Blame It on the Bachelor

by Karen Kendall

  “Okay. Fine. Guilty as charged, Your Honor. Charge me and give me probation. But don’t walk away over such a little thing. That’s ridiculous.”

  She sighed. “It’s a little thing this time. But next time it might not be.”

  “What, you think I’ll do this with a dog?”

  “No.”

  “A woman? Kind of hard to pull off, don’t you think?”

  “Dev, you know what I mean. The fact that you’re lying to me on a first date…what kind of lies will you tell later on?”

  “None! I’d never lie about anything big.” Dev swung the Corvette into her parking lot with a feeling of doom. He got out to open her door, but she didn’t wait for him. She was already out of the car.

  “Thank you for a really wonderful evening, Dev. I do mean that. It was close to magical.” Her tone, as she said the last sentence, was full of regret. Yet he detected a strange hint of something else. What was it?

  Relief. There was relief mixed in with the regret, and he caught it in her demeanor, too.

  She turned and walked toward her unit without waiting for him, but he caught up easily.

  “I’ll see you to your door.”

  “It’s okay, really.”

  “No, it’s not.” He matched her step for step. “I want to know you’re safely inside before I leave.”

  “Thanks.”

  As they arrived at her door, he asked, “So will you still be my date for the grand opening?”

  She turned to face him. “I’ll go with you in a business capacity. As a representative of the bank. How’s that?”

  Dev tried to tamp down his frustration, but he didn’t mince words. “Frankly, I think it sucks.”

  She winced, then looked away.

  “And you know what else I think? You’re using this whole damn fish thing as an excuse not to get involved with me. Because you’re scared to venture out of your comfort zone. You’re afraid to try something new. You’re terrified of your own feelings.”

  “You’re wrong. I don’t trust you.” Kylie dug her keys out of her purse.

  “No, sweetheart. You don’t want to trust me.” And with that parting shot, he turned and walked away.

  20

  KYLIE WALKED INTO her apartment and was greeted by an unpleasant surprise: Potsy had coughed up a giant, matted hairball in the middle of her sofa.

  He came to greet her, waddling in and emitting his signature, throaty half-warble, half-croak of a meow.

  She sighed. “Thank you, Potsy. It was incredibly thoughtful of you to leave me such a nice gift.” She kicked off her heels and padded barefoot into the kitchen to get paper towels and stain remover.

  “Why should I want to trust Devon McKee?” she asked the cat. “Give me one good reason. Why would I want to trust him? He’s probably just like Jack. Maybe even worse. I’ve had it with trusting men. They aren’t worthy. And if they are worthy, like my dad, then they go and die on you.”

  Potsy yowled.

  She grabbed his disgusting hairball through four layers of paper towel and stomped off to drop it in the trash. Then she returned and doused the remnants with the stain remover. She glared at the mess and waited for the chemicals to sink in and do their thing.

  “Where does that superior tone of Dev’s come from, and that implied challenge to my judgment, when he just got through telling me a pack of lies for the dumbest reason on the planet?”

  Potsy squinted at her and then licked himself in an uncouth place.

  “Hey, would you cut that out?” she said. “You’re going to cough up another mess.”

  Potsy ignored her.

  “But it’s your nature to lick yourself, right? Just like it’s his nature to lie or cheat and it’s my nature to attract these loser men.” Kylie started to blot up the stain.

  Potsy gnawed on something between his toes, the identity of which she didn’t want to know. Ugh.

  “Well, he’s not a loser, exactly…but I don’t know if I’d call him a winner. He seems kind of on the cusp—like he could go either way.”

  Potsy commenced a nasty slurping noise, between a different set of toes.

  She cast him a glance of distaste and glanced at her watch. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. Too late to call a girlfriend—even Melinda.

  Bad television didn’t seem the answer to distract herself. She’d read all her latest paperbacks. The call of the internet held no appeal. Which left work.

