“Is there a reason for that?” I asked.
“Maybe if you stick around long enough you’ll find out,” Evan said.
Now I was truly intrigued. Maybe the only way to be let in on the secret was to prove I could be trusted.
I doubled my resolve to work hard. I wasn’t going to let Evan down. Not after he’d been so nice to me. I still had no idea why he had such a soft spot for a complete stranger, but I was grateful for it.
I was grateful for him.
Whatever luck made me decide to stop and drink at this particular bar, I took a moment to stop and appreciate it.
I just hoped that luck would hold.
5
“We’ll start you off nice and easy,” Evan said.
It was still early in the afternoon, so there were only a few customers in the bar.
“The place will be pretty slow for now,” he continued. “We can ease you into things before the rush hits. Why don’t you start by cleaning up a bit?”
A bead of nervous sweat trickled down my back. I had hoped to be given more instructions than just clean a bit.
Aside from moving all my stuffed animals from the floor to the toy box, I’d barely had to lift a finger for myself growing up.
“Where should I start?” I asked, hoping that wasn’t too much of a stupid question.
“How about you sweep the floors?” Lizzy suggested. “We make sure to mop them every night, but dust and dirt get kicked up when customers start coming in.”
I remembered seeing a broom in the utility closet down the hallway. My spirits lifted as I realized this was one thing I could probably do and not make a mess of it.
I went to collect the cleaning tools then started at one corner of the bar and slowly worked my way up and down. Lizzy took care of the customer’s orders, and the few we did have were content to talk quietly among themselves, so I didn’t even have to speak with anyone.
There was an odd sort of satisfaction in seeing the floor turn shiny as I swept away the layer of dust that had settled in overnight. It was such a mundane task and yet I couldn’t help but feel pleased that I was able to help out, considering this was something I’d never done before.
“How’s it coming along?” Evan asked when I was close to being done.
There was a tiny pile of dirt and dust collecting in the middle of the room. It was smaller than I had expected. For some reason, in my mind, the idea of a bar made me think dirty, grimy, dark, and dank. But Sin and Tonic was brightly lit and the surfaces were shiny and sleek. Aside from the dust, the place was a clean as any high-class restaurant I’d been in.
“I’m almost done,” I told Evan.
I looked at the pile of dust again. Now that I had gathered it into a tiny mound I wasn’t quite sure what to do next.
As if sensing my confusion, Evan held out a dustpan, handing it to me with a slightly amused smile.
“When you’re finished, sweep up all the dust into this dustpan and throw it out into the garbage.”
I thought about protesting and telling him that I knew how to sweep the floor, but the truth was if he hadn’t shown me the dustpan I probably would have stared at that pile of dirt and grime for long minutes, wondering whether I should just sweep it under a rug or something.
“Thank you,” was all I said as I took it from his hands.
I hadn’t told Evan exactly what my upbringing had been like, but I got the sense he knew I was somewhat lost when it came to this kind of thing.
After I’d swept up the dust and disposed of it in the trash bin, I stood back and surveyed the nice shiny floors.
It was oddly Cinderella-like. I could almost imagine myself as a character in some Disney movie, a girl born a princess who had been forced to leave home and was now stuck doing manual labor for a living.
But instead of feeling bitter or downtrodden, a sense of accomplishment filled my chest.
“Done with that?” Evan asked.
He’d kept popping in and out as I had been sweeping. Keeping an eye on me, maybe? Making sure I wasn’t messing up? Or making sure I was still on board with this whole work at a bar thing?
“The floor is as good as new,” I told him, beaming with pride. “What’s next?”
“Now let’s have you wash the dishes,” he said.
Behind the bar there was a small double sink. I didn’t waste time waiting for instructions. I went straight to it and got to work.
I had to dredge up any memories I could of my family’s many housekeepers standing in the kitchen washing plates and cutlery. I knew there had to be a bottle of dishwashing soap somewhere, and I found it in a cupboard under the sink. There were also some sponges.
I can do this, I thought to myself. It’s as easy as sweeping the floor.
But I soon found that it wasn’t. The soap made the dishes slippery in my hands, and I dropped more glasses than I washed. They landed in the sink with loud clattering noises. I cringed every time it happened, expecting someone to come running up and ask me what I thought I was doing.
But they seemed content to leave me be and let me work in peace. Evan and Grant made drinks for the people at the bar, and in between serving customers, Lizzy fought with the cash register, muttering under her breath.
It was during one moment when I was sneaking another glance at Evan when it happened.
A martini glass slipped from my hands. Instead of landing in the sink, it crashed to the floor, shattering into a dozen pieces and sending shards skittering across the floor.
My heart sank even as I jumped back in surprise.
Evan, Lizzy, and Grant whipped their heads to me, eyes wide.
“I’m so sorry,” I told the three of them, shame rising my chest.
“It’s all right,” Evan said. “We’ve got lots of extra glasses.”
Lizzy began to clean up the mess, so I knelt down next to her.
“I can help with that,” I told her, but she shook her head.
