Moon Over Manhattan: Book 2 of the Moon Series

by Graves, Jane

  A nondescript guy in his late twenties stood beside her, looking a like a dog waiting for his mistress's command. She yanked his invisible leash and he followed her to a table by the wall. He pulled out her chair, then hustled around to sit beside her.

  "So that's her?" Kelsey whispered to Angi.

  "Yep," Angi whispered back. "That's Tamara. The melon baller."

  "She sat in my section," Paul said, a hint of panic in his voice. "What do I do now?"

  "You might try taking her drink order," Brett said.

  Andrea swept by. “Don’t worry,” she told Paul. “I’ll take that table.” She looked back over her shoulder. “Unless you want it because you’re still hung up on her.”

  “I’m not hung up on her!” he said in a loud stage whisper.

  Andrea smiled and kept on walking. Paul's eyebrows drew together with irritation. "But I don’t get it. That's a guy with her."

  "Congratulations,” Angi said. "You can tell one sex from another."

  Tamara leaned toward her date, running her fingertip up and down his arm, acting as if she was giving him her undivided attention. But the sidelong glances she threw in Paul's direction told Kelsey her attention was directed elsewhere.

  "Hey," Angi said to Paul.

  He continued to stare.

  "Hey," Angi said.

  He didn't so much as flick an eyelash.

  Angi slapped his arm with the back of her hand. "Hey!"

  Paul whipped around. "What?"

  "Why are you staring at her?"

  "I'm not."

  "Right. If you stare at her any harder, your eyeballs are going to explode. Why don't you just admit you still have a thing for her?"

  "I do not! Why does everybody keep saying that?"

  "Uh…because you can't seem to stuff your exploding eyeballs back into your head?"

  "I just wonder who that guy is, that's all."

  "She's just trying to make you jealous."

  Paul's eyebrows lifted. "Yeah? You think?"

  Angi frowned. "You might try not being happy about that."

  "I'm not! I divorced her!"

  "Technically, she divorced you."

  "Well, okay. So why would she want to make me jealous?"

  "I don't know." Then Angi looked at him speculatively. "Why don't you go over there and beat up the guy she’s with? I bet that would really piss her off."

  At the mere mention of Tamara flying off the handle, Paul swallowed hard, looking flushed. Kelsey was starting to think Angi’s theory about sexual excitement stemming from fear might have some merit. Kelsey would bet ten bucks he had an erection, but the last thing she wanted to do was look down to see if she was right.

  Then Paul snapped out of his trance. “I don’t want to beat anybody up,” he said angrily. “And I’m not still hung up on her. It’s you and me, babe. That's all I want."

  With that, he grabbed Angi by the shoulders and gave her a deep, hot kiss that made most of the people in the bar turn and stare, Tamara included. “Now, the next time you tell me I have a thing for my ex-wife,” he said, “you think about that.” Then he stormed off to the kitchen.

  Angi sat there, stunned. "Did he just kiss me?"

  “Uh…yeah.”

  "No. He didn’t just kiss me. He kissed me in public. We've talked about that. That means something.” She paused. “It does mean something, doesn’t it?”

  Yes, that kiss had meant something. It meant Paul still had a tragically advanced case of the hots for his ex-wife and he wanted to play the jealousy game right along with her. But Kelsey could see Angi liked Paul just a little more than he really deserved.

  “The other night,“ Angi said, “he told me he’d never felt as comfortable around a woman as he felt around me. That has to mean something too, right?”

  Kelsey resisted the urge to groan. Yeah, that meant something, too. It meant he’d finally found a woman who didn’t mind if he sat around in his underwear, watching TV with a beer in his hand. Angi’s eyes had always been wide open where men were concerned. So why had she suddenly gone blind?

  For the next half hour, the game continued. Tamara kissed her date, practically chewing his face off, while Paul pretended to give his total attention to Angi in between taking orders and delivering drinks. Brett buzzed around the bar, chatting with customers and keeping things moving, but he kept an eye on Paul the whole time. Kelsey could see she wasn’t the only one who thought this thing could blow up in a way that would go down in Gianelli’s history.

