“That’s the problem with the world today—everybody’s so busy surviving in it that they’re putting off changing it.” He had gone suddenly somber, but quickly shook it off.
“Change the world on your own time,” I admonished gently. “Junior is around here somewhere, and you’re still the newbie. He’s watching you.”
Angus called for another round, and I shot Miles one last warning look as I scurried back through the crowded tables. Miles didn’t react; he wasn’t even looking at me. It bothered me more than it should have.
“Finally pinned the boy down for some on-the-clock necking?” Angus asked with a friendly leer.
“Oh yeah, you know we like to give you guys a show,” I answered sarcastically.
“Better get to it, girl. That boy has big dreams.”
“Never shuts up about them,” Steve agreed. “Gonna drive me nuts with that techno-babble one of these days.”
“You know he only talks to you guys because he knows you won’t understand a word he’s saying,” I teased. “Another round?”
“Yes ma’am.”
He waved me off and I hurried back to the bar for the round of lager, picking up orders for tequila shots and long islands on the way.
I took pride in my efficiency, and filled my tray with all the drinks before heading back out. I expected Miles to make a comment about me trying to climb the corporate step stool, but he was busy shaking a mixer and staring off into space. His customers were gazing at him with a mixture of boredom and annoyance.
“Miles! Focus!”
I didn’t stick around to see if the words reached him.
Shots here, talls there, and finally the round of lager, I flirted and complimented my way across the room. I had really grown to love my job in ways I had never thought possible, but it did exhaust me. Not just the physically taxing parts, but the constant interplay between myself and the customers as well. It wasn’t something I was naturally good at, and even though I enjoyed it, it still took a lot out of me.
Miles was still half a step behind his work, and seemed to be completely oblivious of the intentions of the two women he was serving. They were taking turns aggressively hitting on him, and he was answering their double entendres as if he were interpreting them literally.
It wasn’t unlike Miles to miss a cue; he’d been missing mine for months. But wordplay was his favorite past time, and he was bypassing so many opportunities for humor that I was beginning to wonder if he’d had some kind of stroke.
The doors opened, then, letting in everyone who had just ended the workday. It would be hours before I would have another chance to talk to him, and I was having no luck at all trying to catch his eye.
Resigning myself to worrying from afar, I focused all of my energy on working the floor while Miles shakily held down the bar. He definitely had the easier half of the job, but he couldn’t seem to keep up with it.
“Back burner,” I said as I passed behind him to grab the whiskey.
“Man, if you knew—”
“Two more shots down here!”
“Tell me later,” I said quickly. “And for the love of God, Miles, focus!”
I hurried back out to the floor, and was called over by a familiar face.
“Shelley! I didn’t know you worked here.”
“Hi, professor! I didn’t know you drank here,” I shot back.
Professor Zain chuckled, stroking his grey beard, which was flecked with bright spots of paint. He never could seem to keep it clean.
“Only occasionally, my dear. Celebrating the end of this interminable summer. Will you be coming back this semester?”
“Yes, sir! I’m hoping to get into your senior class.”
“Senior already! How time flies. And then off to take the world by storm, I hope. A traveling artist, perhaps? Yes, I can see your work in galleries from New York to France. Or perhaps a clothing designer, yeah? You do have quite the talent for screen printing.”
“High aspirations for me, as always,” I said affectionately. “But to be perfectly frank, professor, I think I would rather curate art than try to sell my own.”
He was silent for a moment, considering me as he stroked his beard. “A pity,” he said. “The world would benefit from your point of view. Ah, well. If that is your path, you will find it. If not, you will be the best curator the world has ever seen!”
I laughed, embarrassed but happy at his faith in me. He ordered a stout and sent me on my way.
I didn’t have another chance to talk to the professor before he left, as the bar was getting increasingly busy and I had to keep my eye out for the sloppily drunk and disorderly, but seeing him was enough to get me excited for the new school year. I had every intention of finishing my academic career on a high note, and Professor Zain’s class was a surefire way to make that happen.
Before that, though, I was determined to finish out the last summer of my academic career with a bang. I would settle for metaphorical, but I was hoping for literal.
I watched Miles mix drinks with quick and nimble hands, and took a moment to imagine what those hands could do to my body. Chills ran down my spine and I nearly spilled another drink. Angus was absolutely right. I needed to act on this before I lost the opportunity. Miles wasn’t going to stick around Finnegan’s forever, after all.
As if to emphasize that fact, his current customer was pitching him a position at his company.
“If you’re as good as you say, I have a job for you. It’s an entry-level internship, but it’s a great opportunity.”
“Intern? Paid or unpaid?”
“Well it’s great experience, and your portfolio would be top of the pile when it comes time for you to move up—”
“Thanks, Larry, but I’ll pass. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.” Miles winked at him to soften his words, and the guy shrugged.
“I mean, I respect that and everything, but I think you’re making a big mistake.”
“Yeah, we’ll see. Can I get you anything else?”
“Your resume?”
“Goes down kind of papery; you’re gonna want a chaser.”
