“What point?” I asked.
“And don’t think I’m stupid,” he told me.
Now I was really confused.
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“You do if you think I don’t get your game.”
I changed tactics. “Why’s it stupid to be friendly? I thought it was my job.”
“Your job is to turn drinks, not flirt and get yourself into trouble.”
Now I wasn’t confused and my temper wasn’t snagged, it was frayed.
I leaned into the bar too, put a hand on it and my voice got quiet as I hissed, “I’m not flirting!”
“Babe, shit, seriously? Do I look dumb?”
“No, but you are if you think I’m flirting,” I replied and I watched his face grow hard.
Then he leaned in further too, taking his fists from the bar and leaning onto both of his forearms, one resting on either side of my hand so he was in my face.
“Knock it off,” he ordered and the way he said those three words, I knew he wasn’t irritated, he was, for some reason, angry.
“I’m not going to knock it off,” I said. “My tips are awesome!”
“You think we had problems before, you keep playin’ those boys, you’ll see what a problem with me means.”
I stared at him.
How could he have problem? He said half his waitresses were terrible, one would think he’d leap for joy to get a friendly one who sold a lot of booze.
“Have you been sampling your wares?” I asked only half sarcastically, the other half was seriously but he didn’t take this very well for he leaned in even further so he wasn’t only in my face, he was an inch away from it.
“Don’t try me,” he bit out.
“Don’t threaten me,” I shot back.
“Hey! Cool!” We heard shouted, Tate’s eyes went over my shoulder and I twisted to see a very petite woman running at me. She had dark hair cut in a short pixie that looked great on her, a friendly open face with big, doe eyes, she was wearing a t-shirt that said “McLeod’s Gym, Burn It!”, a pair of jeans and flip-flops and her face was devoid of makeup.
And she was also cut, as in, cut. So in shape I could see all the muscles in her arms.
She skidded to a halt in front of me, this perfect stranger, and then she wrapped her toned arms around me and gave me a hug. Stiff in her arms, because of my nature, I still couldn’t stop myself hugging her back.
“Hey!” she shouted, head tipped back to look at me when she let me go and backed up a half a step. “I’m Wendy. You’re Lauren! So cool!”
“Hey,” I replied, deciding automatically that I liked Wendy. Back in the day, with my family especially and early on with Brad, I was a cuddler. I liked to touch. I liked to hug. I liked to snuggle and hold hands. With my Mom, my Dad, Caroline, Brad – anyone really, if we were close.
Those days were gone, I hadn’t had a hug in a long time and it didn’t matter that it came from a perfect stranger who, even petite, looked like she could snap me like a twig. I still liked it and I liked her.
“I heard about you. Jim-Billy and Nadine said you were neat and I can’t wait to work with you! Won’t that be fun?”
She was rolling up and down on her toes, filled with such energy and enthusiasm it was unnatural. It felt like she needed so much she was sucking it from the very atmosphere, including me.
“Yeah, fun,” I said on a smile.
She leaned to the side and waved. “Hey Tate.”
“Wendy,” Tate returned.
“I’m gonna go dump my purse. Why don’t you hang out during my shift so we can chat?” she asked.
“Um…” I said, preparing to answer (and that answer, due to Tate’s presence and weird behavior, would sadly be no) but before I could speak, she rounded on a foot and dashed around the bar.
“You got any tabs runnin’?” I heard Tate ask and I turned back to him.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Cash ‘em out. You’re off,” he declared and my eyes went to the big Coors Light clock over the bar.
“I’ve got ten minutes before Wendy’s on,” I reminded him. “And Jonelle’s not here yet.”
Nor, if yesterday was any indication, would she be for at least half an hour.
“Serve your drinks,” his head nodded to my tray, “and fuckin’ cash out.”
“But –”
“Not big on repeatin’ myself, babe.”
“Not big on being called babe, babe.”
Honestly!
I didn’t know I had it in me but I must have because Tate sure drew it right out.
“You hand Krys this attitude?” he asked me.