  "Look at that," Kelsey said. "What's going on now?"

  Angi whipped around just as Tamara, who'd risen from her table, was walking toward Paul. She stopped in front of him, leaned in, and said something in his ear. He backed away, his eyes wide with shock.

  With a smug expression, Tamara strode down the hall and disappeared into the ladies' room.

  "What do you think she said to him?" Kelsey asked.

  "Probably had something to do with the damned melon baller," Angi grumbled. "I'm telling you, the woman's unhinged. What do men see in a woman like her?”

  “Got me.”

  “When they were getting divorced, they fought over who was going to get to keep their cat. She said if they couldn’t decide, then maybe they should split him down the middle. Paul said he wasn’t completely sure she was just overstating the issue to make a point, so he gave her the cat.”

  Angi told Kelsey a few more stories about just how pathologically twisted Tamara was. Even if Paul wasn’t as twisted, did Angi really want to get involved with a guy who had that kind of baggage?

  Kelsey looked around. “I haven’t seen Paul for a while. Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. Smoke break?”

  “Probably.”

  Then they heard a woman scream.

  Angi whipped around. “What was that?”

  “It came from the bathroom,” Kelsey said. They jumped off their barstools and ran down the hall. Just as they reached the door to the ladies' room, a woman burst out. Then she turned around and shouted back inside.

  "You're not supposed to be in there, you pervert!" She turned around to Kelsey and Angi. "Don't go in. There's a man in there. With a woman. And they're…oh, God. Right there in the bathroom stall!"

  As the woman hurried away, Kelsey and Angi ran inside to find Paul leaning against the wall, his face orgasm-red. Half his shirt tail was untucked, and his pants were unzipped. Tamara was leaning across the sink, her skirt hiked up almost to her ass, nonchalantly touching up her lipstick in the bathroom mirror.

  Brett burst through the door. "What the hell is going on in here?"

  "Nothing," Paul said, still breathing hard.

  "Nothing? Really?”

  Tamara sashayed out the door, tossing Angi an evil victory smile. Paul’s gaze followed every slutty shift of her hips as she went.

  "Hey!" Brett said.

  Paul whipped around.

  "My office," Brett snapped. "Now!"

  He turned to leave, and Paul followed after him. Brett turned back. "Will you zip it?"

  "Hey, I didn't say a word!"

  "Your pants, Paul!"

  "Oh." Paul followed Brett out of the bathroom, zipping his jeans as he went. And he didn't so much as toss a single glance at Angi on his way out.

  Angi stood in the middle of the bathroom, staring after him, an expression of shock on her face. “Did they just do what I think they did?”

  “Looks that way,” Kelsey said.

  Angi went to the sink and washed her hands for no apparent reason, except that she clearly needed something to do with them that didn't involve wrapping them around Paul's neck. But as the seconds passed, Kelsey could see her homicidal urges taking a backseat to another emotion entirely.

  "Are you okay?" Kelsey asked.

  Angi grabbed a paper towel. "I'm fine," she said, a little too cheerfully. "I mean, it wasn't as if I didn't know he was still hung up on his crazy-ass ex-wife, right? It was only a matter of time befo
re they both ended up back in Dysfunction Junction."

  "He's not worth getting upset over," Kelsey said.

  "I know. He's scum." Angi rubbed her hands with a paper towel. She tossed that one, then yanked out another one and went at it again. "That seems perfectly obvious now. So why did I get involved with him in the first place?"

  "Sex?"

  Angi shrugged weakly. "That wasn't even all that great. So what was the point?" She tossed the second paper towel in the trash and leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh. “Just how big an idiot am I, anyway?”

  “You’re not. Paul’s the idiot.”

  Angi flicked her gaze toward the door. "What do you suppose Brett is saying to him?"

  “With luck, he won’t say anything. He’ll just take him out back and shoot him.”

