The Bartender

by Ramona Gray

  “Hurry!” I muttered.

  “Sorry, sweetheart, I’m better at unhooking these.” His voice held more than a hint of laughter in it.

  “This is not funny.”

  “It’s kind of funny.” He finished doing up my bra and I grabbed my shirt as my mother pounded on the door again.

  This time I could hear the panic in her voice. “Rachel? This isn’t funny, young lady! I’m about thirty seconds away from calling the police. Do you hear me?”

  “Fuck!” I yanked my shirt on and buttoned it as Ren tucked away his penis and buttoned his jeans.

  “What’s she doing here?” He asked.

  “Her car is in the shop, so she borrowed mine and said she would pick me up after work. I completely forgot.”

  I pushed my feet into my shoes and hurried toward the front door, straightening my shirt and my skirt compulsively as Ren followed me. I was trying to think of an excuse for why Ren was in the library with me, but I was barely thinking straight. Ren had just eaten my pussy until I had the best orgasm of my life. Ren had almost fucked me. Would be fucking me if it hadn’t been for my…

  Oh shit.

  I stopped with my hand on the lock and gave Ren a frantic look. “My panties. Where are they?”

  I kept my voice pitched low, but my mother had the hearing of a hawk. She immediately pounded on the door again. “Rachel? Is that you? Open the door right this minute!”

  Ren winked at me and pulled a bit of my panties out of his pocket. “I’ve got them right here.”

  “Give them to me.” I held out my hand, glaring at him when he shoved them back into his pocket.

  “No time, sweetheart.”

  “Ren, I need -”

  “Rachel! Open the door!”

  Groaning inwardly, I smoothed my hair and reached for the door. “Don’t say a word.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Why did he have to be so friggin’ sexy?

  I unlocked the door and pulled it open, blocking the doorway with my chubby body. My mother glared at me. “What are you doing?”

  “Just closing up, Mom. I’m running a little late, but I won’t be much longer. Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you in the car.”

  “I’ll wait for you in here.” She shoved past me and looked me up and down. “You look awful today. How many times have I told you not to wear your hair down, Rachel? It makes your face look even fatter and your -”

  “I think she looks beautiful.”

  My mother screeched and swung around to stare at Ren. “Who – what are you doing here?”

  “Mom, this is Ren Parker. He owns Ren’s Bar. He’s looking for a book.”

  Please don’t insult him. Please don’t insult him.

  “Since when do bartenders read?”

  “Mom! Stop it.”

  “What? Bartenders don’t read, Rachel.”

  “How many bartenders do you know, Mrs. Banks?” Ren’s voice was polite, but I could see the anger brewing on his face.

  “None.” She sniffed. “We don’t associate with your type of people.”

  “Enough, Mom.” I took my mother’s arm and tugged her away. “You’re being rude.”

  “Who cares? He’s below us and -”

  “Stop it.” I shook her roughly, and she yanked her arm from my grip.

  “What is going on with you? Are you forgetting all that I’ve sacrificed for you?”

  “No,” I said in a low voice. “But Ren is – is a customer at the library and I’m not letting you insult him. Do you want me to lose my job? Is that it?”

  “You concentrate way too much on your job. You don’t have the looks to catch a man, so you need to work on your personality. If you would spend less time working extra shifts at the library, and more time working on your social skills, you might not be single and alone. You need -”

  I walked away before she could finish her sentence. I had no desire for Ren to hear all about my boring personality and awkward social behaviour. I stopped in front of Ren and gave him a please-get-the-hell-out-of-here look. “Mr. Parker, if you give me a couple of days, I’ll see if I can find that book you’re looking for at one of the other libraries and have it transferred.”

  Ren studied me for a moment before nodding. “Sure. Thank you, Rachel.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He leaned forward and for one pulse-pounding moment I thought he was going to kiss me right there in front of my mother. Instead, he picked away an invisible piece of lint from my shirt sleeve and gave me a boyish grin. “Bye.”

