by M. S. Parker
“You want to smoke, you go outside to do it,” she said. “And you treat that woman with respect. After all, she owns the bar.”
The guy looked at me, and I shrugged. It wasn’t my fault he assumed I was a waitress. I may have owned the place, but I wasn’t too proud to work in it. Hell, I’d been working here for as long as I could remember. Definitely before it’d technically been legal, but since Dad had owned the place, and he’d kept me away from the alcohol, nobody’d said much of anything about it.
“Now that we’ve come to an understanding,” Gilly released the man’s ear, “I think you should buy everyone a round as an apology for stinking up the place.”
When Gilly got like this, it always made me wonder what sort of life she’d come from. For as long as I could remember, she’d been here, but I knew she wasn’t a native to Boston. I’d heard the story once or twice over the years, how she’d come to the bar for work and hadn’t left until my dad had given her a job. She was almost like the big sister I never had, and with Dad gone, she was pretty much my only family.
The pain in my chest was familiar after two years. It hadn’t gone away, just faded into the background where I could forget about it for a while.
No, not forget. I could never forget about my father. It’d been almost two years since he died, and whenever I thought about him, it felt like yesterday.
I looked around my bar – his bar – and smiled at each of the customers even though I knew it didn’t make it to my eyes. I looked like him. The same olive-green color, and the same cocoa-brown waves of hair too. I didn’t remember my mother, and I didn’t see any of her in my reflection either. But Dad? Him, I saw everywhere.
“Miss Reeve?” I turned to see the smoker standing in front of me, his cheeks red, eyes downcast. “I’m sorry.”
I nodded once, then headed back behind the bar. I didn’t usually come out onto the floor unless absolutely necessary, but when I saw that idiot lighting up in here, I hadn’t thought twice. Even back before all the smoking laws, my dad had banned smoking in the bar because he hadn’t wanted me breathing in all that crap.
“Fucking tourists,” Gilly said as she came by to pick up a tray of drinks. “Come in here, acting like they own the fucking place.” Her green eyes snapped angrily.
I reached across the bar and put my hand on her arm. “You know as well as I do that those tourists are keeping us afloat.”
“We have our regulars.” She pushed back the curls from her face and leaned on the bar.
“We do,” I agreed. “But they aren’t drinking as much as they used to, and the ones that are, aren’t drinking the same quality they used to.”
She opened her mouth like she was going to argue, because that was what Gilly did. She argued with me. But not right now because there wasn’t anything she could say. Because she knew it was true. I loved our regulars, loved the way they remembered my dad, but they weren’t making ends meet anymore.
“I need a Dark & Stormy, a French Connection, and a Park Avenue.” Ariene Sward threw the drink orders at me with a toss of her bottle-blonde hair. “And you might want to hurry it up.”
I would’ve been hurrying to do just that if she hadn’t told me to do it like she was my boss instead of the other way around. Ariene had only been a waitress here for a few months, but she liked to pretend that she could do whatever she wanted. At least once a week I had to do something to remind her that she wasn’t nearly as important as she thought she was. It sounded harsh, I knew, but she skated the line of what was acceptable behavior for an employee.
I purposefully pulled up two bottles of beer and reached around Ariene to hand them to Gilly. “Angus and Tommy look like they’re getting low over there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Gilly’s words had an undercurrent of amusement, but she didn’t say anything else as she took the bottles.
I ignored the glare Ariene sent my way as I set about making the drinks she requested. I would’ve loved to fire her and find someone else, but I didn’t have the time or the energy to train another new waitress. That was another reason the bar’s finances were stretched thin. I couldn’t compete with other places willing and able to pay more.
“Here.” I put the last glass on the tray. “And when you’re done, pick up the extra glasses and take them back to the kitchen. If you need them, wash them up.”
Ariene puffed out an annoyed breath. “I thought you hired me as a waitress, not as a dishwasher. I didn’t apply to wash dishes.”
I raised an eyebrow and looked up at her. “If you read your terms of employment, you’d know that you were hired primarily as a waitress, but to also do other things as needed. The first one on that list was dishwashing.”
Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t say anything. She wasn’t stupid, just spoiled. She knew she’d pushed me as far as she could today. Especially since Gilly was glaring at her from across the room. The two couldn’t stand each other, and I knew it wouldn’t take much provocation for Gilly to throw Ariene out on her ass.
And now, I wouldn’t be too disinclined to stop her.
“You look exhausted,” Gilly announced as she came behind the bar to pour her own drinks. “You need to get some sleep.”
I didn’t bother to respond. She was only six years older than my own twenty-four, but she’d been mothering me since the moment we first met. Making sure I ate, slept, took care of myself. Or she tried to as best she could anyway. I didn’t always listen.
“Hey, babe, got a cold one for me?”
If I hadn’t recognized his voice, I would’ve known he’d come in by the chill I could feel coming from Gilly.
Billy Outhwaite and I had been dating since I was a senior in high school. Seven years. Most people thought we’d be married by now, but I was glad he never popped the question. I would’ve had to say no. I loved him, sure, but I wasn’t sure I could live with him. We both liked our space.
