I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or not.”

  “It is. Take the women who work for me, for instance. They’re all blonde. Even the ones with dark hair look blonde. I don’t know how they do that.”

  “Well, this is L.A.,” Lola said. She retrieved her darts from the board and passed them to him.

  He didn’t move right away, except to turn a dart over in his hand. “You don’t see any with hair like yours.”

  “Mine?” Hers was more of a mane, black and thick as the day was long. Straight too—she got that from her dad. One of her few memories from before he’d left was a woman stopping them on the street to say Lola was her dad’s spitting image. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That color—pitch black. It reminds me of the night. Unpredictable. Smooth, but a little wild. No end, no beginning, like midnight. But then your skin,” he continued, shaking his head as if in wonder, “white like the moon.” He laughed abruptly and took his Scotch from the nearby high-top table where he’d set it. “Well. I’ve been known to get a little romantic when I drink, but this has to be a new level.”

  “It’s nice,” she said without thinking. Her palms were sweating. Come to think of it, the bar seemed warmer than usual. “This place isn’t exactly known for romance.”

  “What’s it known for, Lola?”

  She blinked several times as she thought. “It used to be…electric. Regulars insist you could see this block from space, all lit up in neon lights. Hear it too.”

  “Still a lot of neon here,” he said.

  “True. It takes more than some neon signs to make a place electric, though. Lately people gawk like we’re some kind of relic. Problem is, we’re still here.”

  “Gawkers aren’t good for business?”

  “Not if they aren’t spending. I keep telling Mitch we need to become relevant again, because we’re really lacking new business. And when the tourists forget about us, we’re in trouble.” She took another turn. “So how come you don’t know all this if you grew up in Los Angeles?”

  “I know some of it. I’ve just never been big on nightlife.”

  “Why not?”

  “I work a lot. In my twenties I was an employee by day and an entrepreneur by night.”

  “Building your firm? What’s it called?”

  “Bolt Ventures, but no, I’m referring to my first company,” he said. “I went through a lot during those years, but it eventually paid off.”

  “Do you have hobbies?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. Before he could answer, she added, “Outside of work.”

  He blew out a laugh. “Some,” he said. “Mostly it’s just work, though.”

  “God, you must love what you do,” she said and smiled. “I’m all for working hard, but it’s nothing without some fun.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said evenly. “Because I work hard, I get to have fun too.”

  Her smile wavered wondering how a guy like Beau had fun. Johnny played guitar, but only for himself. A rock band in high school was the last time he’d performed publicly. Otherwise it was video games or tinkering with cars and bikes at the auto shop where his best friend was a mechanic.

  Beau, on the other hand, wouldn’t play an instrument. Not the guitar, anyway. She couldn’t picture him with a gaming controller or a wrench in his hand either. He was tightly wound. If a man like him didn’t loosen up once in a while, he’d snap.

  Johnny didn’t stress out often, but even he needed to unwind. A couple years back, Hey Joe’s alcohol order had gotten mixed up right before the only bartender on duty called and quit. “At least he called,” Lola had said, but Johnny wouldn’t hear it. His parents had moved to Florida days before, and Lola’s car—long gone, now—wouldn’t start. Johnny’s eyebrows had been so low on his forehead, she’d worried he’d scare off customers. With five minutes to open, Lola had taken him in the back and given him the blowjob of his life. He’d been fine after that.

  Lola squinted at Beau. It’d been years since she’d thought of that. She definitely had sex on her mind tonight. Had Beau ever been blown in a seedy bar like this? Would it relax him? Turn him on? Would he find that…fun?

  “I’m boring you,” Beau said. “I never go on about myself this much. Either the Macallan’s kicking in or you’re too easy to talk to.”

  Lola was about to tell him to keep talking—she liked having a new voice in the bar. It didn’t hurt that that voice was bottomless, as if it came from some untouched depths inside him. And steady, in a comforting way. She could listen to him all night. She shook the feeling off.

  “So what’ll you do if this place gets bought out?” he asked.

  “I try not to think about it,” Lola said. “It’d be hard on us. Johnny loves this place as if it were his own.”

  “And what about you?”

  Over Beau’s head were some photographs of the owner’s dad with bands and customers who were long gone. “There’s a lot of history here,” she said, her eyes wandering over the pictures. “I’m closer to the people here than I am my own family.”

  “But you could see yourself doing something different,” he guessed.

  “Different?” It hadn’t occurred to her. Johnny had been bartending for twelve years, and she’d been by his side for eight of them. They were a team. “The late-night scene can get old,” she admitted. “I suppose if it were between moving to a different bar or trying something else, I’d maybe think about something else.” Lola hadn’t even known she’d be open to a change until she’d said it aloud. She’d assumed she and Johnny would always work together, but Johnny’d never do anything outside the nightlife industry.

