by Kate, Jiffy
“Nope, just me,” I reply with a shake of my head. “My parents tried for years to get pregnant. They finally had me when my mama was forty-two. They tried again a year later, but lost the baby. So, I’m it.”
When I yawn, Shaw goes to stand.
“I should get going and let you sleep.”
In a moment of weakness, and maybe from feeling so comfortable after our talk, I ask, “Could you stay? Please.”
He continues to stand, but he doesn’t move for the door. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Sure, right.” I move up the bed and crawl under the warm, but soft blanket. “Thanks for letting me stay here tonight and for the food. I really appreciate it,” I say on another yawn. With my back to Shaw, I expect to hear the door open and close, but it never does. Smiling to myself when I hear him settle in the chair on the opposite side of the room, I close my eyes and let sleep take over.
Chapter 8
Shaw
I should leave.
But for some reason, unbeknownst to me, I can’t.
The second Avery asked me to stay, my feet felt like cement, so here I sit in this chair staring at her back as she sleeps. I know she’s asleep because a few minutes ago, I started hearing a small, soft snore coming from the vicinity of the bed.
Today was a rough day for her, but I can’t help and think she’s had a lot of rough days in her recent past. The only thing that makes me feel a little better is the fact I got to punch that asshole ex-boyfriend of hers. Man, what a fucking dick head. So pretentious and self-righteous, nothing like Avery, or at least not the Avery I’ve gotten to know over the last couple of weeks.
She seems grounded, aware of her surroundings, considerate. I’ve noticed the way she treats people, even though I’ve tried my damndest not to. I’m an observer. It’s what I do. So, catching Avery picking up the slack for Kevin or Jeremy, seeing her take a job off Paulie’s hands, and watching her be kind and generous with customers...it speaks volumes about who she is as a person.
When she first walked into my bar, I thought she was a kid looking for a fast paycheck.
But she’s no kid.
That was made obvious tonight when I forgot who I was dealing with, used to taking care of guys, and barged back into the apartment unannounced.
Closing in the shower is now a top priority on the apartment renovation list.
No matter how hard I tried not to look, my natural curiosity and desire took over. I didn’t look long, not enough for her to notice me or for me to feel like a creep, but it was long enough.
Her petite frame is made up of perfectly proportioned curves in all the right places. Nothing about what I saw behind that shower curtain was a girl.
Luscious tits.
Round ass.
Supple hips.
All the things that get me hard.
Fuck. I let out a quiet groan, trying to alleviate the mounting pressure in my cock. Glancing over at the bed, making sure Avery is still asleep, I immediately regret it because the only thing I can think about doing right now is walking over there, ridding her of that flimsy ass t-shirt and those barely-there boxers, and pushing deep inside her.
“Fuck.”
I gotta get out of here. I know she’s probably scared and feeling alone, not just in this unfamiliar apartment, but in this city. But I can’t. I can’t stay here and watch her sleep and not lose my mind or my resolve.
I don’t do this shit.
I don’t sleep with employees.
I mean, obviously, I typically only employ men and I’m not into dudes. But more than that, I don’t sleep with people I have feelings for and as bad as I don’t want to have feelings for Avery Cole, as much as I’ve tried to reinforce every blockade I’ve spent years building, she’s somehow found a way to seep through the cracks.
Unemotional, detached sex.
That’s the only thing I allow myself to have, like the sex I have with Brandy from time to time. I don’t give two shits what happens to her. If we fucked tonight and I never saw her again, it wouldn’t bother me. She’s too clingy, too whiny, too needy. Her fake tits and fake fingernails drive me crazy. But she’s a warm, willing body who just so happened to be around the night I caved and gave in to my dick.
That’s it.
I think she knows it.
I’m pretty sure she uses me as much as I use her.
The only mention of something more came on our second time fucking. We were in my office and she asked me what I wanted. I told her, honestly, concisely—a warm pussy. She quirked an eyebrow and gave her head a nod, like she was glad we had that discussion. I thought I might never see her again, but I was wrong. A month or so later, she came knocking again. And I fucked her again. Never in a bed, always in my office...the storage room...against the wall in the hallway.
And none of this is helping my painful erection.
Standing from the chair, I pace quietly, or as quietly as I can in this creaky, old apartment. Normally, when I have built-up tension and a hard-on that won’t stop, I come up here and work out until I’m so physically spent, I can’t even rub one out. But that won’t be happening tonight.
Avery’s pale pink hair is almost dry now and it has a natural wave to it, so light it almost fades into the white sheets. I almost take a step toward the bed, but stop myself.
What the fuck are you doing, Shaw?
You’ve done enough.
She’s safe and fed.
The big bad wolf is gone.
Step away.
I remind myself once again that the walls are here to stay. I’ve made it this long without anyone even coming close to breaching them.
Avery Cole poses no threat.
Not if I don’t let her.
Turning on my heels I walk to the door and open it quietly, stepping out into the still, humid—even in the middle of fucking October—night air. I pause for a brief moment at the top of the stairs, inhaling deeply. Now that I’m not staring at Avery’s sleeping body, I feel like I can finally breathe. Pulling the keys to the apartment from my pocket, I lock the door behind me and make my way down the stairs, stopping halfway down.