  He turned and opened the library door. Before he could step outside, my mother’s voice rang out.

  “What is that in your pocket?”

  My heart stopped. Just gave up for an entire three seconds before clanging back to life in my chest. I wheezed in a breath as I tried to think of a plausible explanation for why Ren had my panties in his pocket.

  “Why do you have those in your back pocket?” My mother demanded.

  Ren pulled the two sets of sticks from his pocket and studied them before holding them out to me. “Right, I almost forgot to give these to you.”

  My hand was shaking so bad, I almost dropped them. Ren curled his hand around mine, keeping the sticks in my palm. “You okay, sweetheart?”

  “Sweetheart?” My mother’s voice was high enough to make dogs howl.

  I pulled my hand away from Ren’s and stepped back. “Yes, Mr. Parker, thank you. Have a good evening.”

  Hurt flickered across his face, but he smoothed it out, nodded and left the library. I closed and locked the door behind him before staring at the sticks in my hand. Why were Ren’s feelings hurt? And why did it bother me that I hurt his feelings?

  “Rachel, what is going on with you and that man?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me. He called you ‘sweetheart’ and he had your hair sticks in his pocket.”

  I pushed past her and headed toward the front desk. “He’s just a flirt and I dropped the sticks at his bar the other night. He was being nice and was returning them to me.”

  “Why were you even at the bar? Nice girls don’t go to the bar. Were you with Madison again? You know how I feel about that girl. She’s a total slut, and if you aren’t careful, she’s going to drag you down with her. Why, just the other day, Eleanor Rochen told me that she thinks Jacob is sleeping with Madison. Can you believe that? He’s twice her age and was her father’s best friend. What kind of man sleeps with a child?”

  “Madison isn’t a child and Jacob isn’t twice her age. He’s a nice man,” I said.

  “He’s a sicko. I don’t want you hanging out with Madison anymore if she’s going to be sleeping with a sick man like that. Oh, and did you hear that Lydia Davis is coming back to town? Our idiot mayor is giving her the key to the town. And for what? Because she won some kind of acting award?”

  “She won an Emmy, Mom. It’s kind of a big deal.”

  “Well, call me when she wins an Oscar.” My mother sniffed. “She was always so stuck up. Her sister isn’t much better, you know. I swear, she deliberately gives me the wrong coffee every time I stop at Mugs. I ran into Michelle at the gym the other day and she said…”

  As my mother droned on about the people in our small town, I smiled and nodded and pretended to listen while I closed down my computer. I hated listening to my mother’s mean-spirited and petty gossip about the town, but at least she wasn’t asking me any more questions about what exactly Ren was doing with me in the library.

  * * *

  “Wait,” Madison tucked her legs under her and settled back on the couch, “so, did you and Ren have sex last night in the library or not?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “How can you not know,” Madison said with a grin. “Either he put his dick in you or he didn’t.”

  “I told you, he started to, but we were interrupted.”

  “How much did you get?” Madison took a sip of wine.

&nbs
p; “What?”

  “How much of his dick did you get? If you got the whole thing even just once, then your cherry’s been officially popped and I’m opening up a second bottle of wine.”

  “Uh, I don’t think it was the whole thing,” I said. “I mean, I know he put the, uh, head in, but I think that’s all he got in.”

  “If it was just the tip, it doesn’t count,” Madison said as Jacob strolled into the living room.

  “Just the tip of what?” He leaned down and pressed a kiss against her mouth.

  I turned a truly hellish shade of red as Jacob nodded to me. “Hey, Rachel.”

  “Hi.”

  He studied my red cheeks before turning back to Madison. “What are you two talking about?”

  “Girl stuff.”

  “Okay. Well, I’m gonna have a quick shower and then I’ll start the steaks.”

  “Thanks, honey.”

  He left, and I said, “So, are you two officially living together now?”

  “He’s basically living here, but he hasn’t sold his place and moved his stuff in yet.”

  “Is he going to?”

  She nodded. “If he knows what’s good for him, he will.”