  “Something like…?” Beau asked.

  She considered it a moment. “A restaurant would make sense, or a coffee shop. At least the hours would be better.”

  “So then serving food and drinks is your passion,” Beau said.

  She simultaneously laughed and scoffed. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m just being realistic about my options. They’re limited without a college degree.”

  “You didn’t go to school?”

  “Dropped out my first semester.” Lola mock-gasped with her fingers over her mouth. “Unheard of in your world, isn’t it?”

  “No.” He frowned. “I didn’t go to college either.”

  She cleared her throat. She hadn’t expected that. Yet, he only said he’d started a business—not that it was successful. Maybe it wasn’t. But there was his suit, the cut of it, the way it moved with him instead of against him. It turned his shoulders into two strong right angles with a large expanse in between.

  If she pretended there were a bug, she could reach out and brush it away just t
o see if the fabric was smooth, scratchy or something else. And she could get an idea of what was underneath it.

  “What’d you do before this?” Beau asked, oblivious to her wandering imagination.

  “Before this? Nothing really. I’ve worked here since I was…” She almost couldn’t finish the sentence. It was a lifetime ago now. In the eight years she’d been doing it, she couldn’t pinpoint when she’d decided waiting tables would be her career. “Twenty-one,” she finished. “That’s how old I was when I started.”

  “So that would be, what?” Beau pretended to count to himself. “Two years ago? Three?”

  “Nice try,” she said as she laughed.

  “I can’t be that far off. You could pass for early twenties.”

  “Maybe compared to tonight’s crowd. You and I might be the only ones under forty.” She guessed at his age to see if he’d correct her, because he could very possibly be forty.

  “Except for Johnny,” Beau said.

  “Obviously except for Johnny,” Lola said quickly. He’d flustered her with the insinuation she’d forgotten about Johnny—because she had.

  “You’re a bit younger than me, though,” Beau said, his voice light, teasing. “And I’m a bit older than you.”

  She wanted to ask by how much, but she just glanced at the floor. “Not a lot older, I don’t think.”

  “The way you’re smiling a little makes me think maybe you wouldn’t mind an older man.”

  “Actually,” Lola said, lifting her head, “I wouldn’t know anything about that. Johnny’s the oldest guy I’ve been with, and he’s a few years older than me. And my guess is you’re a few years older than him. And my other guess is, whether or not I’d mind an older man isn’t really your business.”

  His eyes twinkled. “You’re right. It was inappropriate to suggest you might. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t think you are.” She turned away from the probing look on his face, more intimate now than it’d just been.

  “I don’t think you are, either,” he said.

  She paused, and against her better judgment, looked back. His cheeks were high and round, as though losing the fight against his smile. “Don’t tell me you’re forfeiting the game,” he said.

  “And give you the satisfaction? Never. I’m in it ’til the end.”

  “Then why are you walking away?”

  “If I’m going to hang around you any longer, I’m going to need a drink for myself.”

  He put his hand in his pocket and stalked slowly toward her. No longer on the verge of smiling, he looked at her as though she were on display in a museum, some rare and amusing find.

  She stood her ground, even when he came close enough that the tips of their feet almost touched. His eyes, their unusual oval shape and striking color—he narrowed them and frowned as if he were trying to read her but couldn’t. He leaned in. He was going to kiss her right there in front of everyone. She had to move, push him—something. She looked at his mouth, his bottom lip slightly fuller, slightly pinker than the upper one.

  “Are you going somewhere dangerous?” he asked.

  She tried not to sound as breathless as the thought of kissing him made her feel. “What?”

  He put his hand over hers, encompassing it in warmth. He turned it over. Instinctively, she opened her fingers to reveal a dart she hadn’t realized she’d been gripping.

  “I’ll hold onto this—unless you think you’ll need it for protection?” He took it and walked back a few steps. She wondered if she’d been wrong that he couldn’t read her. The way he grinned, it was as if he knew something about her she didn’t.

  Chapter 3

  Once the OPEN sign was switched off each night and the doors locked, Hey Joe became something else. The pours went from standard to generous and the music from loud to easy. Familiar.

  Lola closed down the bar with Veronica, one of Hey Joe’s longest-standing waitresses, while Johnny and his leather-jacket friends surrounded the pool table like some kind of biker gang. There were no motorcycles in the parking lot, though. Mark, Johnny’s best friend, had traded his in kicking and screaming when his son was born, and the rest of them couldn’t afford anything worth owning.

  Outsiders weren’t usually allowed after hours—Johnny’s rule, not the owner’s—yet somehow Beau had convinced the guys to let him in on a game of pool. Lola suspected that was because they never got a chance at winning real money when they played against one another. The men Beau arrived with had left hours earlier.