  “I’ll help him hide the body.”

  “And I’ll be your alibi. Together I think the three of us can pull it off.”

  A tiny smile flickered on Angi’s lips. Then her gaze softened, and she tilted her head. “Brett's a good guy, you know? Better than I thought.”

  Oh, yeah. Kelsey knew exactly what Angi was talking about. How many times had she made assumptions about Brett that had turned out to be dead wrong?

  "Yeah. He is."

  “You two are seeing a lot of each other."

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So is it serious?”

  Just the word sent shivers of hope right down Kelsey's spine. Just as quickly, she slapped herself for it. The moment she started thinking good things were going to happen, the universe conspired against her and turned everything upside down. It had happened all her life. Why would this time be any different?

  “What do you mean by ‘serious’?” she asked Angi.

  “You know. Are you exclusive? Are you allowed to see other people?”

  Kelsey pondered that for a moment. “I don’t know. We’ve never talked about it.” She paused. "He wants me to meet his family.”

  Angi's mouth fell open. “Holy crap. It is serious!”

  “Maybe he just wants company on the train to White Plains,” Kelsey said.

  “That's only a forty‑minute ride. I imagine he can entertain himself that long.”

  “Maybe it's one of those things where his grandmother is dying and she always wanted him to settle down, so he wants to make her think he's seeing somebody, when really--”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Kelsey sighed. “I don't know. It's all just so weird.”

  “You think he can't like you that much. That he's just out for a good time. That there must be a punch line somewhere. It's coming soon, and when it does…bam!”

  That was it exactly. That was how she'd felt about this whole thing from the very beginning. She shrugged weakly. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “Well, knock it off. You're one of the best people I know. Brett's lucky you even give him the time of day.”

  “You're my friend. You're supposed to say that.”

  “I mean it. He may be hot, but you have substance.”

  “Right. Next you're going to say I have a good personality.”

  “Uh…no. I love you like a sister, but good personality is pushing it.” Angi let out a sigh. “I think I’m envious.”

  "Of what?"

  "You and Brett."

  “Why? I thought you weren't really looking for Mr. Right."

  Angi shrugged weakly. "I'm keeping one eye open."

  "Why the change of heart?"

  "I don’t know. You're just acting all different these days. Makes me think I’m missing something. Maybe that’s why I tried to make Paul into something he wasn’t.”

  “I’m not acting different.”

  “Oh, yes, you are,” Angi said. “If we were in junior high, you’d be doodling Brett’s name on all your notebooks. It’s because you’re happy. I’ve never seen you happy before.”

  “That’s crap.”

  “No, it isn’t. You’re one of those people who always seems kinda…I don’t know. Glum?”

  Kelsey thought about that, and she could see how Angi had a point. But in the past few weeks, she hadn’t felt that way at all. In fact, she’d felt the opposite of glum. If that was happy, that was how she felt. And it was because of Brett.

  But what if she’d been right in the first place? What if this wasn’t the real thing? This could just be his modus operandi with every woman he dated. And when he got bored, he moved on. If that happened, how would she ever deal with it?

  "I think I'm going home now," Angi said.

  "Want me to come along? Keep you company?"

  "Nah. I’ll pick up a quart of triple chocolate fudge ice cream. Once I'm in a sugar coma, everything will be just fine again."

  Kelsey wasn't remotely a touchy feely kind of person, but she found herself stepping forward to give Angi a hug.

  "Paul's an ass,” she said. “You're too good for him."

  "Damn right I am." Then she looked at Kelsey with disbelief. "Did you just hug me?"

  "Yeah."

  "I don't get you anymore."

  "I know. I don't get me, either. Is that a bad thing?"

  "No," Angi said with a smile. "It's a good thing. Really good."

  They walked out of the ladies' room. Angi left the bar, and Kelsey sat back down again. From what she could see, the melon baller had evidently decided she'd caused enough havoc for one night, so she'd left. Her date had cleared out with her. The bartenders and the rest of the staff were whispering among themselves, undoubtedly voicing their opinions about the advisability of sex in the workplace.

