"Why are you so wet?" I force my gaze back up to his eyes. “Did you walk here?”
"I live just a few houses down the street, and I don't have a car right now," he says, continuing his attempts at drying my phone. Every time his hand moves it across the back of my seat, I feel it running against my body, and for a second, I wonder if it's because of this crazy weird connection I feel to this guy, and then I realise that it's actually probably just that my car is an old piece of crap and the seat is barely padded at all.
"You're opening a bar, but you don't own a car?" I tilt my head. It seems strange, to have money for one but not the other.
"No." His eyes darken dangerously. "I ride a motorbike."
I swallow. "Oh."
The air crackles between us, and everything about this guy, from the fact he rides what Ana used to call a ‘death machine’ to the bulk of his arm muscles, screams not safe. And for some reason, even though I’ve been spending the last eighteen months avoiding everything unstable, I’m drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
"Why are you staring at my arms?"
I jerk my hand back that had somehow moved very close to his bicep without my realising.
"I ... was wondering ..." Think, Lia, think, "... if you work out."
My normal brain slaps this idiotic flirty bitch upside the head.
"Oh." He gives a cheeky smile. "So you think my arms look good."
"No." I shake my head, and his expression switches to one of hurt. "I mean, yes! Of course! They're very, very nice arms. I bet they ... come in handy. For a lot of things."
This time, my normal brain walks out, shouting back, You're on your own, sucker.
"They do." Something sparkles in his eyes. "I use them at work, and at play."
Holy caviar on a crab cake. My heart picks up its pace, bouncing around in my chest like a cheerleader at a football hottie convention, and it's all I can do to pick my jaw up off the floor and make some semblance of normal conversation.
"You study?" My phone still in hand, he indicates the textbooks on the front seat, clearly oblivious to the internal hormone combustion I have going on. "I always wanted to go to university."
"Yeah. I'm just doing ... Arts." I snap my history textbook closed. It's just another white lie to add to the already existing bunch.
"Yeah?" He frowns and leans closer, resting his arms on the back of my seat. There is just a really thin, really old, completely useless piece of material between his wet, hot body and mine right now. "I woulda thought you'd be doing something with music."
"I want to. I've actually got an audition for a scholarship, to transfer to VCA in Melbourne and study Contemporary Piano."
"Good. A talent like yours shouldn't be wasted," he says, sincerity lining his features. "Although, not good for me. I'll be losing my favourite soon-to-be employee."
Even though the words are innocent, they send a dangerous chill down my spine. I square my shoulders, and force myself to get a grip. He’s just a guy, Lia.
A guy I've done nothing but lie to since he came into my life.
The most honest thing I've done is let him hear me play.
"Well, let's not go making presumptions yet." I place my textbook back in my bag, careful not to let him see my uniform stuffed in there as well, and hold my hand out. "Phone, please."
Slap.
The metal makes contact with my hand, and I check the screen and see that it's not broken, and also that he's changed the background picture to a snapshot of one of—oh God, it's a picture of one muscly-looking arm.
"Very funny."
"Thank you."
I mock-glare at him in my rear-view. This car is definitely not big enough for the two of us. I smile and tease, "Get outta my car and train me already."
"Say please," he provokes, and I'm somewhere between ready to slap him and jump him when he realises he might be pushing me too far and places his hand on the door, ready to step back out into the pouring rain.
"Please," I mumble, and he bolts out of my car, up the ramp and through the flaps into the bay at the top.
I grit my teeth and tuck my phone in my jeans pocket, removing the keys from the engine.
This is gonna be a long day.
***
I leap up the ramp, trying to maintain purchase on the slippery surface with my Cons. The rain is relentless, attacking every inch of my body in the short ten-second walk from the Corolla to the bar, and by the time I hit the back room, I'm soaked.
The door to the bar is open, and after wringing my ponytail to try and squeeze some of the excess moisture out, I walk through to the main room.