  I laughed. “I’m happy for you, Mads. You know that right?”

  “Thanks, sweetie. But don’t change the subject. I’m making my ruling and,” she pounded out a drum beat on the arm of the couch, “congratulations, Rachel Banks, you are still a virgin.”

  “Thanks.” I drained my glass of wine and jumped up to pour myself another from the bottle sitting on the coffee table. “Did I mention it hurt a little? Maybe he did pop it and -”

  “Were you bleeding after?”

  “No, but I did a lot of horseback riding when I was a teen. My actual hymen is probably long gone.”

  “Good point. Well, unless Ren was in balls-deep, I don’t think it counts.”

  My cheeks were still boiling hot and Madison grinned at me. “It’s adorable how talking about sex makes you blush. Once Ren takes your virginity, I’m gonna miss how flustered you get when we talk sex.”

  I drank more wine. “He’s not going to take my virginity. Not after my mother interrupted us. God, it was so humiliating, Mads. One, to be interrupted like I’m some damn teenager, and two, she was so rude to him. She said mean things and -”

  “Your mom is a bitch.” Madison poured herself more wine. “Scratch that, she’s not a bitch, she’s a full on Disney villain. She’s Cruella da Ville…no, she’s Ursula from The Little Mermaid. If she was a character in a book, she’d be Hannibal Lecter. Minus the cannibalism.”

  She paused and gave me a suspicious look. “Minus the cannibalism, right, Rach?”

  “I dunno. Does eating my self-esteem for breakfast every morning from when I was eleven until I moved out at nineteen, count as cannibalism?”

  Madison scowled. “All jokes aside, I hate what that woman has done to you.”

  “She’s still my mother.”

  “Only by blood. I have never met a less mom-like woman in my life, and I grew up without a mother. You need to cut off contact with her, Rach. She’s bad for you.”

  I sighed and stared into my wine glass. I’d had this conversation off and on for years with Madison. She wasn’t wrong, my mother was toxic, but she was still my mother. She sometimes said hurtful things only because she wanted what was best for me.

  Does she, though? Because it comes off a lot like hatred.

  The red in my cheeks faded and the wine sloshed in my belly until I felt nauseous. My mother didn’t hate me. Mothers didn’t hate their children.

  “Rachel? You okay?”

  “Yes. Just a little too much wine and not enough food.”

  Madison stood and took my hand. “Come into the kitchen. We’ll munch on the veggies while we wait for my man to cook us some meat.”

  I smiled and squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Mads. I love you. You know that, right?”

  “I do,” she said. “But, really – who doesn’t love me?”

  Chapter Four

  Rachel

  Mugs Coffee was one of two coffee shops in our small town. It’s prime location on Main Street meant it was always the busier of the two, and this morning was no exception. I joined the line-up, surfing Facebook on my phone as the line slowly shuffled forward. I hadn’t slept well last night or Monday night, and I was tired and feeling a little emotional.

  I had blown it with Ren. I’d had my chance to lose my virginity to him, and I’d ruined it. He hadn’t tried to contact me at all since Monday night and I wasn’t surprised. Depressed? Hell, yeah. Surprised? Not in the least.

  I rubbed at my forehead before stuffing my phone into my pocket. The tap on my shoulder made me jump and I turned. I stared at the wide broad chest, the blue fabric of his t-shirt stretched to the limit across it, and craned my neck to stare into his face.

  “Hello, Rachel.”

  “Morning, Asher.” I smiled at the big man. “You should have told me you liked coffee, I would have picked yours up for you and brought it to the library.”

  “Appreciate that, but I usually stop in every morning for coffee.”

  “You, me and the rest of the town. So, is today your last day at the library? Our library assistant mentioned yesterday that you said you’d be finishing up today.”

  He nodded. “Should be done by noon.”

