by Amelia Jade
“Anyway,” Andria said abruptly, sliding her hand gently out from under his.
At least she hadn’t yanked it away like he was on fire.
“Time to work?”
She nodded. “Time to work. See those?”
He followed her finger. “The cases of empty bottles I brought up? Yes.”
“Those aren’t empties. Those are all full. Can you take them downstairs?”
Cowl’s head drooped. Dammit. He would take them downstairs. Then he’d bring them right back up if needed. Anything his mate needed, he would do it. If it allowed him to get to know her better, to talk to her, then he would consider that worth the cost.
Besides, it gave him a chance to show off his muscles, and he’d seen her checking him out before. That part, at least, he wasn’t worried about.
Now all he had to do was figure out what was going on with Jake.
Chapter Five
Andria
She was admiring his muscles. Again.
Annoyed at her easily distracted brain, Andria focused on actually doing her job. She ran out to the tables, collecting drink orders from Rob and Adam, some of her regulars. They were older men, retired, she believed. Harmless and always ready with a good one-liner.
“Finally did yourself a favor and hired yourself some eye-candy did you?”
“Rob!” she hissed, glaring at him and Adam as they laughed at her expense. “You know I would never hire someone just for their looks.”
“Of course not, Andria. Of course not.”
“I am a respectable…whatever title it is I hold here, thank you very much.”
She wasn’t a manager, not technically at least, though she was paid decently enough and treated like one. Mr. Logan was a mostly hands-off owner, and she was okay with that. It allowed her to run the place the way she liked. Efficiently.
Adam shook his head. “You still don’t have a title?”
“Do I really strike you as the type in need of titles and accolades, Adam?”
He reached up and removed his hat, scratching as his long ponytail. “No. I suppose not.”
“I’m all about following proper protocol when hiring someone.”
Rob snickered. “Right. Is that why he just showed up out of nowhere? We didn’t even know you were hiring. I would have given you a resume! I’m so much more qualified than he is.”
Andria didn’t hold back her laughter. “Just because you’ve taste-tested all of our beers multiple times does not make you qualified to work here.”
He looked down, pretending to be hurt. “No, but the employee discount would have been nice.”
They all shared a laugh. Cowl came clomping back up the stairs again, looking for another load of boxes to take down. He paused at the top, noticing her staring his way. He smiled, that easy grin of his that showed just enough of his white teeth to make her legs quiver, and then put his head down and went back to work, arms straining to lift the full boxes.
How was it that someone she’d just met the day before could have such an effect on her? She’d been more open with him than just about anyone in her life in recent memory. After what had happened she’d closed herself away from the world and most of her friends, determined to hide from everything, hoping it would just blow over. But as the situation grew bigger, she’d found it necessary to cut herself off completely.
Then Cowl had come along.
She got drinks and took them back to the few occupied tables before returning to the bar. It was looking to be another slow night. No problems there; maybe she could even get some schoolwork done. She doubted Cowl would mind either. He seemed ready and willing to do anything that helped her out. A model employee.
Andria purposely ignored the rather obvious signs it had little to do with him caring about his job or not, and more about him wanting to make her life better. She had to ignore them. Letting herself dwell on them would be a mistake. School would be done at the end of this year, finally. She would have her masters, and she could leave Barton City behind, moving to the coast like she’d always dreamt about.
Somewhere big, where she would be unknown, and nobody would recognize her face. Andria longed for such anonymity. Barton City sounded like a big place, but it really wasn’t. Especially after your name gets into the news. Privacy was a thing of the past to Andria, on so many levels. But once she graduated, she could leave and go somewhere else. A place far, far away.
Which meant saying no to fantasies of Cowl being interested in her, which she knew wasn’t the case. After all, how could he be? She was short, squat, and though she had large boobs, she had no hips whatsoever. Andria couldn’t even call herself curvy with a straight face. No guy wanted that. Especially not one like Cowl, who could have any woman he chose. He was just being nice to her, nothing more. A possible genuine good guy.
In another world she might allow herself to fantasize over the possibility. Who wouldn’t? Images of him pushing her down onto the bed, his massive arms pushing into the bed on either side of her as he lowered his mouth to her. It was all perfectly hot and enjoyable to think about. Even now she could feel her body reacting to the idea, telling her it sounded great.
But it was never going to happen. Things like that didn’t happen to Andria Chalmers. Only bad things happened to her.
She pulled her hair from its failing ponytail, giving it a shake and then whisking it back up behind her head, tying it back into place with a fresh hair elastic from around her wrist. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Cowl looking at her, a blank stare on his face.
“Something wrong?” she asked, hands working methodically to reform the ponytail.
It took him a while to reply, and when he did, his words were dazed, as if he hadn’t really heard her. “Wrong? No. Nothing’s wrong.”
“Just fascinated by the process of how a ponytail is created?”
