Stalemate

by Lisa Suzanne

Which is why logic wins in this moment. My dick wants to win as he starts his punishing fight against my fly, but my brain knows this is all wrong. How would I feel if Emme kissed someone else?

  Push, pull. Push, pull.

  I’d fucking rip that fucker a new asshole, that’s how I’d feel.

  It’s that thought that runs from my brain, down my neck, into my shoulders, through my biceps and forearms, around my wrists, and finally into my fingertips as I use them to push Kasey away.

  “I-I can’t…” I look everywhere but directly at her as I try to formulate words. I’m jumbled up, confused about how it felt for someone to give me some attention when that’s all I want from Emme. “Emme.” Her name passes through my lips.

  “I’m sorry, Axel.” She’s a little breathless, and I know it’s from the kiss. That just makes me feel guilty. “I just… Sorry. I thought I could make it better, and instead I’ve made it worse.”

  I glance through the kitchen window and then pinch the bridge of my nose. “Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen.” I focus on the burger. Right…the burger. That’s why I’m back here. I’m not back here to kiss a coworker.

  “Of course.”

  She looks disappointed, but I can’t deal with that right now. I pick up the burger, take a deep breath, and head back to the bar.

  CHAPTER 12

  EMME

  I’m not supposed to work tonight, but I did tell Courtney that Axel and I would step in at The Port to cover for Carter, so I guess I’m sort of stuck. I wish with all I have that I didn’t have to go. I’m not ready to face Axel. I’m still mad, and I’m very much torn between wanting to be right and wanting to make things right. It’s a tough place to be because I don’t really know what the right answer is.

  Carter doesn’t do much when it comes to day-to-day operations of The Port, but he does stop in on Monday and Tuesday nights when he can so Axel can take some time off. They have a few other bartenders they trust who can run things, but both of them enjoy being as involved as possible. Axel typically doesn’t use that time off to his personal advantage; instead, he just spends more time in his office working. I wonder where he’ll be tonight, and whether or not we’ll get a chance to finish the conversation I cut short earlier when I had to go meet Courtney’s mom.

  I Uber to work because I feel like drinking my way through this night is a solid plan. Each block the car inches closer to The Port, my heart pounds harder. I’m nervous to see Axel—nervous about his reaction, nervous about where we left things, nervous to continue our conversation.

  By the time I walk through the doors, I’m a ball of anxiety. My heart is pounding in my ears, my head feels all sorts of pressure, and my hands are shaking.

  I can’t remember the last time I was this nervous, and incidentally, I can’t remember the last time I felt this much emotion. It’s almost a relief to feel something so strongly—even if it’s a negative emotion, it’s still something where Axel is concerned, and that actually speaks volumes to me about my true feelings about him.

  Most of the tables are taken, but The Port is definitely not as packed as usual. Sometimes I stop in on my days off, but I don’t know that I’ve noticed the lack of a crowd as much as I do now that Axel is co-owner.

  I attribute the semi-emptiness to the fact that we don’t have any music tonight, and my marketing mind immediately starts turning with ways to correct that. Mondays and Tuesdays should be just as busy as the rest of the week. I think people would like something different on those nights, and my mind jumps straight to theme nights. Eighties, nineties? Disco? Mardi Gras? Something… I’ll keep thinking because it’s my job to keep thinking.

  He’s not behind the bar, Kasey is. She has this wavy dark hair that tumbles to the middle of her back and bright blue eyes that pop beneath her dark liner. She’s an awesome bartender and a nice girl, but I’ve seen the way Axel looks at her sometimes, the way his eyes dart appreciatively toward the cleavage perpetually spilling from whatever too-tight shirt she’s wearing. What’s worse is I’ve seen the way she looks at him, like he hung the very moon in the sky. I keep my jealousy in check because green has never looked good on me. I stride right up to the bar like I own the place—which, indirectly, I feel like I do.

  “Hey Emme!” She’s enthusiastic, maybe a little overly so, and she’s got a bit of a southern drawl the boys go crazy for but that makes me hate her just a tad.

  “Hey.” I pull out a barstool and plop down.

  “What are you doing here tonight?” She focuses on whatever drink she’s mixing.

  I rest both elbows on the bar. “I told Court we’d come by to relieve Carter for the night. Is Axel here?”

  She nods toward the door that goes into the back of the bar as she takes a cup and scoops ice out of the icemaker. “Something going on with you two?”

  I shrug in a non-response.

  “Everything okay?” she presses. She sets the drink she’s been making in front of me.

  I shrug again. This is why she’s a good bartender—most people start flapping their gums about their latest problems and she just keeps filling up their cups. I, however, refuse to spill my problems to her, mostly because her boss is the one currently causing my problems.

  “What’s this?” I ask, nodding with my head toward the glass.

  “I’m trying something new. Tell me if you like it.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Vodka, cherry whiskey, sprite, and a splash of grenadine.”

  “What are you calling it?”

  “The Kasey.” She flashes me a smile, and I take a sip. It’s actually kind of delicious, and then it hits me.

  Trivia night! That’s what this place needs. A weekly contest on Mondays or Tuesdays, and whoever wins gets a bar gift card.

