So it was no surprise when an auburn-haired woman slid onto the stool next to Dussen and slid him a flirty smile. “Hey.”
“Well, hi there.” Dussen turned to her.
“Don’t mind me,” Beck said.
“I’ll have a glass of Moscato,” the woman said without looking at him. “Do you have pink?”
Beck pressed his lips together. “No, ma’am, sorry, not pink. We do have a very nice Moscato though, from up in Napa Valley. Luscious peach and apricot flavors with a refreshing finish.”
“That sounds lovely.”
“Another beer, Dussen?” Beck asked.
“Sure thing.”
He moved away to get their drinks, even though he wasn’t supposed to be working tonight. He’d only come in because he hadn’t finished the inventory earlier, instead taking off to go lingerie shopping. And then drop it off. And…
Dammit, he was thinking about Hayden again.
His phone vibrated in his pocket and he absently pulled it out to glance at it. A text message from Hayden.
The burst of pleasure that shot through him at seeing her name on the screen was a little disturbing. He read the message.
I just opened the bag from Bisou. Ten pairs of panties! You did not have to do that.
He grinned. He’d actually had fun picking all those out at the exclusive little boutique he’d gone to. Women’s lingerie stores didn’t intimidate him like they did some guys. He loved women and all their sweet-smelling, soft girly stuff. He’d taken his time exploring the antique tables covered with scraps of lace and silk, choosing different colors and styles, tiny thongs and cheeky panties edged with lace, imagining Hayden wearing nothing but them…
He shook his head and used a fingertip to tap in a message. It was my pleasure.
Her pleasure was his pleasure, apparently.
He looked at his phone for a moment, then remembered the wine and beer he was supposed to be getting, not to mention the inventory he’d come to finish, and shoved his phone back in his pocket.
After serving the beer and wine to Dussen and his new friend, he retrieved his inventory list from the office and started taking stock. At the opposite end of the bar from Dussen were Joe and Helena, a married couple who were regulars at the bar. He picked up part of their heated conversation.
“Can’t believe…forgot to buy toilet paper!”
“I didn’t know we were out!”
“I told you this morning…”
“No, you didn’t!”
Beck met Marco’s eyes and they both lifted their eyebrows. “Why do they come here to fight?” Marco murmured.
“Beats the hell outta me.”
Pretty much every time Joe and Helena were there, they were arguing about something.
“Hopefully they go home and have hot makeup sex,” Beck added.
Marco grinned.
“Some people like drama.” Beck shrugged. “Whatever bakes your cake.”
Beck finished off the inventory and went into the office to do a few more things. There he found Cade sitting at the computer with a spreadsheet open on the monitor.
“Jesus, man, it’s Sunday night. Give it a rest.”
Cade eyed him. “Isn’t that a pot and kettle kind of thing? What are you doing here on your night off?”
“I didn’t finish the inventory I started earlier. Had an errand to run.”
“Ah.” Cade returned his focus to the computer, then sighed. “We need to do something about the restaurant.”
“Shit. Still not good?”
“Nope. Not sure what the problem is. People love coming here to drink, but sales of food menu items have been steadily dropping since the first few months we opened.”
Beck sat back in his chair. “Why is that? Does our food suck?”
“Maybe. We should probably sit down with Danny and talk about it and see if we can come up with ideas to turn things around.”
“Hire a new chef?”
Sid in the kitchen was competent, but the title “chef” was probably a misnomer. The partners purchased most of their menu items through restaurant supply companies, things like premade chicken fingers, burger patties, jugs of salsa, huge bags of chips, and premade guacamole.
“Sid tries.”
“I know.” Firing people was never fun, but sometimes it had to be done.
“Maybe we need some customer feedback.”
“Huh. Yeah.”
“We did pretty good last night,” Cade said. “People stayed after the tasting and ordered more drinks.”
“So it’s worth doing it again?”
“I’d say definitely.”
“And it was fun.”
“Heard you got a little action.”
Beck rolled his eyes. “Jesus. Nothing’s private around here.”
“When you screw around at work, no. Next time take her back to your place, like you usually do.”
“Yeah, not sure how that happened last night.” Beck rubbed his face. “It won’t happen again. Okay, I’m outta here. See you tomorrow.”
“You bet.”
Beck drove home to his condo and parked in the small lot behind the complex. This wasn’t much fancier than Hayden’s place, though he did have two bedrooms. With his trust fund, he could have afforded pretty much anything he wanted, including one of those million-dollar places a little farther around the bay, but he fucking hated spending that money on himself. His only splurge since leaving home twelve years ago was his car. And financing the bar.
He flicked on lights as he entered the dark, empty condo. Lately, he’d been noticing the emptiness when he walked in. He got lots of people interaction at Conquistadors, with customers, with Marco and Cade, and with the women he often met there; coming home was his own personal space, so he wasn’t sure why lately it felt kind of solitary.
Maybe he should get a dog.
He dropped his keys on the kitchen counter and opened his fridge to grab a bottle of water.