Larry laughed, and I was already moving on to my next customer. I was definitely running out of time. Miles might be overestimating his app’s potential—I had a hard time believing that it would change the world the way he said it would—but he was certainly talented.
He had shown me a few of the apps he had helped develop before dropping out of Harvard and moving to the West Coast to try and make it on his own, and they were all professional quality. When he started going on about them, he had a way of losing me in passionate technical jargon in minutes.
I wondered if I sounded the same way to people whenever I started talking about the technical side of art. I suspected that I did. I was going to have to do something about that if I was going to work with the public in a museum. I considered the possibility of practicing on my regular customers at the bar, and the thought made me grin. Between me and Miles, those poor guys would get a college education whether they liked it or not.
The night ticked on in a swirl of music, drunken demands, and booze-serving, as it always did. I managed to catch Miles’ eye once or twice over the course of it, and each time, it made my stomach clench.
It shouldn’t be legal for someone to be that attractive. If it hadn’t been so busy, I probably would have spent most of my shift daydreaming about those eyes locking with mine, those hands on my skin, that mouth…but the chairs filled as quickly as they emptied, without a second to clean up in between. I managed to move around the customers efficiently to clear the surfaces, with help from the ever-present and oft-unnoticed Jeff.
He was in his fifties but moved like a janitorial ninja, virtually unseen as he whisked away cigarette butts and straw wrappers almost as soon as they hit the floor. He and I had developed a rhythm for the rush; he would follow just behind and to the left of me as I wiped the tables down, flicking the detritus into his dustbin with my rag. We circled
the room quickly, then stole a breather beside the trash can.
“He was staring at you before,” Jeff murmured to me as he lit a cigarette. “Isn’t it about time you made a move?”
“Why do I have to make a move?” I asked, flustered. “If he’s staring, he should make the move.”
“Why, because he’s the guy? I thought you art-school girls were progressive.” The playful twinkle in his eye halted my temper before it flared, and I rolled my eyes at him.
“Well, maybe I just don’t want to bother him,” I hissed.
“Or maybe you’re just a chicken.”
I glared at him and he laughed, his voice raspy with decades of smoking. I heard a call for another round and moved away into the crowd, but Jeff’s challenge stuck in my mind for the rest of the night. I wasn’t chicken. Quite the contrary.
Look at me! I thought. Moved away from home, spent three years making the most of the college scene—I’m good. I’m golden. I’m brave as hell, damn it.
I had never been more relieved to announce last call. It should have been Miles, but he was busy emphatically explaining something to a bleary-eyed patron who didn’t seem to be following a word of it.
I spent more time watching him than cutting people off, which was going to get me in trouble if I didn’t reel myself in. My obsession with Miles’ absent-mindedness was reaching an unhealthy level, as was my concern that he would disappear out of my world before I had a chance to tell him how I felt about him. When the last stumbling straggler finally shuffled out the door, I took my first full breath in hours.
“Busy tonight,” I commented to Miles as I locked the doors.
“Was it? I didn’t notice.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. You weren’t really noticing much of anything. What’s with you tonight?”
Miles slid a sly look at me out the corner of his devastating blue eyes. “Okay, I shouldn’t say anything because I don’t want to jinx it. But if I don’t talk about it, I’m going to drive myself nuts and then I’m going to show up tomorrow looking like a madman and bomb the whole thing.”
“What whole thing?” I grabbed a towel and started wiping down tables as he paced the floor agitatedly.
“I found an investor,” he said in a strangled whisper. He took a huge breath and released it, almost shaking with excitement. “They’re interested in the app. Like, actually interested. This could be my big break, Shelley! I’m meeting with them tomorrow and I’ve spent the whole week going over my presentation, and I’ve been running through it all night in my head, and I know it’s as perfect as I can make it, but I can’t seem to quit thinking about it…I’m terrified, honestly.”
I cocked my head to one side. An urge rose up in me that I had pushed back down dozens of times over the last three months, but Jeff’s comment still rankled the back of my mind. I wasn’t going to let a touch of anxiety steal this chance away from me, and what did Jeff know anyway? I was more than capable of asking a guy out. I knew how to get what I wanted, right? Right.
“Sounds like you need a distraction,” I said thoughtfully. “Do you want to go grab a drink?”
Chapter 2
Shelley
Dancing with a Genius
I don’t know why I waited so long to ask. Miles was every bit as excited to come out with me as I was to go out with him.
Probably not for the same reasons, I told myself. I figured he spent all his time working, on his passions or at the bar, so he didn’t get a chance to get out much. He did seem to know all the best after-hours places to go, though.
“How’s your drink?” Miles shouted over the music.
“It’s great! You want to dance?”
“That’s not how you ask!”
I wrinkled my brow in confusion, and he pointed to the speaker above us with a grin. I listened to the song for a moment, then rolled my eyes, grinning at the dork.
“Shut up and dance with me!”
“That’s better!”
He took my drink from me to set it down and led me out onto the dance floor. There was plenty of room between the clusters of women and stray couples scattered around, and we had center stage before I knew what was happening. He stole my breath in the first few minutes, spinning me and leading me like a pro, pressing my body to his whenever the opportunity arose.