  I tap out a note in my phone, and while I’m at it, I’m starting to think maybe we need some other fun nights to liven up the place. We get decent turnouts for the music, especially Friday and Saturday nights, but Wednesday and Thursday could use bigger crowds, too.

  Our televisions could use an upgrade—bigger screens, and more of them—and that’ll draw bigger crowds in on game days.

  My mind is churning. I’ve been so focused on getting people to the bar on the weekends to see the bands I’ve got playing that I’ve sort of overlooked the other days. Just because I work nights doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have promos going on in the daytime. We run happy hour specials, and with the revamp of the menu since Lance took over, the food is better than ever. I wonder how some sort of loyalty program for free appetizers or meals would go over. I jot that one down in my phone, too.

  I chug down the Kasey drink in front of me, and then I push my glass across the bar. Kasey comes over a minute later. “Like it?” she asks.

  It must be some sort of brain food, because I’m hit with more and more ideas to liven this place up that I keep tapping into my phone. “It was delicious. I’ll take another one.”

  She sets to work on my second drink. I’m going to need a bit more alcohol running through my veins before I’m ready to face the wrath of Axel.

  She sets my new drink down, and I take a sip before I pick it up, slip my phone into the pocket of my jeans, and head back to finally have that talk I’ve been avoiding.

  His door is open, and I peek my head in and watch him for a minute. He’s facing his laptop, which is on the side of his desk, so I’m looking at his profile. He’s studying whatever’s on the screen pretty intently. I can’t see what it is from here, but he’s deep in concentration. His hair is slicked back, and his beard is even a little fuller than it was this afternoon.

  I take a sip of my Kasey, and the ice in the glass clinks together, drawing Axel’s attention away from his work and toward me.

  Normally his eyes soften when they land on me, but not today. Today, they almost seem to take on an even angrier flare after a momentary surprise flashes through them.

  I clear my throat. “Can I, uh, come in?”

 
; He raises his brows and shrugs, and then he turns his attention back to his screen. I walk in and take a seat across from his desk, and he continues to ignore me.

  “Can we please talk?” I ask.

  “I’m busy,” he grunts.

  I sigh; I deserve this. “Do you have a time that works better?”

  He pauses and opens the calendar on his laptop. “Next Monday at two.”

  “Axel, stop it. Be serious.”

  “Fine then. Tomorrow at noon.”

  Alarm bells ring in my head. That’s my coffee date—I mean coffee appointment—with James. Does he somehow know that? “Are you seriously scheduling me in?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, do you not like that?”

  “I get it, it’s my own medicine and all that. I’m sorry. I made a mistake, and you deserve my attention.”

  “I like that you can admit that when it’s too fucking late.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s too late. We’ve both cooled off a little, and I realized some things today.”

  “Oh? Like what?”

  “Like I don’t want to break up. I don’t want to reevaluate.”

  He finally turns away from his screen and toward me. He pinches the bridge of his nose before he addresses me. “We’ve talked about what you want at length, Emme.”

  “I know we have, so tell me what you want.”

  “I want you. I want your attention. I want you to act like you want to be with me.”

  “Of course I want to be with you!”

  He raises his brows in surprise. “Could’ve fooled me. I want to know that there’s more for us than this stagnation. I want to know I have a future with you. I want to stop balancing on pins and needles around you because I’m afraid you’ll bolt if I press too hard, but I don’t think those are the same things you want. I’m not even saying we have to get married—or even engaged—any time soon. I just want to be with someone who wants a future with me, and I don’t think you do.”

  I take a sip of my drink before I reply because I don’t know how to respond to that. “I don’t know what I want, Axel, but I do know that when I imagine my future, you’re there with me.”

  He presses his lips together for a second. “So you’re comfortable, I get that. We’re good together, and we both know it, but that doesn’t mean you want the same future I want.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Marriage. Kids. Maybe a dog.”

  He lets that hang between us. A dog? Sure. The rest of it? I don’t know.

  “Let me ask you a question,” he says. I nod for him to continue. “When you picture the future, what else do you see aside from me?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I see The Port, I guess.”

  “Okay, good, and who is there?”

  “Court and Carter.”

  He nods as if that answers everything.

  “What are you getting at?”

  “They’re friends, Emme. Friends.”

  “So?”

  “So that’s exactly my point. When you think of the future, maybe I’m in it, but so are your friends, and maybe that’s where we’re better off.”

  “As friends.”

  He nods. “For a relationship to work, there have to be goals. Both people have to be on the same page. With us…I’m not even sure we’re in the same book, let alone on the same page. I have something I need to tell you. Do you think you’re ready to hear a really tough truth?”

  I feel tears prick behind my eyes. This isn’t what I want, and it isn’t how I imagined this conversation going.

  “I…I think…” I trail off. I don’t want that. That’s what I want to say. It’s what I need to say, and what Axel needs to hear. I don’t think we’re better off as friends. I set my drink down on the desk. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  I throw my hand over my mouth and quickly stand, and Axel looks horrified for a second, but then I’m not looking at him anymore because I’m blindly looking around the room for the garbage can I swear he kept by the door, and then I find it and I’m heaving my tacos from lunch into it.