  “That’s good.” There was an awkward silence. I’d lived in this town all my life, but I don’t think I’d ever spoken to Asher until he was hired to fix the railing at the library. He was a few years older than me and we only had one year of high school together before he graduated. His sister Isabel was my age, but she’d been a cheerleader in high school and one of the popular girls, and our paths rarely crossed. She’d moved with their parents to Florida just after graduation.

  “Uh, so how is Isabel doing in Florida?” I asked.

  “She’s good. Moving back next week.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded but didn’t provide any further details.

  “Well, that’s nice. Is she going to stay with you for a bit or…?”

  “For a bit.”

  “Good, that’s good.” I tried to think of something else to say and came up with nothing. I really had nothing in common with him. Well, other than the fact that we both went to Ren’s Bar. I’d seen him a few times at the bar with Knox Jameson. Knox was a landscaper in town and he and Asher had been best friends for years.

  They were an unlikely pair. Knox was funny and outgoing and never seemed to stop talking. Asher was the quietest man in town. Even my mother couldn’t find anything to gossip about when it came to him.

  “Your turn.”

  I stared blankly at Asher. “What?”

  “It’s your turn.” He pointed behind me and I turned around to see Luna Davis, sister to Lydia, the Emmy-winning and soon-to-be recipient of the key to our fair town, giving me an impatient look.

  I stepped up to the counter. “Sorry, Luna. I’ll take a venti mocha, hold the whip. Plus, whatever Asher’s having.”

  Luna’s fingers paused on the cash register before she added a venti dark roast to the order.

  “You don’t have to do that.” Asher had joined me at the counter.

  “I know. I want to.” I watched as Luna’s face turned red and she gave Asher a quick, jittery smile.

  “Hi, Asher. How, uh, how are you this morning?”

  “Morning.” He gave her a brief look before nodding to me. “Thanks for the coffee, Rachel. I appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome.” Shit, compared to how he was with Luna, he was downright chatty with me.

  Asher moved to the far end of the counter and I quickly paid for the coffees. “Thanks, Luna.”

  “You bet.” She made another furtive little glance at Asher as I walked away to join him.

  Maybe it was because I had lost my chance at the guy I wanted, or maybe I just wanted someone to get laid, but I decided to try and help her out.
“Luna’s cute, huh?”

  Asher stared down at me and I cleared my throat. “She’s cute and she’s a total sweetheart.”

  “Didn’t know you two were friends.”

  “We’re not. I mean, we’re friendly but we don’t like, hang out together.”

  “Then how do you know she’s a sweetheart?”

  Now it was my turn to go red as Asher arched one thick brow at me. “Well, I…I mean, I’ve heard that she’s really sweet. Not like her sister.”

  He picked up his coffee from the counter and nodded to me. “See you at the library.”

  “Okay, bye.”

  He walked away, and I snuck a quick look at Luna. Despite the long line of customers, she was staring at Asher’s ass as he walked out of the coffee shop. She realized I was staring at her and, blushing furiously, turned back to the customer in line.

  * * *

  Rachel

  I was making a mistake. No, I was being a hopeless idiot.

  After work, I’d gone home and ate dinner before staring blankly at the TV. Half an hour later, I was rummaging through my closet for shirts and jeans that I had deemed too tight. Half an hour after that I was in my car and driving to Ren’s Bar.

  I pulled open the door and walked into the bar. It was packed full of people and I groaned inwardly. Shit, I forgot that Wednesday was karaoke night. I studied the tables closest to me. All of them were full and I didn’t want to sit right at the bar. I had come here because I was hoping that Ren still wanted me. But, I had lost my nerve and now all I wanted to do was go back home, take off my stupidly tight shirt and jeans and crawl into bed.

  I turned and ran straight into a hard wall of flesh. A big hand wrapped around my arm and steadied me.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Asher.” I smiled at the welder. “You can’t seem to get away from me lately, can you?”

  He just shrugged. His gaze landed briefly on my tits before he stared at my face again. “You here for the karaoke?”

  “God, no. I can’t sing. I was just, uh, I thought I would have a drink, but all the tables are full so… I’m just gonna go.”