  She went over to her soft-sided briefcase and withdrew Dev’s file to examine the numbers. Because despite the date, she was going to have to pay a professional visit this next week before the grand opening.

  Kylie curled up in her favorite reading chair and delved into the figures. Dev’s assets were his old SUV, the Corvette and his condo, which he’d put up as collateral for the business loan since he had very little equity in the building housing Bikini. Value of the condo had dropped by half since the big mortgage crisis had kicked in, so the restaurant’s loan wasn’t nearly as secure as it once had been.

  She also felt that, according to the business plan he’d submitted, his cash outlay was underestimated and his revenue was overestimated. Especially since he’d hired more staff and waiters for the upcoming opening of the restaurant. And then there were the actual girls he brought in to model bikinis all night and flirt with the customers.

  Kylie ran numbers on her laptop for another hour and didn’t like what she saw. She didn’t like it at all.

  Under the loan agreement, the second installment of the loan would only be paid out pending the account manager’s approval. And unless she was missing some vital information or the grand opening was a smashing success and launched celebrity patronage of the place, Kylie didn’t see any way she could responsibly grant that approval to Dev.

  She cursed herself for unknowingly crossing the line between professional and personal with him. And then crossing it again with full knowledge that she had a conflict of interest. Not for the first time, she wished she’d passed the account to someone else immediately when she’d found out Devon McKee was the client. But at the time, she’d been unwilling to call attention to herself, and afraid of what Dev might say to bank management in retribution. She’d been an idiot where he was concerned—and still was.

  DEV DROVE TOO fast and too aggressively after dropping off Kylie. He headed straight for Bikini to check on things, even though he’d asked his buddy and fellow groomsman Pete to make sure the place was under control. Adam had said he’d stop by, too. Either one of them could talk Lila off the ledge as well as Dev could, and easygoing Pete was a natural with the rest of the staff, too. He was the ultimate people-person and customer-service guy.

  Dev squealed into the tiny lot near the bar and saw Pete’s car there, thank God. He stalked towards Bikini.

  How could Kylie peg him as a liar just because he’d told fish fibs? For that she found him untrustworthy? Ridiculous.

  But they were lies, said his conscience, unaccountably not in its normal coma.

  Dev scoffed. A whitewash story didn’t count as a lie.

  Yes it does.

  Okay, fine. But it was harmless.

  Evidently not, dude. She’s done with you.

  He was in a foul mood when he pushed open the back door of Bikini. The noise level up front was deafening, and he could hear rhythmic clapping to the Brazilian dance number that was on. Dev threaded his way through the back, nodding at Maurizio, Carlos the busboy and Eddie the dishwasher.

  The latest bikini girl was putting on quite a show. She was up on the bar, dancing barefoot for a wildly appreciative crowd, and many of the men showed their appreciation of her talents by slipping bills into her exceptionally small bikini bottom.

  Occasionally Lila glanced up at her in disdain, but the crowd loved her. And they seemed to be a very thirsty crowd.

  Dev spotted Pete over in the left front corner, and waved at him. Pete shot him a thumbs-up, letting him know that everything was cool tonight, no pr
oblems.

  Dev mouthed a thank you and gestured for Pete to join him. He headed to his office, a tiny room that fit a small desk, two chairs and a file cabinet. In the only leftover space were stacked liquor boxes full of stuff for the bar. It was a bad idea to give the staff open access to them.

  It wasn’t a great idea to give himself open access to them, either, but Dev unearthed the Johnnie Walker Black Label from the pile and pulled out a bottle.

  “Uh-oh,” Pete said, as Dev slammed it onto his desk and went in search of a couple of cups. “What’s up, Gig?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did your hot date not go well?”

  “It was friggin’ perfect,” Dev said, slapping the cups onto his desk and unscrewing the top of the Black Label. He slopped some into both cups and pushed one toward Pete.

  “Yeah, I can tell,” Pete said in mild tones. “Listen, bud. You don’t want to drink that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you really don’t. Remember how you’re not going to be that guy anymore? The boozehound who does stupid crap because he drinks hard liquor?”