“You’re good!” I laughed breathlessly.
“You expected something else? Here, let me get my dad dance on for you.” He pulled away and started doing an insanely embarrassing rendition of the running man. Shaking my head, I turned to walk away.
“Hey, wait!” He laughed. “I’ll stop; I promise. Hold on…I feel a robot coming on!” Sliding into the jerky movements, he followed me back to our table where I downed the last of my drink.
“Oh, no!” He gasped in dismay, snatching the glass from me. “You’re dry!”
Without waiting for a response, he scurried over to the bar, returning a moment later with four drinks. I raised a suspicious brow at him.
“Trying to get me wasted, scoundrel?”
“Scoundrel? I haven’t been called that since…actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been called that,” he said thoughtfully. “And no, I’m not trying to get you wasted. I’m confident in the intoxicating qualities of my game.”
“You got game?” I teased.
He ruffled his hair, then lowered his head to give me a smoldering look. Popping his collar, he slid forward like a Latin dancer and wrapped an arm around my waist, jerking me flat against him.
“Has anyone ever told you,” he said in a dramatically husky growl. “That you have the most beautiful eyes?”
It was cheesy. So very cheesy. It shouldn’t have done anything to me but make me laugh. Whether it was the alcohol or the dancing or the fact that I might not be working with him for much longer, the cheesiness worked. A ball of heat, intense as the sun, plummeted from my chest to the spot between my hips, making my breath catch in my throat.
Impulse caught me at a weak moment, and I put my hands on his face, pulling his head down to kiss me.
He didn’t even hesitate. The instant my lips touched his, he was taking my mouth possessively, molding it to his whims. He stole my breath and my sanity in a single moment, and there, in front of a room full of half-drunk dancers, I began to grind my hips against the hard rod straining against his pants.
Dizziness nearly overwhelmed me and I pulled away, sucking air into my oxygen-deprived lungs.
“Damn,” he said, his eyebrows disappearing into his floppy blond hair. “I didn’t know that would work! I have wasted so much time being smooth…”
I laughed at him and drank deeply from one of the glasses.
“I blame the gin,” I told him. “That never would have worked on me sober.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he teased. “You know you’ve been dying for me to rip your apron off and steal you away from work on the back of my valiant steed.”
“You call that hideous hatchback a valiant steed?”
He stuck his tongue out at me and I bit my lip.
A song I couldn't help but dance to came on in between beats of the music, and I dragged Miles back onto the dance floor.
Conversation was silently held as we moved together, my hips conferring with his, my hands asking soft questions of his firm biceps. He answered in little circular hip thrusts, just barely decent for public observation, and traveling hands which flirted with the fringes of modesty.
His blue eyes had darkened like eternal pools in his movie-star face, his lips ruddy with drink and desire. I brushed them now and again with my own, feeling him pulse against me each time. My heart raced with more than exertion as we followed one song into the next, long into the night. We danced until my ribs ached and my legs shook, until Miles led me back to our table to collapse on the plush velvet couches beside it.
I took my drink in both hands, gulping it down as if it would quench my thirst. It only made it worse. Anticipating me, Miles hurried to the bar for water,
but I wasn’t thinking clearly and had drained my glass before he returned.
“Drink this before you puke,” he said, his mouth twisting in wry amusement as he handed me a bottle of water. “Thought a bartender would know better!”
“I’m not a bartender tonight.” I grinned.
“What are you?”
I paused for a moment, then turned his own cheesiness back on him. Batting my eyes heavily, I turned on my own sultry, breathy voice.
“I’m just a girl…standing in front of a boy…”
“You’re sitting,” he pointed out.
“Thank you, kind sir.”
“That’s not the end of the quote!”
“Well, I can’t finish it now; the moment’s ruined!”
He shook his head, his blue eyes twinkling. “That’s a shame. But frankly, I’d rather hear what you had to say, sans movie quotes.”
“About what?” I asked innocently.
“About me.”
“Who says I have anything to say about you?” I teased.
He smirked, popping his collar and flipping his hair over his forehead again. Looking like a conglomeration of every bad-boy movie heartthrob from the last four decades all squished into one, he gave me the smolder.
“Oh my God, stop that,” I laughed, but the pulse of heat between my thighs belied my objection. The gin swimming in my blood loosened my tongue, making me forget why I had been hesitant to say something in the first place. “I’ve had a crush on you since the day you started working at Finnegan’s,” I confessed.
The music hit a loud, bass-heavy section just as I spoke, and Miles shook his head and put a hand to his ear.
“I have a thing for you,” I said again, a little louder.
“What?”
I sighed heavily, then inhaled deeply.
As loud as I could, I shouted, “I have a crush on you!”
At that same moment, the music fell silent. The crowd around us cheered my confession, and I buried my face in my hands. The music started again a heartbeat later, and I silently cursed the DJ.
Oh, God, Miles must be dying of laughter. I slid a peek at him between my fingers, and he beamed at me. Leaning close, he spoke loudly in my ear.
Accidental Triplets - A Secret Babies for the Billionaire Romance (San Bravado Billionaires' Club Book 4) Page 17