  As for Paul and Brett, they were nowhere to be seen. Kelsey only hoped Brett had the nerve to make Paul’s punishment fit his crime.

  * * *

  Paul slouched on the tattered sofa in Brett's office, one leg hiked over the arm, still flushed from his encounter with Tamara. Brett sat on the edge of his desk with his arms folded, trying to get a grip on his anger.

  "Paul? Were you actually having sex with your ex-wife in the ladies' room?"

  Paul gave him an innocent look. "Now, what in the world makes you say that?"

  "I need an answer."

  Paul rolled his eyes. "Yes, boss. I was having sex in the ladies' room. And it was fucking amazing, if you'll pardon the pun. Whew. Tell me again why I divorced that woman?"

  "Are you completely out of your mind?"

  "Yeah. Why I agreed to that divorce, I'll never know."

  "I'm talking about having sex in the ladies' room!"

  Paul frowned. "Hey, I seem to remember your story about the time you joined the Mile High Club. Evidently I'm not the only one who likes to do it in bathrooms."

  "I was nineteen years old," Brett said, trying to keep a lid on his anger. "And I didn't work for the airline."

  "Small difference if you ask me."

  "Are you kidding? The woman who walked in on you is already telling everyone that the ladies’ room at Gianelli's isn't safe to enter unless you like live sex shows!”

  “Oh, come on, Brett," Paul snapped. "Who doesn't like sex shows?”

  Brett couldn’t believe this. "Angi saw you in that bathroom. How do you feel about that?"

  Paul shrugged offhandedly. "We weren't exclusive."

  "So you don't think it bothered her at all to walk in on you doing your ex-wife in a bathroom stall?"

  "Like I said, I'm a free agent."

  "Good God, what's the matter with you?"

  "I can't believe you're making a big deal out of this."

  Brett hated confrontation more than just about anything on earth, but something had to be done about this. Paul had been screwing off for a long time now, thinking nobody would do anything about it. Well, maybe Jerry wouldn't, but he wasn't there, and Brett had to manage this place however he saw fit. He didn't care what the repercussions were with the rest of the staff. He'd deal with that later. But for now, enough was enough.

  "You're right, Paul," he said. "You are a free agent,
and in more ways than one."

  "Huh?"

  "You're fired.”

  16

  After calling Brett every name in the book, Paul stood, ripped off his apron, tossed it on the floor, and stormed out of the office. Brett glared at the doorway for a long time afterward, still filled with righteous anger. To hell with you, too, he thought, feeling fortunate to be rid of him.

  But after a few minutes, that righteous anger faded, and Brett swore he was going to be sick. Had he done the right thing? He didn’t know. He only knew there was going to be fallout.

  A moment later, he heard a knock. He looked over to see Andrea standing in the doorway to his office.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “Paul just left.” She took a few steps into the office. “He told me you fired him.”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  She looked flabbergasted. “So it’s true? You actually fired him?"

  Brett’s heart skipped with apprehension. “Uh…yeah."

  "Are you freaking kidding me?"

  Brett's stomach fell to the vicinity of his knees. Here it came. First there would be dissention in the ranks. Then murmurings of an uprising. Before long he'd have a full‑fledged rebellion on his hands.

  "No, I'm not kidding you," Brett said.

  To his total disbelief, Andrea's astonished expression melted into a smile of delight. "Well, it's about time."

  Huh?

  "Do you know how long Paul has been screwing off around this place? Since before you got here, and that’s been a while. A couple of us complained to Jerry, but he didn’t do anything about it."

  Brett couldn’t believe it. “I didn’t know. You never said anything to me."

  “How could we? We thought you guys were friends. We couldn’t exactly complain about him to you. He was the one who got you the job here in the first place. So when you became the boss, we thought he was here for life."

  Brett had never considered that. So all this time they were pissed about Paul being a slacker and he’d never known it?