"Here." A white towel is handed to me, and I pad it to my face then wrap it around my shoulders. It smells like fabric softener and clean and him.
And I hate that I like that.
I force myself to drape the delicious-smelling towel over a bar stool, even though I'm still soaked to the bone. Jase raises his eyebrows at me.
"My clothes are soaked. There's nothing a towel can do."
"Suit yourself." He's wrapped in a similar white towel, or perhaps a sheet, judging by how much of him it covers. He walks over to a little box on the wall to the side of the bar and flicks a few switches. Something whirs to life, and soon warm air starts to filter through the room from the unit above the front door and the one we just came through, which I quickly move to close.
Just as I do, though, the door swings open, and in walks a girl in what have to be four-inch heels, the skinniest skinny jeans known to man—seriously, are they spray-on? I almost want to do a touch check—and a cleavage-revealing V-necked top. She looks around twenty-one, twenty-two. His age. Not like seventeen-year-old illegal employee over here.
"Soraya! You're here." Jase gives her an easy smile.
"Hi sweetie." She struts over and kisses him on the cheek.
"Where should I put this?" Soraya slides what could be an overnight bag over her arm.
"Anywhere for now, but during shift you can pop it under a shelf in the kitchen." He gestures to the small room behind the bar.
Soraya trots off to do just that, and I shuffle my feet, suddenly feeling very underdressed, with my Cons and wet hair. Thankfully, I'm not left as the odd one out in their love-fest for long, because the door swings open again and this time, another guy and a girl walk in, both who look a lot less slut-tastic than Soraya and a lot more ... well, like me. Both are dressed in skate shoes and jeans, and have also suffered the effects of the weather outside, which Soraya somehow magically avoided. Maybe she's wearing so much makeup the rain was repelled by it.
"Kyle, Hope, meet Lia. Soraya is just putting her things down in back."
"Hi." Hope smiles, and Kyle gives a short nod.
"We're starting small staff-wise, as you can see, and we’ll grow when we see what kinda demand there is," Jase says, rinsing his hands under the tap in the small sink at the back of the bar. I don't know why he bothers—they've just been soaked with rain.
"Cool," Kyle says, his voice as low as his shoes are from his head. Seriously, the man is tall. Probably so tall, he wouldn't be allowed to play basketball, because it isn't a slam dunk if you're just placing the ball in the net.
"Okay, so uniform wise, I'd like you all just to wear black. Keep your style to whatever you feel comfortable in—obviously nothing too revealing or too casual," he says, walking behind the bar. Soraya comes out from the kitchen and sidles past him, her chest brushing his back. I don't pick up the glass Jase places on the bar and hit her with it, because I'm not jealous and also because I'm a good, sane, rational person.
"Now, let's run through a few basic cocktails, and then I'll go through the cash register system, which you guys'll find a breeze."
With that, he pulls out various bottles from the wall behind him, as well as several more glasses, while Soraya, Kyle, Hope and I sit at the bar and take notes on our phones while watching him make a series of drinks. And man, Jase is good. Some of the drinks look simple, but other
s involve fire, flare, and the speed with which he shakes a drink? Wow. Seriously, it's impressive.
"Where did you do your training?" I ask while Kyle steps behind the bar to try and recreate a whiskey sour, as Jase just taught us.
"I ... I learnt a lot from a friend," he says, and his eyes shift away. He’s hiding something. There’s so much dark about this man.
"You truly have a gift," Soraya simpers, placing a hand on his arm, and he smiles, then shrugs it off to go and grab the correct tumbler for Kyle to pour his shaken drink into.
It turns out that the other three here all have bar experience and nail the drinks pretty quickly, leaving just me as the novice with no bar skills. When it's my turn to try and give some of Jase's drinks a spin, not only do I struggle to make the spoon twirl around the glass without my fingers tripping over each other, but also my shake is so pathetic that the egg whites don't stiffen and give the sour a foam, making it just some weird wishy-washy texture with lumps.