  “Mind your own business, Pete.”

  “Funny,” his friend responded, “but you asked me to come here and mind yours tonight while you had a date.”

  “Look, I’m only having one drink.”

  “One triple. And that’s how it always starts.”

  Dev sighed and looked into the amber liquid for a long time. Then he pushed the cup away. “Damn you, Pete.”

  “Hey, you want to end up in some rehab joint?”

  Dev shook his head. And it could easily come to that, he knew. He could handle wine and beer. But liquor needed to fade into history for him. It was as simple as that.

  Recently, only a few days after Mark’s wedding, he’d started one morning with a pitcher of Bloody Marys, and ended up over at the medical school plastering the bulletin board outside the dean’s office with revealing pictures from Mark’s bachelor party. A great prank on his friend Adam. Except Adam hadn’t considered it very funny, and when Dev had sobered up, he’d realized it was an incredibly jerky thing to do.

  “So, if your date was so perfect, then why are you in such a piss-poor mood?” Pete asked.

  Dev reluctantly told him the tall fish tale.

  Once he’d finished laughing his ass off, Pete was sympathetic in the way only guys can be. “You’re an idiot,” he said.

  “Yeah, thanks. I’d figured that out all by myself.”

  “You have to win back her trust.”

  “How?” Dev asked hopelessly.

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Pete said.

  “You’re a lot of help.”

  “You got an excuse to see her again? She leave her panties behind, or anything?”

  “Not even a thread,” Dev said gloomily. “But she’s coming to the grand opening—”

  “Well, there you go!”

  “As my account manager.”

  “Your what?”

  Dev filled him in.

  “Aw, jeez, McKee. You didn’t tell me that part. You’re an even bigger moron than I thought, man.”

  Dev reached for the Black Label again, but Pete snatched it away. “None of that. You want to drink and dial? Drink and be a douche?”

  Dev slumped in his chair.

  “Tell you what. This grand opening is going to be a fantastic fiesta, and you’re the star of the show. You work the room, smile a lot, be confident and charm her all over again. Me and the guys, we’ll make sure to say great things about you—”

  “Are there any?”

  “—and show her a good time.”

  “Not too good a time,” Dev said, with a threatening squint.

  “Not like that, man. Would we do that to you?”

  “Probably.”

  “Okay, we would. Payback for the past. But we won’t. I’ll talk to the rest of the guys. We’ve got your back on this one.”

  “I can’t thank you enough, man. She’s—” Dev stared at his shoes. “She’s real important to me. Hell if I know why, but she is.”

  21

  KYLIE SHOWED UP at Bikini at 3:00 p.m. Monday, without giving any advance warning. It was better to do it this way, so that Dev didn’t have a chance to obscure or hide anything about his records or finances that he might otherwise have obscured or hidden.

  The nature of the bar-restaurant business already made it easy to skim off or hide cash, because so much of the stuff flowed in. Kylie wasn’t naive. Dev, with his ability to manipulate the truth, probably had a safe full of greenbacks that he didn’t intend to report to anyone, least of all the federal government.

  Other than that, he’d probably have immaculate records that noted an appropriately low level of cash coming in.

  Kylie pushed the hair off her forehead, straightened her skirt and pulled open Bikini’s front door. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dim lighting, and she gratefully inhaled the cooler, dryer air. Outside, the heat and humidity were like a sticky blanket.

  “Ah, it is the health inspector,” said a faintly mocking and heavily accented voice from behind the bar. She recognized one of Dev’s employees from the kitchen, the guy who’d made a spanking motion with his spatula the last time she’d been here.

  “Yes,” she said, flushing and trying to remember what fake name she’d used. Katherine Something, she thought, but couldn’t be sure. “Is Mr. McKee here, please?”

  “Momento,” the guy said, wiping his hands on a towel. He emerged from behind the bar. “This way.” He gestured for her to follow him.