“I like Krystal,” I lied. “And she’s never threatened me and she’s never called me old, fat or a sorry-ass!” I snapped, grabbed my tray and stomped away.
I didn’t know both Jim-Billy and Nadine heard every word we’d said. I also didn’t know why Tate got under my skin and made me act like a bitchy raving lunatic. I also didn’t dwell since I decided early he was a jerk and had given myself permission to be a bitch. So, he kept acting like a jerk then he’d keep getting the bitch.
I served my drinks, calculated my tab and luckily could cash it out from my apron and I called hello to Dalton when he walked in. I also dragged my heels until Wendy hit the floor at a couple minutes to seven. Then I went behind the bar and slapped my apron down close to Dalton.
“Hey, Dalton, can you cash me out? I’m going to go freshen up,” I said to him.
“Sure, Lauren, can you give me ten?” Dalton answered.
“Not a problem,” I answered and turned to go to the restrooms but found my upper arm suddenly had five strong fingers wrapped around it and my body didn’t move of its own accord to the restroom, it was propelled by Tate to the office.
What now?
“Take your hand off me,” I hissed.
“Shut your trap,” he clipped back, opened the door and pulled me in. Then he shut the door and maneuvered me so my back was to it and he was close to my front.
“Move away,” I demanded, half shocked that there I was, in the office, a place I didn’t want to be, dragged there by a man I didn’t like and half scared because I didn’t know him very well and most of my experience with him he was angry but now he looked really mad.
“I hurt your feelings, I get it. I apologized,” he returned. “You don’t have to accept it, that’s your choice. But you do gotta fuckin’ listen to me when I’m givin’ you good advice. Those boys out there are in a biker gang, not a bad one but not one that shies away from trouble. You wanna be friendly enough to sell drinks and distant enough to fly under their radar. They clocked your tits, your ass, your legs, your hair and your attitude the minute they walked in and, trust me, Ace, you want them to admire you from afar. What you don’t want to do is give them the in you’ve been givin’ them the past four hours.”
“I haven’t been giving them an in,” I retorted.
“Babe, you crawled into one of their laps, I wouldn’t have been surprised.”
“That’s crazy!” I snapped.
“It is? You get I’m a man?” he asked bizarrely and I stared at him a second because pretty much no one on earth could miss that.
“Yes, I get you’re a man,” I answered.
“So, I get that impression from you just watchin’ your shit, what do you think they’re gettin’ bein’ on the receivin’ end?”
Uh-oh. As much as it killed me to admit, he had a point.
“Um…” I mumbled.
“Um,” he mimicked and I felt my eyes narrow on him. “Damn straight, Ace. How’d you get here?”
“Sorry?” I asked.
“To the bar, you got your car?”
“I walked,” I told him.
“You’re on my Harley once Dalton cashes you out.”
Oh no I was not.
“What?” I shouted, yes, shouted.
“I’m takin’ you home,” he answered.
“No you aren
’t.”
“Babe, I am.”
“No. You. Aren’t!” I tried to slide to the side but his hand came up and he planted his palm in the door so I stopped. “I’m staying at the hotel until I can find a place. It’s only five blocks away.”
“Least two of those boys been waitin’ ‘til you’re off. You think they won’t make their move now that you are?”
This surprised me. They were bikers in a gang but there were a couple of good-looking ones and all of them, I thought, were nice. I thought they were having fun with me, enjoying their beer and pool and male camaraderie with a somewhat sassy, older, fat-assed waitress breaking in on their bonding with some witty one-liners and a cheeky grin (though some of them I guessed were my age, others a bit older and amongst that lot were the good-looking ones).
I didn’t think any of them might like me.
My eyes slid to the wall which was the direction of the bar and I said quietly, “Really?”
“Jesus,” he muttered. “You want that attention?” he asked and my eyes shot back to him.
“Of course not!” But I had to admit, just being a breathing female; it was nice to have it all the same.
“Then you’re on my bike.”
“No.”
“You get on it or I drag you to it.”
It was my turn to get in his face. “Why are you such a jerk?”
“I can live with you thinkin’ that, even though I’m protectin’ your ass,” he returned.