“How did things go today?” I asked as he came up behind me and wrapped his arm around my waist. He kissed the top of my head and ground his crotch against my ass while I tried not to roll my eyes. We’d talked about his PDA before, but he always came back to babe, I can’t help it if you get me hot and bothered, and any arguments about appropriate public behavior got lost in him turning the whole conversation into how I just didn’t understand how much he needed to show me he loved me.
“Not bad,” he said as he kissed the side of my neck. “Benji said he’d put in a good word for me with his boss.”
I clenched my jaw and stepped to the side, moving out of his embrace. Billy had been unemployed for nearly eight months now, and every time I asked him how the job search was going, it was like this. He’d say something non-committal, and then talk about some friend of his who was going to ‘put in a good word with his boss.’
I reminded myself that all relationships had their ups and downs, then I smiled and got back to work.
Three
Jax
I was starting to feel like I’d crossed into stalking territory when the blonde suddenly turned toward what looked like a club. It didn’t have a long line in front of it, but it did have a massive man standing in front of the door. Like arms the size of bowling balls massive.
And he just stepped aside and let the blonde in without a word.
I scowled, but still had enough of a buzz to try to follow inside. The still-rational part of my brain, while small, reasoned that I’d be turned away, at which point I’d take a cab and go back to my hotel. If I was still feeling like getting laid, I’d check out the hotel bar.
But the guy didn’t tell me to get lost. Instead, he looked me over, handed me a paper, and then opened the door for me. Surprised, I didn’t bother looking at the paper as I walked inside to what looked like a lobby, with a second door on the far side.
This guy wasn’t as big as the first one, but he wasn’t small either. Unlike the other one, he didn’t move from in front of the door when I approached.
“Read it. Sign
it.”
I waited for further instructions, but he didn’t say anything else.
So, I looked down at the paper in my hand. “Welcome to guest night at Club Privé.”
Club Privé?
I’d never heard of it. But it was something new, and I didn’t get a lot of new in my life. The rest of the flyer was some standard legal jargon about how everything at the club was required to be safe and consensual, and that the club reserved the right to ask anyone not following the rules to leave.
I signed it, handed it over, and then walked inside.
If I hadn’t been slightly drunk, the words safe and consensual might have clued me into what was in store. As it was, though, I didn’t realize that Club Privé was a sex club until I was already inside.
And not just any sex club, but a BDSM sex club.
All around me, men and women walked by, some of them dressed in the skimpy clothes you’d normally see at any club…but others were in leather and chains…or not much else at all.
I couldn’t believe I’d just stumbled into a BDSM club that looked like the sort of place I’d been dreaming of since I’d first learned just how much this kind of thing turned me on. There were a couple places in Boston that catered to my particular preferences, but nothing like this.
I took a few steps away from the door and turned slowly, taking in everything around me. It was a massive space, with high ceilings and randomly placed pillars. Instead of pulsing strobe lights, the entire space was lit with what looked to be blue and white Christmas lights. The colors were softer than anything I’d seen in a club before. The music was like that too. Instead of harsh dance music, this was low enough that people could talk over the pulsing beat. Long, low couches were scattered around, as were regular tables and chairs. In the center of the room was a dance floor where several couples were already swaying slowly.
“Damn,” I whistled softly. Back home, if I wanted to hook up with someone who was into BDSM, I’d go to a club, but that’s all it ever was. I never really liked spending time there. This place, I’d come to just to relax.
If I hadn’t been looking for sex. And I was, now more than ever.
I turned my attention from the club and started looking for the hot blonde again. Maybe once she and I hooked up, I’d take a closer look at the club, figure out who owned it, and how to contact them.
Club Privé sounded like it’d be a good business to buy in New York.
After a moment, I spotted her. The blonde was standing next to the bar, talking with the bartender, but no man had approached her yet. Perfect. I walked straight toward her, appreciating the view with each step. I stepped just inside her personal space and leaned on the bar.
“What drink am I buying you?”
She looked over at me, surprised, either by the way I phrased it, or by the offer itself, though I couldn’t imagine I was the first man who’d ever bought her a drink. She had brown eyes, I saw, like melted chocolate.
“I’m not interested,” she said politely. “But thank you.”
I grinned. A challenge. I liked that. “One drink. Come on.”
She gave me a sideways look, then held up her left hand. For a moment, I thought she was flipping me off, but then I saw what was on her finger. A pair of platinum rings, one with a very large diamond in it.
Oh.
“I didn’t know,” I said, straightening.
She lifted a brow. “I hope that’s true.”
A man’s voice came from behind me, and I turned to see a tall, muscular man with dark hair and a scowl. The fact that he looked like he wanted to kill me made me think he was probably the blonde’s husband.
Shit.
“I didn’t,” I said, taking a step back.
One of the reasons I rarely got drunk was because, the first time I’d done it, I’d learned that the filter from my brain to my mouth didn’t work as well as it should when I consumed too much alcohol.