  Kylie hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and did so. Dev was in his tiny office with one hand clamped on to the phone at his ear and the other clamped to his face in evident frustration. “No,” he said, “not cool. The grand opening is this Saturday. Your guys were supposed to be here last week. Then they were supposed to show this morning. They’re not here, and I still have trim carpenters coming in and then painters through Friday!”

  He listened for a moment to whoever was on the other end of the line. “Diego. Listen to me, you sack of shit. I don’t care whether you and your little old granny have to get over here and finish the floor yourselves—you gotta make this happen. And you gotta make it happen starting in about an hour. I don’t care whether you’re behind on other jobs. I don’t care what crew you’ve gotta pull off what other job. Invitations are out, my whole business is riding on this, the bank is breathing down my neck. You get your asses over here now.”

  He listened again.

  “Yeah, not my problem.”

  More listening.

  “Okay, fine. Yes, I will make it worth their while if they work all night. But they’ve gotta show the hell up. Yesterday.” Devon slammed the phone into its cradle. “Motherfu—”

  Spatula Guy cleared his throat. “Lady from health department is here, boss.”

  Dev spun around in his chair, startled.

  Spatula Guy winked, to Kylie’s annoyance. “You know, to inspect the ’frigerator again, eh?”

  “Thank you, Maurizio. You can get on with the prep work for the bar, now.”

  “Sure, boss.” The man gave an insolent two-fingered salute and sauntered away, but not before giving her a thorough once-over with his eyes.

  “To what do I owe this honor?” Dev asked.

  “The bank. I’m here to breathe down your neck,” Kylie said sweetly.

  “I don’t remember you calling to make an appointment.”

  She didn’t turn a hair. “No, but I figured I’d better look at your records before the grand opening.”

  He nodded tersely. “Okay. You do that.” He rose and walked to the single filing cabinet. He pulled open the top drawer. “Have at it.”

  She looked in to an overflowing, horrific mess of random receipts.

  “The second drawer down is full, too,” Dev told her.

  Kylie’s jaw worked, but she couldn’t even begin to express her feelings.

  “I
s there a problem?” he asked, when she hadn’t said anything for a minute or two.

  “Have you ever heard of, say, Quicken?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to get that. Been too busy.”

  “Or maybe Excel?”

  He shrugged.

  “Or even an old-fashioned ledger?”

  “Sorry you don’t approve, but this is my system so far.”

  “This is not a system.” She ground the words out from between clenched teeth. “This is— This is chaos.”

  “All the bar receipts are in these four tequila boxes over here,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her. “That’s every drink or potato skin that’s been sold since we opened a year ago.”

  “Then what are these?” Kylie pointed at the file cabinet.

  “Those are receipts for everything bought for the bar, from two-by-fours to Tanqueray.”

  “Did you not file a tax return?”

  “Got an extension. No time to deal with that crap.”

  “I see.” Slowly she sank into the visitor’s chair, disbelief permeating every pore of her skin. She dropped her bag on the floor and dragged her hands down her face. “Dev, how did you plan on running a business while ignoring all your paperwork?”

  “I was going to bring in a bookkeeper, but I can’t justify the cost of one yet.”

  “How do you even know that?” Kylie stared from the file cabinet to the boxes and then back again.

  “I keep a running total in my head of what we’ve spent versus what we’ve brought in.”

  “Right,” Kylie said, nodding. “In your head.”

  “Why the sarcasm?”

  “Because that’s not possible, Dev! There are thousands of receipts here. Unless you’re some kind of Rain Man, you can’t have any idea of what’s going on with your business.”

  “Bet me,” he said, his chin in the air.

  “And I’ll tell you something else,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken. “There is no way in hell that I can authorize the second loan payment without having clear records of what’s going on with the money. Forget it.”

  “Fine,” said Dev. “But I challenge you—I will give you approximate figures of what we’ve brought in and what’s been spent for each month, and I’ll bet you that they’re good—give or take a couple of hundred bucks.”