“You missed a word. You meant to say my fat ass!”
Then I slid the opposite direction from his arm, went to the filing cabinet where I stowed my purse and snatched it out. When I turned to stomp back to him, he was standing in front of the door with his arms crossed on his chest and watching me.
I walked directly to the door, put my hand on the knob and stared at it when I demanded, “Out of my way.”
I felt rather than saw him move, threw open the door and stomped out.
Dalton had my tips ready by the time I got out and he handed them to me with one of his easy smiles and then turned to a customer.
“Sit awhile, have a beer?” Jim-Billy asked while I shoved my tips in my purse and I looked at him to see he was smiling at me.
“Thanks, Jim-Billy, no,” I replied as I felt Tate enter my vicinity. “I skipped lunch and need some dinner.”
“Take you out to dinner then,” Jim-Billy suggested and I felt Tate stop at the end of the bar close to me but I was looking at Jim-Billy.
“You leave that barstool?” I asked and his smile got wider.
“To take a pretty woman to dinner, yeah,” he answered.
“You’re on,” I said to him.
“You’re going?” Wendy called, practically skipping up to us before coming to a sliding halt.
“Yeah, Wendy, I need dinner,” I told her.
“That’s cool,” she replied and looked at Tate. “Hey Tate, can you be sure Lauren and I get a shift together soon?”
“She’s off tomorrow and she’s days for awhile,” Tate answered.
Wendy looked at me. “Then I’ll call Tonia and ask her to switch shifts with me on Saturday. She’ll be thrilled. She hates days. She’s a night owl.”
“Wendy, babe, you know we need you on nights,” Tate put in.
Her head tilted down so far to the side her ear nearly touched her shoulder.
“Aw, Tate, come on. I want a shift with Lauren. Just one, please. Don’t sentence me to full on Jonelle and Tonia for weeks,” Wendy begged and I turned to look at Tate thinking that perhaps Jonelle and Tonia didn’t just treat me to their frosty demeanor, maybe that was just who they were and having to work with that day in and day out (or, in this case, night in and night out) would suck.
Tate’s eyes stayed on Wendy. “Tonia shifts, you can have Saturday.” Then his eyes moved to Jim-Billy. “You take Ace to dinner, you walk her to the hotel.”
“Jackson, man, why you think I’m takin’ her to dinner?” Jim-Billy asked and I felt my eyes widen.
“I thought it was because I was a pretty woman,” I said to him and he grinned at me.
“It is, darlin’. It’s also because there’s four boys at the pool table lookin’ hungry like a wolf and their eyes are pinned on you,” Jim-Billy replied.
I didn’t look at the pool tables and I didn’t want to admit Tate was right so I said to Jim-Billy, “Did you just quote Duran Duran?”
“Duran who?” he asked and Tate chuckled so I bit back my laughter because I didn’t intend to share even that with him.
Instead, I walked to Jim-Billy and pulled him off his stool by his arm.
“Feed me, handsome,” I urged, linking my arm through his and leaning into his side.
“Okay, now it’s just me and a pretty woman,” Jim-Billy returned and that’s when I allowed myself to laugh at him.
“See you Saturday, Lauren!” Wendy yelled.
“Yeah, Wendy, Saturday,” I yelled back.
“Hotel,” Tate called after us as we walked to the door.
Jim-Billy lifted a hand in a wave but didn’t turn and I didn’t respond at all. I wasn’t on shift anymore, Tate Jackson or whatever-his-last-name-was had ceased to exist.
I turned to my buds at the pool table and shouted, “I’m off to dinner with my sugar daddy! See you guys later!”
“Bye Laurie!”
“Bye darlin’!”
“Bye babe!”
“Bye gorgeous!”
“Later!”
And so on.
I walked out smiling because all those farewells were nice and no one tried to jump me and Jim-Billy in order to wrest me from him and drag me by the hair to their cave.
So take that Tate Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was.
Okay, so he hadn’t exactly ceased to exist… whatever.
Chapter Four
Nighttime Swimming
“Later!” Wendy called, hanging out the window of her blue Honda CR-V.