Which meant it was no surprise when I opened my mouth and something stupid came out. “Just a piece of advice. If you have a wife that fine, putting a ring on it doesn’t do shit if you’re not around to be man enough to keep it.”
The man took a step toward me, but the blonde put her hand on his chest. “Gavin, he’s drunk and running his mouth. Let it go.”
“Right,” I said. “Let it go. I have business to attend to anyway.”
“Business?” The scowl hadn’t faded much yet. “Here?”
I nodded. “I intend to make an offer to the owner of this club.”
Gavin crossed his arms and gave me a look that said if his wife hadn’t been standing next to him, he would’ve broken my jaw. “Offer?”
“I want to buy this place.”
I made the pronouncement and then waited for someone to say something, maybe give me the guy’s name at least.
Instead, Gavin grabbed the back of my coat and started pulling me to the door. The first bouncer looked startled when we walked by but followed us. The second guy simply said, “Boss?”
I had a bad feeling I was in deep shit.
“My club isn’t for sale, asshole.”
Yep, deep shit, I thought as Gavin shoved me onto the sidewalk.
Could’ve been worse, I supposed. I could’ve found out she was married after I fucked her.
Four
Syll
I slapped at my alarm clock, missed, and then reminded myself that I’d moved it from my bedside table to avoid this exact scenario. Groaning, I sat up and blearily made my way across my tiny bedroom to the trunk I used as a dresser. I smacked the top of my clock, and the obnoxious fire-alarm blaring finally stopped. I’d never been a morning person and keeping bar hours hadn’t helped. In school, my phone had been enough to get me up, but not anymore. If things kept going this way, I’d need one of those alarm clocks that ran when they went off, so I’d have to chase it.
Just the thought made me want to climb back under the covers.
Instead, I trudged into the bathroom and began my morning routine.
It was nearly noon, but since I was just waking up, it was breakfast time for me. Not that I was particularly picky about what I was eating. Dry cereal, oatmeal, a ham and cheese sandwich…I didn’t care as long as I had a cup of coffee.
I was lucky I could remember my name if I wasn’t caffeinated.
I carried my raisin-covered oatmeal and giant mug of coffee from my kitchenette into my office. When my dad moved us into the space behind the bar after my mom left, he converted a space between the back of the bar and the front into an office. It had allowed him to keep most of his work life separate from our personal life, and I still used it the same way. Granted, I didn’t really have much of a personal life, but it did help me keep a definite start and finish to my days, long as they were.
I went through the easy stuff while my brain absorbed the caffeine. Checked emails. Bank account. That sort of thing. I marked everything I needed to come back to or take a closer look at, and then I pulled out the books. My dad had done things old school, and that was how he taught me to do them too, but when I took over the accounting a few years back, I made a deal with him. I’d keep the old books, but I’d use new ones as well. It allowed me to double-check everything, and it made me feel a bit more secure about doing it all on my own. Someone might get access to one set of my books, but I doubted anyone could get both.
It took about an hour before the numbers started to blur, not because it’d taken me that long to see if things added up, but because I’d been trying to find places where I could save money, and I’d come up with squat.
Less than squat.
Shit.
When my dad was alive, we served food from five to seven every night. Nothing fancy, but some of the best hamburgers in the area, and the fries hadn’t been too bad either. Dad had manned the grill himself, and I made random desserts whenever I didn’t have too much homework. Cookies and cakes, with an occasional pie thrown in. I was no Betty Crocker, but the regulars had loved
it.
But after Dad died – a heart-attack at only fifty-two – I hadn’t had the heart to even consider replacing him. By the time I’d grieved enough to be able to walk into the bar without bursting into tears, things had changed. Some of the people I counted on being there for me had disappeared, finding another bar to haunt, maybe somewhere they didn’t have to worry about it closing for a week while a daughter mourned.
It had been a couple of months before I started to see the impact on the business side of things, and it’d never picked back up. I’d talked to customers, found the brands they really wanted and cut way back on the more expensive alcohol. I hadn’t bothered to investigate bringing food back since that would’ve meant hiring someone else, and I couldn’t handle another employee.
Not financially or personally, I thought as I looked at the paychecks I had to fill out. Aside from Gilly, my employees gave me a headache at least once a week. Some more than that. I tapped Ariene’s name with my finger. I’d regretted hiring her by her second shift, and while she toed the line, she never crossed it enough to give me grounds to fire her.
Was it wrong that I was hoping she’d screw up so I could get rid of her?
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. Maybe she’d surprise me and end up turning around.
I’m too sexy–
I grabbed my phone just so I wouldn’t have to listen to the rest of that song. I was pretty sure that was why Billy had programmed it as his text and ringtones. Well, that and the fact that he loved to walk around singing that damn song like he was some sort of male model.
Good looking? Yes, even though he had a bit of a baby face. He was on the short side but had nice broad shoulders and solid muscles. Well, muscles that used to be solid. Lately, he’d been drinking more and exercising less, so he was starting to get a bit soft, but I’d never thought of myself as being focused on looks.
hey babe gonna have 2 cancel 2nite srry