Cowl blinked, her ribbing getting through whatever fog had clouded his brain there momentarily. His eyes grew slightly hooded, the corner of his mouth turning up. “Something like that,” he said cryptically, winking boldly before returning to sweeping the floor in front of the bar.
Andria was glad he didn’t do anything more. She was almost forced to hold onto the bar as her knees failed to obey her commands to stay stiff.
It wasn’t fair! One look at her and she turned to putty in his hands, but Cowl seemed cool and composed any time she was around. How was she supposed to work in a situation like this? Andria thought about letting him go, but realized that would just be hypocritical of her.
Was she that weak that she couldn’t keep herself together?
Chapter Six
Cowl
Andria closed the book in front of her and glanced up at the clock.
“Time to close up!” she announced, sounding far too excited.
In Cowl’s opinion, this was the worst part of the day. Not only was he to part with her, but he was forced to do so at night, leaving Andria on her own. His brain knew she would be perfectly safe. A city like this never truly slept, as he was discovering, and there were lights everywhere to guide her home. Night was no longer something to be feared quite the same.
That changed nothing. Night was still when the darker things in life came out to play, preying on the weaker and less fortunate. Andria had a strength of personality that surprised him, though she so often kept it hidden away from others. Even in his short time with her he’d noticed that. To him she was one type of person, but to others she was quiet, closed off, not quite the same.
All of that aside, she was still human, and unfortunately vulnerable. Without him by her side looking out for her, something could still happen. He doubted Jake would be the one to do anything, but one of his cronies—particularly the one with the evil eyes of hardened jade—would. Cowl was certain of it.
Letting her head out into the night on her own, knowing that bad men like that were out there, made his skin crawl. He should be with his mate, protecting her, guarding her. Keeping her s
afe. That was his job, something that had been ingrained upon him since he was just a young wyrm. Once you find your mate, you do whatever it takes to keep her safe.
How was he supposed to reconcile that with the current situation? Cowl had always assumed that his mate would know he was a dragon from the start. That she would be aware of his sometimes-overprotective tendencies. With Andria however, she had no idea he was a dragon, let alone that they were destined to be mated together forever. Springing all of that on her at once was probably not the wisest way to end his second day on the job. Not if he wanted to come back.
“Can you put the chairs up on the tables?”
Cowl leapt to make it happen, while Andria wrestled with a big yellow bucket, filling it with water. As he worked he watched her add some sort of chemical to it, and then mix it up with a long stringy thing attached to a pole. Then she let that sit and grabbed a broom, sweeping the floor clean behind him.
“I’m going to do the cash and the till. Can you mop for me? Do you mind? I’d normally do it, but I got distracted tonight.”
He smiled confidently, shooing her off to go do her other jobs. “Not a problem.”
It was a problem. Cowl stood regarding the contraption. What the hell was he supposed to do with it now? This was a mop. He knew that much. It smelled like cleaner. So it was supposed to clean something. He glanced around.
Big dragon meant big brain, right? Of course it did. Now all he needed to do was put that big brain to work deducing what he was supposed to clean. It wasn’t tables; those had been done and he knew how to do it. Nor was it chairs. They were up.
The walls? That seemed silly. There were pictures and signs labeled everywhere. Cowl glanced up. The ceiling was far too high for him to reach, and certainly out of Andria’s shorter arms. That only left one option.
Please be right. Please please please.
He splashed the mop around a little, and then started to scrub the floor with it.
“What are you doing?” Andria was watching him from behind the bar.
Shit. It wasn’t the floor, was it? It was the walls. Dammit, he’d known it was the walls!
“Uh, mopping?”
“You don’t need that much water. Wring it out first with the strainer bit on the bucket.”
“Oh. Right.” After a brief struggle he figured out how to use the strainer and got to work, happy for the distraction to help burn away the humiliation.
Any confidence he’d had about his progress in learning to fit in had gone out the window. He couldn’t even handle simple menial labor yet.
That aside, the night had gone better than he’d ever expected. He’d gotten to spend time with Andria, learning a little bit more about his mate, and he’d made it known to Jake that she was his and off-limits. Hopefully he listened this time. Cowl wasn’t interested in giving him a third chance.
“All done,” he rumbled after a bit, wheeling the mop back over to the sink she’d filled it in. “How’s it going up there?”
Andria emerged from the little office next to the stairs where she’d stowed the cash register and had been working on some paperwork.
“Done here, too. Let me just clean up my own stuff, and we’ll be on our way.”
Cowl watched her pack up the book she’d been reading for most of the evening. He’d gotten a look at it, but the words had left him puzzled and confused. It was obviously scholarly, but on what, he wasn’t sure.
“Ready to go?” she asked, slinging a backpack over one shoulder and turning off the rest of the lights.
“Yeah.” The truth was no, he wasn’t. He wanted to stay and spend more time with her, alone, without anyone else around.
Or perhaps take her back to his place, where he could wipe that smile off her face and replace it with something more sensual, more intimate. Cowl just knew she was wound tightly, stressed about far too many things. He longed to solve those problems and help her unwind.