“Hey,” I call out, the normal gruffness in my tone a bit extra as my hackles raise minutely. A motionless mass at the bottom of the stairs has me firing on all cylinders. I’m used to people sleeping in the alley behind the bar. It’s how most of the men who work for me ended up here, but with Avery sleeping in the apartment, I feel an unusual sense of trepidation.
Also, I wouldn’t put it past that asshole ex-boyfriend to show back up here.
“Hey.” This time, the mass moves and slowly shifts toward the sound of my voice.
“Sorry, man.” The guy sounds like he’s smoked a carton of cigarettes every day of his life and has a case of walking pneumonia on top of that. “Someone said this’d be a safe place to sleep for the night. Don’t mean no harm.”
“It’s fine,” I tell him, taking the last half of the steps quickly, but quietly, because I don’t want to wake Avery. Normally, I’d let someone like this stay upstairs for the night until I can get things squared away. I have contacts in shelters and halfway houses around the city, people who will help me place someone in a temporary location until they get back on their feet.
But I can’t let him up there tonight and I also can’t take the chance of him still being here in the morning when Avery wakes up. It might scare the shit out of her to see me gone and some strange man sleeping at the bottom of the stairs.
“Come with me,” I bark.
Just because I do nice things, doesn’t mean I’m nice about it. And really, the asshole behavior isn’t on purpose. I just can’t help it. Call me jaded or cynical, but I treat everyone that comes in my backdoor as the worst criminal and drug addict until I can get a good read on them. I’ve been burnt one too many times.
I don’t look back, but I hear the man following me through the backdoor of the bar. “Shut it behind you,” I order, flipping on a co
uple lights as I go. “You can sleep in here.” I motion to the storage room. “There’s a bedroll and pillow behind the back shelves. I take inventory every fucking day, so don’t even think about stealing my shit, especially the booze. If you’re hungry, I’ll find you something to eat.”
Turning for the door, I call out over my shoulder. “I’ll be next door in my office.”
Thankfully, I have a futon that pulls out into a bed, if you want to call it that, just for nights like this or late nights at the bar...or nights when I don’t want to go home to an empty house.
Walking into my office, I flip off the overhead light and kick out the futon. It’s a fucking brick to sleep on, but it’ll do. I use a jacket as a pillow and lay back, thankful for the distraction of the guy sleeping next door, because at least I’m not thinking about the girl—woman—sleeping upstairs.
Somehow, I manage a few restless hours of sleep—enough to make me functional, but not enough to put me in a good mood. When I wake, the sounds of snoring and heavy breathing from the storage room give me a small sense of peace knowing he’s still here. Groaning when I sit, I massage my lower back, desperately in need of a run to stretch my muscles. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m not as young as I once was and my body reminds me of it when I do stupid shit, like sleep on futons.
As I make my way down the hall, I peek inside to make sure everything is intact in the storage room. Outside of the snoring fuck on my floor, everything is just as it should be, so I continue the trek to the bar for some much-needed coffee. While I’m scooping the grounds, thankful for the immediate boost from the aroma alone, I briefly wonder if Avery would like some.
And if I should take her a cup.
But then I mentally kick myself in the dick for even letting myself go there.
No. I’m going to give her time to get up and get the hell out of the apartment, find this guy a place to stay, and then get on with my normal weekend routine. I need my Sundays and Mondays like the Saints need another Super Bowl ring. The respite is vital to my mental well-being. Usually, I don’t even cross Canal Street until Tuesday morning. The Garden District is where I live, and all of my favorite places to eat are there. Distinct separation from the bar and the whole busy, touristy vibe of the French Quarter is what keeps me sane.
Once I’ve given the guy, whose name is Charlie, a cup of coffee and a stale donut leftover from what Sarah brought the day before, I send him on his way, with strict orders to check in at Charity House and to come back and see me on Tuesday. I don’t really need another employee or mouth to feed right now, but I also can’t turn the guy away.
He can wash dishes and take out the trash. I’ll move Jeremy up to the bar. He should be happy about that, since it’s where Avery is and he can’t keep his fucking eyes off her.
Just the thought has my blood boiling, so instead of taking my bike that’s parked in my makeshift shed out back, I decide to jog home. The fresh air, thanks to the streets being hosed down from the night before, is just what I need to clear my head. Paired with the burn of my muscles and lungs, I feel alive, and try not to let the guilt that feeling brings ruin my semi-good mood.
Opening the back door of my house, I look around at the large kitchen, bathed in early morning sunlight, and swallow down the familiar pang.
This is the kind of house you raise a family in, where people grow old together, not for a guy like me. But I can’t let myself dwell on thoughts like that because they only lead to drinking too much and wasting my days away in dark rooms.
After a quick shower and change of clothes, I’m back out the door for some much-needed brunch and coffee at The Crescent Moon. For as long as I can remember, I’ve spent my Sundays, and occasionally Mondays, at the café on the corner just a few blocks from my house. It’s a perfect spot—never too crowded, but steadily busy. The food is great. The atmosphere is low-key. The employees are friends. Wyatt, the owner, is probably the closest thing I have to a friend outside of the bar and my family. We don’t speak much, but we can at least commiserate over owning a business in a city like New Orleans. We’ve both been here through good and bad times—hurricanes, Super Bowls, financial highs and lows...and other things which I’d rather not dwell on at the moment.