“Later!” I called back and then inserted the key into the lock of my hotel room, twisted it, opened the door, walked in, heard the door close behind me and fell face first onto my bed.
I’d just been to McLeod’s Gym, owned by Wendy’s boyfriend, Tyler, who was a six foot, blond powerhouse with biceps so huge I couldn’t wrap both my hands around one (and, at Wendy’s invitation and Tyler’s smiling agreement, I’d tried). Tyler did boot camps three times a week where fifteen insane Carnalites showed up at seven in the morning to be tortured.
On Saturday, Wendy had talked me into trying a session and I told her I probably shouldn’t unless I had a day off. Luckily (to Wendy’s way of thinking) one of the boot camps was on Tuesday.
Today. My day off.
I thought during the session I was going to throw up. Then later during the session I thought I was going to die. I didn’t do either and I’d survived and kept myself standing and breathing all through Wendy taking me to her and Tyler’s condo to make me a protein shake which consisted of organic Greek yogurt, a banana, a tablespoon of peanut butter, a squeeze of honey, a dash of milk, a bunch of ice cubes and a scoop of protein powder.
The protein shake was delicious and the best part of my morning.
But at that moment lying facedown on my bed, I was pretty sure I was going to die.
Regardless, I was on Day Eight in Carnal and, notwithstanding boot camp torture, I knew I’d made the right decision.
* * * * *
After my first day working with Tate at Bubba’s, Jim-Billy took me to dinner at the diner where he spent an hour entertaining me. I hadn’t laughed so much or so hard in so long I forgot how good the pain felt when your belly hurt deep down just from laughing. Jim-Billy’s eyes often strayed to my chest area but I could forgive that because all the rest of the time he was darned funny and definitely sweet.
After he walked me to the hotel, I entered to find my room had undergone a mini-transformation. There was a six drawer dresser on the wall by the door and my clothes that had been
folded and stacked on the built-in dresser were gone and I found they’d been moved into the new dresser. On top of the standing dresser was a vase of fresh flowers. On top of the built-in there was an electric kettle, two huge coffee mugs with colorful swirls on them sitting next to a matching sugar bowl and a creamer with a jar of instant coffee next to that and two teaspoons. There were also two, brightly striped tea towels in colors that matched the cups and the sugar bowl was filled. A mini fridge sat beside the mug paraphernalia on the built-in and when I looked inside I saw there was a jug of milk, a bottle of cheap champagne and a note that read:
Welcome home, Betty and Ned.
PS: We already had the dresser and we weren’t using it.
Reading it, I walked backwards, clutching the note in my hand, until my knees hit the bed.
I sat down and burst into tears.
* * * * *
The next day I got up early, got ready to face the day and went to have coffee with Betty.
By the time I made it to her, she’d had her breakfast and opened up so I sat in reception with her while we sipped and chatted. Then I went to my car and drove it to the mechanics at the other end of town and learned very quickly what Tate was talking about the day before.
Carnal was definitely a small town and because of that, it would make it hard to avoid him.
I learned this because Tate was in the massive forecourt of the mechanics, standing by his Harley and talking to a man that was nearly as tall as him but older and softer with long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail and he sported a beer belly. The gray-haired man was wearing jeans, a black t-shirt and a black leather vest with a bunch of patches on it. Tate was wearing jeans, his boots and another tight, long-sleeved t-shirt, not a Henley this time and it was navy blue.
I ignored Tate, parked, got out and started walking to the door with a sign over it that said “Office”.
I had long since had a strict personal edict that there was never a time when you were allowed to look bad. Of course, when I was in denial that my marriage was collapsing and I was ignoring the signs, I started to put on weight but I never quit doing my hair and putting on at least light makeup and a decent outfit before going out anywhere, even if it was a quick stop at the grocery store. Then I overheard two friends talking, I confronted Brad with what I heard them say, he came clean about Hayley and that he wanted out and I spent two months eating everything that was edible and dragging around town like the sorry-ass Tate thought I was.
Sweet Dreams Page 6