  Lola turned the volume up a notch for The Doors. Veronica shook her hips back and forth. Her acrylic nails clinked against drink glasses as she dried them.

  “I heard a rumor,” Veronica said.

  “Probably the same one I heard.”

  “Think we’ll all get the boot when Mitch sells this place?”

  Lola looked at Johnny as he lined up his shot, sank the ball and swaggered around the table. “I hope not,” she said.

  “Word is they’re looking to develop this block of the Strip into something fancy. You see that juice bar they’re putting in?”

  “I saw it. Can you imagine bulldozing all this history? Vero, do you realize the fucking rock stars who’ve stood on that stage?”

  Vero popped her gum, shaking her head. “Shit’s not cool.”

  “They’d probably give us uniforms. You might have to wear a miniskirt.”

  Vero looked down at her Harley T-shirt and faded jeans. “The day I wear a miniskirt’s the day I cut off my balls and serve them to my boss on a silver platter.”

  “You don’t have balls, Vero.”

  “It’s a saying,” she said, rolling her eyes. She leaned a hand on the counter and nodded over at the pool game. “I don’t know, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if this place shut down. Not like Johnny can’t find something else.”

  “But he’s perfect here.”

  She smiled. “I know. That doesn’t mean he can’t do good work somewhere else, though. And maybe you could try something with computers.”

  “You think so?” Lola asked.

  “Why not? I remember when you first started you talked about going back to school.”

  “Yeah, I did,” Lola said. “Kept putting it off, and here I am years later.”

  “Happens all the time, but people do it. You’ve been making those flyers for this place for a while. Even Mitch says they’re good. Couldn’t you take a, you know, flyer-making class or something?”

  “I guess I could,” Lola said. Mitch had even promised to let her redesign the menus he’d been hanging on to the last decade. Before he’d decided to close, of course. “I actually like the little bit of graphic design I’ve taught myself.”

  “Yep,” Vero said. “But take it from me, you have to do it now. If you get another waitressing gig, you’ll get stuck again. Me and Johnny? We’re in this scene for good. Nothing can hide a lifetime of smoking and the pretty little scar on my lip Freddy left me with. Johnny’s got his rough edges too. You can still get out, though.”

  Lola chewed on her bottom lip. Once in a while, she thought about going back to school. Johnny didn’t like change, though. Leaving the bar would mean no more waking up late in the morning together and lounging before work—coffee, talk shows, reading the Times while he strummed his guitar on their tiny patio. It would mean not driving home from work in the middle of the night, sometimes with her head in his lap when she was especially tired. It would mean leaving him behind in a way, telling him this life he loved wasn’t quite enough for her.

  “Everyone’s living in the clouds tonight,” Lola said softly, thinking of the similar conversation she’d just had with Beau. “There must be something in the air.”

  “Nah. It’s just the liquor giving me loose lips,” Vero said.

  “Veronica,” Lola scolded. “Johnny warned you about drinking on the job.”

  “You know how it is. I just need a taste every now and then. Anyway, you had a drink earlier.”

>   “That was a special circumstance.”

  “Playing darts is a special circumstance?”

  Lola pinned her with a look. “My aim gets sharper the more I loosen up.”

  “Oh, okay, sure.” Veronica nodded her head high. “Keep your secret if you keep mine?”

  Lola snickered. She rarely got to pull one over on Johnny. “Fine,” she said. “Deal.”

  Vero stopped her gum smacking. “Girl, why don’t you ever tell that slut to back off?”

  Lola followed her nod to Amanda, one of the waitresses, as she smiled up at Johnny.

  “You know why,” Lola said. “She can flutter those lids until they fall off, Johnny’s not dumb enough to touch that.”

  “Don’t matter. Since she doesn’t seem to have eyeballs, there’re other ways to let her know he’s your man.”

  “We have to work together,” Lola said. “I don’t want trouble. And Johnny puts her in her place when he needs to. Not that it does much good.” Lola’s gaze shifted to Beau, who stood with his pool cue planted on the ground. He was the only one not wearing something faded or leather.

  “Handsome guy, isn’t he?” Vero asked. “Out of the suit, that is.”

  Lola kept her eyes on him and shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t mind the suit.”

  “Don’t tell Johnny that. Probably never wore a suit in his life, not even to a funeral.”

  “I know,” Lola said absentmindedly. “Maybe that’s why I like it.”

  “Replace the suit with a cut and throw him on a bike, though? Fuck me. A face like that would put a serious dent in the pussy around here.”

  Beau caught them looking and raised his glass, his smile sweetly crooked.

  “You didn’t answer my question earlier,” he said after she’d gotten herself a drink. They’d stopped playing darts and were standing close to each other at a high-top table.

  “Which one?”

  “I asked what you did before working here.”

  “Oh. Nothing really. There was high school, of course…”