"We'll start you on the floor," Jase says, chucking me on the chin, and I smile.
Three hours later and Jase gets us all to fill out some basic paperwork where I lie about my age in print, just for something different, and then we leave, with promises that we'll we back at five to start the shift.
I linger by the door, hesitant to leave. Soraya also lingers, although she's well and truly inside the bar.
"Sorry, Jase?"
"Yes, Lia?" he asks, and him saying my name does more of those twisty things to my insides.
"You don't want me to play tonight ... do you?" I bite my lip.
"No." He smiles that million-dollar smile, and I huff a breath of relief. Thank eff. "But whenever you're ready, I'd love it."
"Thanks," I say, and I wonder if he knows that I've never played in front of an audience before, or if he just senses that I'm freaking the hell out about even working in the bar, let alone performing for money. Either way, I'm grateful. "See ya tonight."
I turn on my heel, but just as I take a step he calls my name once more. "Lia?"
I pause. "Yeah?"
"You did get your RSA, didn't you?"
Crap. What with Mum and the doctors and her newfound progress, as well as her nightmare, I completely forgot. I close my eyes. What's one more lie to add to the list?
"Sure did," I say, and with that I head out the door and fly down the ramp and to my car, the rain pelting like whips on my back. I don't shake it off, though, but relish it, embrace the pain for what it is. It's a penance for what I've just done, the lie I've just told.
If only that was the only sin I'd committed in the last year and a half.
I'm going to hell.
And nothing will save me now.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The house looms before me, a dark wooden structure with cream paint flaking away at the corners. I pull up in the drive next to Smith's car, and my hand tightens around the stick as I put it in park.
The clouds overhead play tricks on the windows, mirroring the outside world back at me when all I want to know is what is happening inside. What is going on behind that glass veneer.
Steeling myself against the rain, I fling open the car door and bolt inside, twisting the handle and cursing when I find it locked as the rain continues its assault on my back. Finally, I fling it open, and straight away wish I hadn't.
On the couch are Mum and Smith, kissing, her legs over his lap, his arms cradling her, making her look even smaller than she really is.
I hate my father. I in no way want him back in our lives, but this? I don't know that I'm ready to see another guy mauling my parental in front of me, especially when so much about her is so very breakable right now.
I debate turning around and leaving, but my hair is soaked, and I need a shower and to change my clothes before I start my first shift, so I push the door all the way open and walk through. They don't pause in their make-out session, even though they have to have heard the onslaught of wind and rain when I opened the door and slammed it behind me.
"Hi," I say loudly, but nothing. No response. It's as if they're in their own weird tongue-wrestling, tonsil-searching universe.
I shudder and kick off my soaked shoes then walk upstairs. Goosebumps line my arms, and I rub against them furiously in an attempt to get warm again, but this kind of cold goes straight to your bones.
"Oh, Smith," Mum moans, and I clench my jaw tightly. It may not be what I want, but no empty glasses litter the table, and I take solace in the hope that she’s not drinking. Or doing anything else.
Another benefit of them being so involved in Pash-On Land is that they don't notice I'm not in my school uniform, and that Mum doesn't ask why I haven't gone straight to practise, since school would be out by now.
The thought causes a slight sting as I realise that working on a Friday night is going to cut into my practise time. Not by much—I can still head to the hall straight after school and get in a sold hour and a half—but at this stage in the game, every minute counts.
“Just letting you know I won’t be home till around one tonight,” I say loudly, walking up the stairs. “So don’t wait up.”
Huh. No response.
I traipse into my room, mentally running through the songs I’m playing in my application. I have them mostly down pat, which just means I need to keep up the good grades and stay out of trouble.
The thought only hits me as I catalogue it. I took this stupid job to get out of a potential criminal record, but can you get in trouble for being underage in a bar? I gulp and swallow down the sour taste that's risen to my mouth. I'm sure the answer will be yes, but it's no doubt a lesser crime than theft. If something should happen, I could escape out the back door. And besides, I haven't been caught for that.