Andria locked the front door and then together they headed for the rear exit, where her car was parked, and where the garbage he still had to move was located. Apparently there was a service that came around to empty the bins and remove the garbage for them.
What a fantastic time to be alive.
Cowl pushed through the door first and held it for her.
“Why thank you.” She giggled and strode through it, shoulders straight and head up, pretending to be somebody important.
“Wait!”
Andria froze. “What? What is it? What’s wrong?”
Cowl started to look around frantically, as if he’d lost something.
“Did you forget something?” Andria was sounding worried.
He sighed, putting as much extra effort and sound into it as he could. “I swear I had a roll of red carpet around here somewhere.”
Andria groaned. “You had me worried there for a moment that something was actually wrong!” She punched him in the shoulder. “Don’t do that!”
Cowl grabbed at his shoulder, pretending to be hurt.
“Nope. See, now I don’t believe you. You’re not actually hurt.” She hissed and started to shake her hand. “I’m the one that hurts. Dammit, do you have steel bars in your arms or something? I think I broke my hand!”
“Are you certain? Do you need medical attention? I can get you to a doctor.” He began calculating the swiftest route to the nearest hospital, one of the locations in town he’d memorized upon arriving. “Come on, this way.”
Andria started laughing. “No, Cowl, I’m joking. See, it sucks when you think something is wrong when it’s not.”
“You were teasing me?”
She nodded.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
Her laughter stopped immediately. “It was just a joke. Cowl. Relax. It’s okay.”
“I didn’t find it funny.”
“I was complimenting you, if you think about it. Saying how big and strong you are.” She reached up to squeeze his biceps.
Cowl was okay with that.
“You don’t even feel real. How the hell are your muscles so solid?”
He flexed, just to see what would happen. Andria jumped as his arm bulged in size, and the T-shirt he was wearing ripped.
“Good going. You destroyed your own shirt trying to show off,” she admonished.
Cowl just smiled. Yes, he might have. But he’d seen the way her eyes grew large. She liked it.
“Go put the garbage out before you hurt someone with those things.” She pushed him in the direction. “Just drag them out to the curb here, and place them parallel.”
He didn’t say anything, his grin growing wider as she checked out his arms again. Then he just started to back away, looking right at her the entire time. His mate thought he was attractive. He’d been pretty sure of that already, but this had been a pleasant confirmation.
The garbage bins were in a nook of the building right next to each other. Cowl wondered how Andria usually moved them, since there was no room to get behind them they were jammed in so tight. For him it was child’s play. He just reached up, grabbed the top lip, and walked backward, hauling it after him.
Metal wheels unused to moving screeched in the still of night, disturbing some birds and at least one creature that ran between his legs before disappearing nearby. Cowl pushed it into place and went back for the other. He had just began to haul it when he heard Andria’s voice. Who was she talking to at this time?
The words were tough to make out, muted by the traffic on the city streets all around them. But he could hear two voices. The other was male. Cowl gritted his teeth and prepared to finish hauling the garbage, but two things stopped him.
The first was the sound of glass breaking.
The second was Andria’s startled cry.
Chapter Seven
Andria
“Well well well.”
Andria almost groaned out loud, only stopping herself because she knew it wouldn’t help an already-fragile situation.
�
�Have you been waiting for me this entire time?” she snapped as Jake and his two frat buddies Danny and Mikey sauntered out from the darkness, standing between her and her car.
“It seems you haven’t quite gotten the message yet,” Jake sneered, scratching at one of his scruffy cheeks. “So we’re here to ensure you show us you do.”
“What message?”
“That your bodyguard can’t protect you forever.”
Andria blinked. “My what?”
“Big, strong, and dumb. Don’t act like you’re stupid. We know better than that. I know why you hired him. But it won’t change anything. You aren’t going to be there, Andria.”
“Fuck you,” she spat. “I’ll do what I want. I’m not scared of you.”
Truthfully she wasn’t sure she had the courage to go anyway, but admitting defeat to herself and admitting it this asshole were two different things.
“You should be.” Jake took a step closer.
“What happened to you?” she asked, taking a different approach. “You never used to be like this, Jake. Always a little too cocky for your own good, sure. But you were never an outright asshole. Neither was your brother. What changed?”
He sneered again, reaching into a coat pocket. Andria instinctively took a step back, but all he pulled out was a little clear baggy.
“What changed?” he asked. “This is what changed. These are going to make us rich, if you don’t screw it all up.” He dangled the contents in front of her.
There were four or five little purple pills in it.
“Drugs. You’re dealing drugs now, Jake? What the hell got into you? That’s not you.”
“You don’t fucking know me. You never knew me.”
“Maybe.” She looked him up and down. The rumpled clothing, the thinner figure, devoid of some of the muscle mass she’d known him to have since puberty. He didn’t look like the Jake she thought she knew from high school. Not anymore at least.