When I walk in, I tip my head at Wyatt and walk to my table. That’s right, my table. It doesn’t have my name on it or anything, but everyone who works here knows better than to seat someone at this table between the hours of nine and eleven on Sunday mornings.
It’s like my reserved pew at church.
It kinda is like my church, now that I think about it. I come here for solitude and to feed my soul.
Before my coffee can even be served, my service is interrupted in the most unexpected way.
“Hey, Wyatt,” a familiar voice says causing me to lift my gaze to the door. Avery walks in and Wyatt actually goes to her, kissing her on the cheek, like their old friends.
What the fuck?
Why is she here?
Why is he touching her?
Why the fuck do I care?
Audibly growling my displeasure, I put my head back down and try to go back to my solitude and ignore the immediate sense of outrage at Avery Cole interrupting my morning. The audacity, after I gave her a safe place to stay last night, she has the nerve to show up here?
My eyebrows are pulled so tightly together it’s causing my head to hurt, so I try to relax them and turn my attention to the newspaper I carried in with me. Other people’s troubles should do the trick of distracting me from my own, and maybe, if I’m lucky, she’ll eat and leave just as quickly as she breezed through the door.
“Shaw.”
The way she says my name, in her sweet Oklahoma drawl, makes my heart beat faster and I have no choice but to look up and acknowledge her, even though I don’t want to. Turning my head and schooling my features, I snap out, “Avery.”
Hers doesn’t sound nearly as sweet coming from my mouth. Actually, it sounds more like a curse word and I meet her eyes just in time to see them squint in displeasure and confusion. I’m sure, after our heart-to-heart last night, she probably assumes we're friends or something akin to that. However, I have news for her, my walls are firmly secured and I have no intentions of having any type of relationship with her, friendship included.
She’s my employee and I’m her boss.
That’s it.
“Just wanted to say thanks again for last night. I know hiring me and letting me work at the bar is out of your comfort zone, so I appreciate you making an exception.” She pauses and my scowl deepens with her mentioning my comfort zone. She doesn’t know shit about my comfort zone. “Anyway, thanks. I mean it. I appreciate you sticking up for me with Brant and giving me a safe place to stay last night. When I got back to the house where I’m staying...for now...” Another pause and a shift of her feet makes me wonder if something happened. Fortunately, she saves me from being forced to ask and continues. “The car was gone...so, I’m assuming Brant is too.”
“Good.”
I think she’s going to ask to sit or continue to talk, but she just clears her throat and says, “Yeah, good.”
Then she turns to leave, but I forgot about something that’s been bothering me since last night and I betray my resolve by barking out, “You need a cell phone.”
A girl like Avery—young, pretty...fuck that, beautiful—doesn’t have any business walking the streets of New Orleans without a cell phone.
She reaches into her backpack and pulls out a small black device, shaking it in the air. “Got one this morning after I left the apartment.”
“Good,” I say again, turning my attention back to my newspaper.
Without another word, she walks to a table by one of the large windows and takes a seat. Inconspicuously, I watch her...biting her lip, glancing around the entire café, but never letting her eyes land on me. Then, Tripp, one of the waiters walks up to her and her entire face lights up with a big, generous smile. It makes her big brown eyes s
quint and I notice for the first time that she has a small dimple at the top of her left cheek, right under her eye. When she laughs at something Tripp says, I force my eyes back to the newspaper and make myself appear interested in the bullshit comings and goings of this great city until my coffee shows up and I have something else to distract me.
This is a free country, a free city...free restaurant...anyone can come here, so why am I so pissed off that Avery found this place? It’s a great place. It’s one of those places where you want everyone to know about it, but you also don’t want them to corrupt it and make it something it’s not. Not that Avery could ever corrupt anything. She’s good. She’s a good person, which is why I’m going to continue to make sure my dick doesn’t get confused and make a mistake that the rest of me would regret.
Chapter 9
Avery
“I made two hundred and seven dollars in tips tonight,” I exclaim, hopping up on the bar beside Jeremy. Since Charlie, the new guy, started last week, Jeremy has been promoted to the bar and it’s given us more time to get to know each other. He’s a nice guy. A little rough around the edges, but nice...sweet. He’s someone I could see myself being good friends with. I’m not stupid though, and I know he still battles with addiction, so I keep it platonic.
“It’s those Come Agains I taught you how to make,” Paulie chimes in as he passes by us, setting a few of the barstools back down on the floor.
The mention of the house drink has me scowling at the corner where Shaw is sitting, slowly sipping a beer. He’s been sitting there practically all night, scoping out the place like he works for the FBI or something. I can’t believe I’ve worked here nearly a month and was just now informed the bar is actually named after a drink. All this time, I assumed it was a playoff of the parting greeting...y’all, come again. But nope, it’s named after a drink that, according to Paulie, has made the ladies very happy over the years.