  “Shit,” he mutters, and somehow I hear it through my retching.

  I feel his hands gathering my hair into a ponytail in his fist as he literally holds my hair back while I get sick into his garbage can.

  When I’m done, I sit on the floor, unable to hold myself up for another second, and lean my head against the wall. Axel lets my hair down and rubs my back, and this is better. I need his closeness, not his threats.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “A hug and some water,” I croak.

  He gives me a small smile before gathering me up into his arms, and I feel safe and protected here. He presses a kiss to my forehead.

  “So is that a no to just friends?” he asks.

  I manage a small smile and a quiet chuckle. “That’s a definite no.”

  He sets me back down on the ground. “I’ll be back with your water and a new garbage can.”

  He takes the trash with him, holding it away from his body because, well, it smells like vomit now, and disappears out the door.

  CHAPTER 13

  AXEL

  Fuck. I was about to tell Emme that Kasey kissed me, and then she destroyed my garbage can. She’s not going to handle this well, but it’s not something I can keep from her.

  I tie up the liner inside my trashcan and toss it in the dumpster, and then I set the trashcan outside the door to air out. I haven’t smoked in four years, but suddenly I could use a cigarette coupled with a tumbler of scotch, neat.

  I stand out there for a minute, the small employee parking lot just in front of me. Most of us who work here live within walking distance, so the lot is almost never full. I draw in a cleansing breath.

  I almost just told her, and that fact has got my hands shaking. It was hard enough to draw up the courage to start the conversation, and now I’m going to have to do it all over again. I need to tell her. Her last relationship ended because of infidelity, not that I’d consider someone else kissing me infidelity, exactly, but it’s currently a secret that feels wrong to keep.

  I draw in another breath, hold it for a five count, and let it go, and then I head back into my office to take Emme home.

  Once I’m satisfied that she’s settled into my bed and doesn’t need me for anything, I head back to the bar. I’m not supposed to even be here tonight. This is Carter’s night, and if he isn’t available, it’s Ben’s night. I shouldn’t really have been there earlier today when Kasey kissed me, either, but by some fluke, I was. It’s all about timing, and I was definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  If I’d been at home where I was supposed to be, Kasey wouldn’t have thought it was okay to kiss me. Did I send out some signal I wasn’t even aware of? Did I ask for this?

  I consider staying home with Emme. She might need me, but she basically shooed me away, and I don’t really want to be there right now, anyway. This thing is eating away at me, but now’s not the time to tell her, not right after she got sick.

  So, I walk back to the bar. I walk slowly because I don’t really want to be there, either. The two places I most like to be are the two places I don’t want to be tonight, and it’s a strange feeling.

  I walk in the back door but head right out to the bar to check on things. It’s still my place, and I have a hard time putting that much trust in my staff. I know they can handle it—they do all the time—but I tend to live by the motto that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

  While Ben and Kasey are doing a fine job and everyone seems happy, I spot a guy who has clearly had way too much to drink. He can hardly stand as he wobbles his way back toward the bar. He’s holding a beer that’s half-full, and it’s spilling over the sides as he stumbles. I watch as he says something to Kasey, and she says something back to him. He’s probably hitting on her, but she can hold her own against drunken perverts. She’s done it hundreds of times.

  He’s not taking
the hint, though, and he’s not backing down. I stroll over and step behind the bar, keeping an eye on this guy. Kasey’s filling a pint from the tap, and I hope to God it’s not for the drunk guy.

  She glances at me standing there. “What’s up, boss?” She’s acting like nothing happened, which is exactly what I told her to do. I’m glad, because she’s one of my best bartenders. I can’t lose her to a stupid indiscretion between us.

  “Cut him off,” I say.

  She stops the tap.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he asks.

  “I own this place. Who the fuck are you?”

  “I own this place, too,” he says, and then he laughs snidely.

  Sometimes drunk people are just absolute fucking morons.

  “He actually does,” Kasey says, nodding toward me.

  I smirk at Drunky McDrunkerson—Kasey’s name for guys like him that has stuck with me.

  “And I’m sleeping with your hottest bartender,” Drunky says, eyeing Kasey lewdly.

  “All right, man, that’s enough,” I say calmly.

  “What? You fucking her and you own this place?”

  “Get out,” I say.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “That’s funny, because I disagree,” I say. I wonder if I’d be kicking this assclown out on any other day, or if he’s rubbing me the wrong way because of what happened earlier today.

  Kelvin, our bouncer, doesn’t work on Mondays and Tuesdays unless we have entertainment booked. We don’t today, so my only backup tonight is Ben, which isn’t a bad thing, actually. Ben’s a good guy, and he’s also heavily into weights and strength training.

  “I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.” He slurs his words badly.

  I glance at Kasey. “How many did you give him?”

  “Six.”

  I look back at the drunk guy. “Get the fuck out of my bar.” I say each word slowly so this idiot can understand me as my insides fill with some strange combination of rage and anxiety. I hate confrontation, and I hate being the bad guy, but this guy said some pretty nasty things on my home turf. “We make adult drinks here, and if you can’t act like an adult, you don’t get a drink.”