This wasn’t the first time he’d thought about getting a dog, but dammit, the bar took up a lot of his time. They had competent staff to help run things—right now, anyway; they’d discovered quickly that bars and restaurants had a lot of staff turnover, and just when they found people they trusted to work hard, they’d leave. They’d made a few hiring mistakes too. But they hadn’t made one with the guy they’d hired as their manager. Danny was rock solid, knowledgeable about all the things they weren’t, honest, and with a great work ethic.
Maybe one day, once they were a bit more established, he’d have time to get a dog.
He wandered to the big window of his living room to look out at the bay, but in the darkness there wasn’t much to see except some lights dotting the curved shoreline. He thought about his conversation with Cade and the dropping sales of food. His gut tightened.
He didn’t need the money. But Cade and Marco did. Conquistadors was their livelihood. And they all wanted this to succeed. Failure was not an option.
The three of them had that in common. From the day they’d met in BUD/S, they’d been the ones who were never going to give up. Their determination and single-minded drive were what separated them from the guys who never made it through the first week.
They’d figure this out. Determination stiffened his spine. They’d all overcome bigger problems than this in their lives, which kept things in perspective. Running the bar was a challenge for them, and they’d faced obstacles in that too, dealing with the county and the city on liquor licenses, health inspectors, finding the right people to work for them, firing the ones who weren’t right. They’d had days where the liquor delivery hadn’t happened, and while Cade was on the phone yelling at the supplier, Marco was racing to a nearby store to buy goddamn bottles of vodka off the shelf so they could make cosmos, while Beck desperately tried to keep customers happy.
They’d laughed about it the next day.
Those were small things compared to the shit they’d seen and done.
They’d
get through this problem too.
His cellphone chimed with a call. His first thought was Hayden. He grabbed the phone.
Damn. His mother.
With a sigh, he answered the call. “Hello, Mother.”
“Beckham. How are you?”
“I’m good.”
“How’s your little bar doing?”
“Great. Busy. We’re having fun.”
He didn’t actually hear his mother’s sigh, but he felt her disappointment. “Fun.”
“Yeah.” He was not going to feel guilty about that. “I hope this isn’t another call to try to convince me to come home and work in the family business.”
Whitcomb Industries was a multinational corporation founded by his grandfather. It had started as a small sugar refining company, and had grown into a major food manufacturing company with subsidiaries in manufacturing, trading, and investments, now run by Beck’s father.
After a short, telling pause, Beck’s mother said, “Of course not. But since you mention it—”
“Not happening, Mother. If you want to hear about the cool tequila tasting event we did last night at the bar, we can talk about that.”
“Tequila tasting? Dear Lord, Beckham.”
“I guess that’s a no, then. How’s Dad?”
“He’s fine. He works too hard. He’d like to retire, Beckham. He’d like to know he’s leaving the business in the hands of family. You’re our only child.”
He closed his eyes at that, remembering his older brother’s death. Fuck.
“There’s nobody else to take over.”
Yep, she was guilting him. She was good at that. “I don’t want to take over.” Christ, how many times had they had this conversation? And how many times had he pushed aside the guilt he couldn’t quite get rid of? Which he focused on doing now. It was his life, to live the way he wanted to. “Sorry, Mother. Say hi to Dad for me, I have to go. Bye.”
He ended the call before she could protest, closed his eyes, and tipped his head back.
Was he being selfish? Should he be back in Boston, running Whitcomb Industries?
Chapter 9
Hayden’s day started with a meeting with one of her research teams to discuss their progress on the project they were working on. They’d had some disappointing results and needed to take a step back and rethink where they were going. That was what research was…you had to be prepared that some of these projects were going to take months or even years, and you had to deal with a lot of failures before you had success. It took patience, tenacity, and a strong belief in what you were doing.
After that, she worked on another project, writing up engineering rationales and protocols for testing. She grabbed lunch at her desk while she reviewed the notes for the meeting that afternoon with the people from the National Health Institute, which was taking place at their office in downtown San Diego.
She was kicking herself for not working on this yesterday, instead blowing off work to go out and walk on the beach and play arcade games and have sex.
Oh my God.
Sex with Beck.
Two nights in a row. Her body was still quivering and sensitive from the unfamiliar action.
It was actually hard to feel regretful about that, when all she wanted was more. But dammit, she needed to focus on work. People were counting on her to get this grant money so they could continue the important work they were doing.
She’d done this before. She’d been able to sell her ideas in the past to land the necessary funds to get started and keep going the last few years. So what if this was the biggest yet? She had this. She ate, slept, and breathed this stuff seven days a week. She was confident of their research, knowledgeable, and eloquent. Taking a few hours off for fun yesterday wasn’t going to change that.
She drove downtown, leaving early in case of traffic or parking issues. After riding the elevator to the twenty-first floor of One Columbia Place, she took a seat in the waiting room, focusing on a few deep breaths, reminding herself that she actually enjoyed this part of her work. She loved talking about their research and goals. She was passionate about it, and that helped sell it.
An hour later, the meeting was done and she was in the parking garage walking to her car, relieved and satisfied. It had gone well. She’d been articulate, able to answer every question and address every concern.