“No worries, hon,” she said. “I don’t want you to stick your finger on a sharp piece of glass and end up in the hospital. I’ve got experience taking care of these kinds of messes. You just keep on washing.”
But now I was rattled.
My hands shook as glass after glass slipped from my fingers and clattered into the sink again, the loud noises echoing throughout the room.
Lizzy had just finished cleaning up the shards when it happened again.
Crash.
Every customer in the establishment, all four of them, turned to stare at me. My cheeks flushed burning hot.
This time Evan came over. He looked down at the mess then looked at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. Was he going to fire me now? Was I making too many mistakes? I had promised myself I wouldn’t make him regret hiring me, that I was going to work hard. Dread and worry wash over me. What was I going to do if he decided I was useless?
But Evan simply curled his lips into an empathetic smile.
“Why don’t we keep you away from the breakables for now?” he said. “You can go clean the tables.”
With a dismal nod of my head I slunk off, leaving Lizzy to clean up the second mess I’d made.
“Don’t feel bad,” Lizzy told me with a wink. “I’ve broken more than my fair share of glasses.”
It wasn’t the same, though. I had just started working, and I’d already broken two in the span of five minutes. Was this a harbinger of what was to come? Was I going to keep making mistakes? Was I going to be too much of a screw up for them to keep around?
Dread coursed through me. If I couldn’t figure out a way to make myself useful I’d be forced to go home.
With my shoulders hunched over on themselves, I used a cleaning rag and a bottle of solvent to wipe down the tops of the tables.
The same thoughts kept running in my head over and over.
I didn’t want to go back home.
I didn’t know if my parents would even let me come home if I refused to marry Jacob
.
But if I didn’t marry him, everything would fall apart with my family’s business. Didn’t I owe it to them to see it through? It wasn’t like Jacob was a bad guy. He was… nice.
Nice wasn’t enough for me to want to spend the rest of my life with him, though. The thought of waking up next to him every day made my stomach roil in my gut.
But wasn’t that just me being selfish? Shouldn’t I be a good daughter and do as my parents asked? They had done so much for me, given me so much, so many opportunities that I knew others didn’t have. I had lived a privileged life. Maybe now it was time for me to pay the price for that.
“That’s not a stain,” Evan said as he came up behind me.
I jumped and whirled around, not expecting him to sneak up on me.
“It’s a dark spot in the wood,” Evan continued. “You won’t be able to scrub it away.”
I looked down at the table. I hadn’t realized I’d been rubbing at the same spot. My thoughts had overtaken me and I’d been working at this same first table for who knows how long.
“I’m sorry,” I told Evan. “I didn’t mean to dawdle. I’ll move on and get to the next tables straightaway.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Evan said. “I just came over to tell you that you’re not doing a half-bad job.”
“Not half bad,” I repeated with a wan smile. “Talk about faint praise.”
Evan chuckled.
“I can’t say you’re the best dishwasher I’ve ever seen, but that tabletop is looking sparkling and brand-new.” Evan cocked his head at me, examining me closely with contemplative eyes. They burrowed into me. I found myself trapped by his gaze.
There was something about the way Evan looked at me. As if he already knew all my secrets. As if my every thought was on display for him to read.
It didn’t make me feel discomfited. It didn’t make me feel exposed.
Instead, it made me want to bare myself to him even more.
For some reason, around Evan, I felt safe.
“You’re thinking about home?” he asked.
My heart thumped a heavy beat.
“I can’t stop thinking about what I did,” I replied. “About what everyone is going to think. How everybody’s going to react.”
“I think you should worry about yourself first and other people later,” Evan said.
“Don’t I owe it to my parents to be an obedient daughter?” I asked.
I knew it was a rhetorical question, one that I hadn’t yet been able to answer myself.
“Is this the eighteenth century?” Evan asked. “You’re not your parents’ property. You can live your own life.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” I murmured quietly.
Evan opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, his phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and put it to his ear. How odd that he would get a phone call. No one used phones to actually call people anymore. It was all texts and messaging.
Evan spoke quietly as he turned his back to me, using a hushed voice. He nodded to himself then hung up the phone and put it back in his pocket.
“I’ve got to head out for a bit.” He didn’t wait for me to reply before he started striding off.
Lizzy called out from the register.
“Got a hot date?” she asked with a teasing grin.
Evan, not pausing in his stride, called back. “Sorry, just something I’ve got to take care of. I’ll be back soon.”
“Have fun,” Lizzy said with a grin and a wave. “Tell whatever her name is that I say hi.”
I followed Evan with my eyes as he strode out of the bar, letting the front door swing closed behind him.
Was Evan really leaving for a date, or was Lizzy just teasing? Did he have a girlfriend? If he did, why hadn’t he mentioned her to me? He seemed to live alone, but just because he wasn’t living with his girlfriend didn’t mean things weren’t serious between them.
Disappointment swelled in my chest, but I fought to push it away.
Evan was a good guy who was helping me out. I was happy for him that he had someone.
Although I had to wonder what his girlfriend would think about him putting up a random strange girl in his apartment.