Yet.
I strip off my shirt and wrestle with my jeans, peeling them down my legs and hanging them over the back of a chair to dry. My stomach growls, reminding me that it's desperate for food, and because I can't decide which is more urgent, being warm or being fed, I grab the sandwich I packed and put in my bag before 'school' this morning and take a huge bite, then I wrap my towel around myself, ready to make the run across the hall and into the bathroom.
My hand on the bathroom door, I push it open, but not before I hear the moans and groans and oh my God total SEX sounds coming from downstairs. I throw myself into the bathroom and slam the door shut, flinging the shower faucets on full ball to drown out the hideous, hideous sound of my mother having sex. Because, no. Gross.
My towel falls to the floor and I study my egg and tomato sandwich, which has suddenly lost its appeal. As I turn to throw it in the bathroom bin before hopping in the shower, I catch sight of my near-naked body, and I freeze.
Seeing it makes it so much more real.
It's why I never face the mirror in the bathroom.
I spin back around in an instant, remove my underwear and bra, and let the hot water warm my skin and the steam blur out the mirror.
Some scars hurt too much to see.
***
The doors open promptly at six, and at first, the five of us kind of stand around, doing nothing, but soon enough a few people filter in. Apparently, Jase didn't invite anyone, just told locals he ran into around town, as he wanted to make sure we were operating full steam before doing a 'launch'.
Old swing music softly pulses through the speakers, and soon the percussion of ice, shaking and stirring is added to the tunes as people order drinks.
I'm weirdly nervous for Jase, and I watch as he rushes about, making sure people are getting their drinks, receiving their bar snacks and generally having a good time. His shoulders are tensed, and he's always moving, his gaze constantly flicking around the room.
Jase, Hope, Kyle and I fall into a smooth routine, and at our peak, thirty-odd customers are in the bar. I'm in the kitchen washing glasses, then polishing them and stacking them back out front for the boys to use. I feel safe there, like I'm doing the least amount of illegal activity I possib
ly can while being in a venue underage. Hope's running to and from tables collecting orders, a hospitality-plus smile plastered across her face, and Kyle and Jase are making the drinks. We're like a well-oiled machine.
And then there's Soraya.
Soraya kind of struts around, stopping at tables where men are sitting, sometimes leaning in toward them, her generous rack resting on the wooden table tops, and occasionally coyly-my-arse playing with her hair. I think I saw her take a drink to a guy once, and I know she took the bill for a few people back up to the counter—minus the tip I saw her pocket. She'd check the team out front weren't watching before she'd do it, but perhaps I was as invisible to her as I felt there in my little kitchen hole. Maybe I just wasn't important enough to be on her radar.
The night ticked on, and I had to blink my tired eyes awake. It seemed everyone was feeling the effects of our first full night of trading, our movements getting slower, sluggish. It was half past twelve when Jase finally closed the door and slumped onto the table nearest it. "We did it!"
"Yiew!" Kyle calls from behind the bar, grabbing a few different bottles and some glasses, suddenly full of energy.
"That better be the sound of staff drinks I hear," Jase mumbles from under his arms, and Kyle confirms that they are indeed staff drinks he's making.
I circle the room once more, putting the last glasses in the dishwasher, then tentatively tap Jase on the shoulder, unsure what I should do next. "Do you need me to ... mop?"
"No." His head jerks up, his expression serious, and he places his hands either side of my arms. The touch sends heat shooting through me like a bullet. "I need you to have a goddamn staffie."
“What’s a …?”
“A staffie?” Jase cocks his head to the side. “Staff drinks.”
“Oh.” I smile, and he pulls me close to his chest in a hug, and my heart stops. Wow. Because up close, he smells so good, and his arms around me sends currents of electricity through my body. It’s thrilling and dangerous all at once. It makes me feel fragile and small but also like I could take a risk. Like I could take a chance, and fight against the odds.
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