Of course, she wouldn’t know their decision for a while. They’d told her they expected to make their final funding decisions for next year within a few weeks. She sat in her car and closed her eyes, reliving the meeting, wondering if she could have done better. She always wondered if she could have done better.
But along with patience, another thing she’d learned was that ruminating over what was done was a waste of time.
She exited the garage onto State Street and headed back to the office. She still had a ton of work to do.
She ditched her pumps and blazer in her office, throwing on a lab coat and tucking her hair up into a cap as she hurried to the lab. She’d long ago gotten over how goofy she looked; this was basic attire for her.
“How’d it go?” Richard asked her.
“Great.” She beamed a confident smile. “They asked some really good questions.”
“And you had really good answers.”
“I did.”
She touched base with her teams, the one she’d met with that morning and a group working on secreted proteins. Then she spent a couple more hours in her office writing a paper for the American Journal of Health Research. The building was quiet by the time she left at seven o’clock.
Her stomach growled as she walked to her car in the now empty lot. She patted it with a rueful smile. Damn, she’d forgotten to eat again. She stopped at EVO, a favorite mostly vegetarian fast food place not far from work, and picked up a black bean burger with guacamole, salsa, and chipotle sauce, and a side of sweet potato fries. The smell made her stomach rumble again on the drive the rest of the way home.
She dropped the paper sack onto her coffee table and sat on her couch to dig in. She flicked on the TV with the remote and found a news channel, popping a fry into her mouth. She moaned with pleasure.
Then she blinked. She never moaned when eating. Yeah, EVO’s food was good, but damn, she was sitting alone in her living room sounding like she had when Beck licked her…
She sighed. Her shadowy living room with only the TV news to keep her company suddenly seemed sad. This was more often than not how she ended her long workdays.
But it was all worth it. She believed in what they were working on, the huge impact they could have.
She really did.
But after yesterday’s laughing and playing and sexy times, she found herself missing that.
She took a big bite of her burger. Closing her eyes, she let the tastes explode in her mouth, the heat of the salsa, the bite of chipotle, the cool creamy guacamole a perfect counterpoint. The bean patty was deliciously seasoned, the bun fresh and squishy. She chewed slowly, savoring it like she never had before.
Eating was a chore that had to be done, something she’d easily forget to do when she was busy. But how much pleasure had she been missing? “So good,” she murmured, opening her eyes to reach for a crispy sweet potato fry.
Her mind went back to tasting the tequila and Beck’s guidance. His urging her to take the time to enjoy, to use all her senses.
Her stomach tightened. This was crazy stuff. Scary stuff. She wasn’t used to all these…feelings.
She wasn’t a robot. But in her experience, feelings just led to getting hurt. There’d been all those times when she’d been mocked as a child because she was a little different. She’d been quiet, shy, smart, and not always interested in the things the other kids were. When she tried to play sports it was humiliating. Chess wasn’t her thing and debate club had been excruciating. She’d been so wary of Carrie’s overtures at first, afraid to believe someone actually wanted to be friends with her, afraid to open herself up to being rejected.
She’d experienced it again as a teenager, when boys had totally ignored her, or after the few times she’d been asked out, when there’d never been a repeat invitation. She’d had a painful crush on fellow science geek Phil Chang, and even he’d awkwardly rebuffed her when she’d tried to ask him out. While she was in high school, her dad had died a slow, painful death, followed not long after by her mother’s. Those had been the most excruciating losses of all.
Then in college, she’d fallen in love…with research.
Yes, if she focused all her caring on her work, it was much safer. Sure, there were disappointments and failures in research. But those she could handle.
She trusted her aunt and uncle to be there for her, because they always had been. After Mom and Dad died, she’d been alone in the world, except for Carrie, and they’d made sure she was okay. And she trusted Carrie to be there for her. But caring about anyone else was risky. She was better off cocooned safely in her lab, or eating takeout alone in front of her TV, than thinking crazy thoughts about a man with beautiful eyes, perfect muscles, and sexy tattoos.
He’d bought her ten pairs of panties. He was ridiculous. They were pretty, mind you. Prettier than anything she’d ever bought herself. She felt she shouldn’t accept them from him, but what was she going to do? It wasn’t a big enough deal to make her go to Conquistadors to find him and return them. They were just panties.
The pair she was wearing today had required some study. Pale pink, edged with black lace, they dipped low in the back, barely covering her butt crack, but with a narrow black strip of satin that crossed from hip to hip, meeting another strip attached to the lace in a T, with a saucy little bow at the base of her spine. So unlike anything she’d ever worn before.
It seemed a shame that she was the only one who saw them or knew how pretty they were. She couldn’t stop the crazy thought that Beck should see them. She imagined his eyes moving over her, warm with admiration.
Crazy!
She drew in a long breath and let it out, then finished her food. She’d had one wild weekend. It wouldn’t happen again. She had a never-ending task list and serious goals. She jumped to her feet. She had time to get a lot more work done before bed.
Body Shot (Last Shot) Page 9