“Hi there!”
I was distracted from my wandering thoughts when a cute looking girl who’d been sitting at the bar came up to me.
“Hello, what can I get you?” I asked politely.
She chuckled. “Nothing. I’m Bree.” She stuck out her hand for a shake. “I’m dating the bar manager, Mason. Lizzy told me you’re the new girl?”
“I just started today,” I told her.
“That’s great,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “Now that Lizzy and Grant both have their side jobs, they’ve been cutting back on their hours. I know Mason can really use the help.”
“I’m not sure how much help I am,” I confessed. “I’m really new to this kind of service work.”
“What do you normally do?” she asked curiously.
I didn’t know how to answer. Luckily, a customer called out to me for a drink so I was able to excuse myself.
“I hang around the bar sometimes to spend time with Mason,” Bree said. “So I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other. Good luck!”
“Thanks,” I told her.
I sure did need some good luck about now.
6
The rest of my shift at the bar was relatively quiet. I continued with the cleaning and carefully avoided the sink. I felt bad I wasn’t able to help out as much as I wanted to, but Lizzy reassured me that, since I was just getting started, I was already doing a good job.
It was later that evening after she told me I could go home that I realized I had been working for five hours straight.
I knew most people worked eight hours a day, or sometimes even twelve, but I’d never done work like this for that long. Although I’d made lots of mistakes, I couldn’t help but feel proud of myself.
At the very least, they hadn’t fired me on my first day. That was a good start.
When I got ready to leave, I realized I’d have to find my own way back to Evan’s place. Luckily he’d written down his address for me that morning, but he’d driven me here. I didn’t have a car. I didn’t even have money for a cab.
I sat at the bar, mournfully staring into my empty purse. My cheeks burned at the thought of asking Lizzy or Grant for some money to get home.
“Need a ride?”
Bree slid over to take a seat next to me. She had a sympathetic smile, and I had to wonder if Lizzy had regaled her with the tale of the runaway bride.
“Evan dropped me off,” I told her. “I don’t have a ride back.”
Bree jingled her keys.
“Let me give you a lift,” she said. “I need to head home, too.”
“Thank you,” I told her fervently, not even putting up a token protest.
I made a note to myself to ask if I could get an advance on my paycheck. It was very nice of Bree to offer, but I didn’t want to be caught in this situation again.
It wasn’t a long ride to Evan’s place. Bree dropped me off with a smile and a wave as I thanked her again. I felt a bit silly knocking on the door to his apartment so I tried the knob first. It was open.
I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible as I went in. It occurred to me that perhaps Evan might have invited his girlfriend home if he had one.
I found the living room and kitchen empty. There was a plastic shopping bag on the kitchen table. I wondered if he had forgotten to put the groceries away when he got home.
“Evan?” I called out, but there was no response. He must have been out.
I snuck a quick look inside the bag to make sure there wasn’t any milk or cream accidentally left out. I could at least be a helpful roommate-slash-house guest-slash-freeloader and put away the forgotten groceries before the milk spoiled.
But when I looked inside the bag I found a few women’s dresses folded neatly on top of one another, a coupl
e pairs of yoga pants and tank tops for sleeping in, a pair of black flats, and a cross-body messenger bag. The shoes were my size. The clothing was plain solid colors of black, red, and blue. I tentatively pulled out a dress and held it up against my body. It had capped sleeves and went just to my knees. It fit against my figure perfectly.
Evan had gone shopping for clothes for me. I peeked inside the bag once again and found a package of socks and cotton underwear. My cheeks flushed. Evan had also gone shopping for my underthings. How embarrassing.
I couldn’t help but be grateful, though, because I had been wondering what I was going to do for clothing the next day. Lizzy had lent me one set of clothes, but aside from my grimy wedding dress, I didn’t have anything else to wear. I vowed I would pay Evan back the moment I got my first paycheck from Sin and Tonic.
I put everything back in the shopping bag and left it on the table. I didn’t want Evan to think I had been snooping, even if it had been meant for me.
I did, however, open the drawer Evan had pulled the phone out of. I needed to find a charger. The phone must’ve been old because the battery had drained quickly. I had barely used it all day and already the battery was at twenty percent.
There wasn’t any charger in the drawer, though, so I closed it, leaving the rest of the contents undisturbed.
I didn’t quite know what to do with myself and wondered if I should just turn on the TV and channel surf.
Maybe I’d see myself on a missing person’s report.
I looked around the living room but there were no magazines. I went to the bookshelf and examined the books. My eyes went wide.
Jackpot!
Sitting on the shelf was a boxset for my favorite book series, fantasy novels I’d read a handful of times already. I wondered if they were Evan’s favorite series too, considering he had the entire boxset.
I was just about to take it down from the shelf when I heard a faint grunt came from down the hall. I paused, listening closely. There was another grunt, then some heaving breathing.
My thoughts immediately went into the gutter.
Were those sex sounds? Had Evan really brought a girl home and I’d just walked in on them?
Hot and Bothered (Sin and Tonic Book 4) Page 3