Maya And The Tough Guy (Big Girl Panties #2)

by Carter Ashby

  A couple of tears spilled over. “Yeah. But I make really great tips at your place.”

  “I’ll give you any nights you want.” He turned back to Belle. “What do you think? I’ll give her a glowing recommendation. She learns fast, works hard, and has the prettiest face in town. How about it?”

  Belle laughed. “Saves me the trouble of going through the interview process. You want the job, honey?”

  “Yes,” Maya said. “I would really appreciate it.”

  “All right. Show up, Monday, and I’ll have Lacey train you. She’s the one leaving, soon. Says she’s gonna stay home with her baby. More power to her.”

  Maya shook Belle’s hand and when she left, turned her grateful eyes back to Jayce. He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. Just looked at him in a way that he didn’t understand.

  “Wow, you’re employed again,” he said.

  “Jayce, I applied here over a month ago. She wouldn’t hire me. Said she was looking for someone with experience while her eyes said she didn’t want to hire white trash.”

  “I guess she’s seen the light.”

  “You got me a job. And I can be with my kids in the evenings.”

  He nodded. “It’s a good thing.”

  “A very good thing.” She was still looking at him and he couldn’t hold her gaze any longer. He opened his menu even though he already knew what he was getting. “You know, if you like it,” he said, “you don’t have to come back to work for me. Or you could come back part time. Maybe just the weekends.” He shrugged.

  When she didn’t answer, Jayce looked up. Maya was staring at him and chewing her bottom lip. Usually, this was a nervous gesture, but today she didn’t look nervous. “You okay?” Jayce asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, with an airy quality to her breath. “Never better.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The next week, Maya made her court date. Damon was ushered in and seated, in handcuffs, on the opposite side of the courtroom. He didn’t contest the divorce or custody and Maya walked out of the court room a free woman. She spent the rest of the day thanking God that Damon hadn’t caused her any problems.

  She fell into her new job schedule with the greatest of ease. It was perfect. Zoey was around in the mornings long enough to get the kids on the bus. And Maya was able to pick them up from school on her way home.

  Time with them had been the greatest loss, but when she’d left Damon, she’d been prepared for much worse. The only downside to the diner job was the pay. She could supplement it by working a couple of nights a week and on the weekends, for Jayce, and that should be enough to start paying Zoey rent.

  The worst thing about not working for Jayce full time was not seeing Jayce as often. He still came by a couple days a week to take Mattie to boxing practice. On those days, he would stay for dinner and play a game with Sophie so she didn’t feel left out.

  Now, a couple of weeks after their big party, she realized she wanted to follow Zoey’s advice. It was okay to fall in love. In fact, it had already happened. She hadn’t fallen, even. She’d been wrapped up into a pair of strong arms and gently lowered into it so that she’d barely recognized it happening.

  Early in March, one Saturday morning, she found Jayce in his bar, behind the counter. He was making a list of all the liquor he needed to restock. He turned when she walked in. The door was open, letting in some seventy degree air. “Hey, babe,” he said, and went back to writing out his list.

  She perched on a bar stool. “Wanna come over for breakfast?” she asked.

  “Hmm. Which one of you’s cooking?”

  “Kellen.”

  “Then, yes.” He glanced up and grinned. No one was a fan of Zoey’s breakfast attempts.

  Maya got up and moved around the counter. She sidled up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  He jolted, backed away, and gaped at her. “What’re you doing?”

  She grinned. “I’ve made up my mind about something.” She dropped her gaze to the buckle of his belt, licked her lips, and looked back into his eyes again.

  “Oh yeah?” he asked, his lips curving up. “What’d you decide?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  He nodded, apparently not the least bit curious, and went back to making his list. “Hey, I’m glad you came by. A couple women came by yesterday, saying how much fun they had at Ladies Night and they wanted to know if they could have a bachelorette party here. So I thought, if you wanted to do something like that, we could use that side room, there, and just set up tables and chairs. It’s already got the stage for if they wanted to hire strippers or whatever—I got no idea what chicks do at bachelorette parties. But anyway, I told them I’d get with you on it.” He lifted his eyes to hers, awaiting a response.

  “It’s your bar, Jayce. If you want to rent it out as a party venue, I think that’s great.”

  “No, that’s not what they meant. They want you to plan the party for them. I don’t think they care if it’s here or not. I mean, we could set up a bar anywhere, but I just thought that room over there would be a good option to offer. What do you think?”

  “They want me to plan their party?”

  “Yeah. Don’t act so surprised. Are you interested or not?”

  “Oh, God, I’m definitely interested. I’m just, well, surprised, like you said. But yeah, that would be amazing.”

  Jayce reached in his pocket for a scrap of paper and handed it to her. “That’s their names and a number to reach them. And hey, if you get a chance to find out if the blond is single, I’d really appreciate it.”

  Maya felt a stab of pain she was sure showed on her face, but Jayce wouldn’t have seen it; he was already refocused on his list. “Moving on, huh?” she asked, proud that her voice didn’t crack.

  “Well, it’s that or sulk for the rest of my life.” He looked around for something, under the bar, back on the mirrored shelves. “Be right back.” He went back, probably to check the store room for whatever it was he was looking for.

  Maya stood there squeezing her hands together, unable to bear the thought of Jayce dating someone else. She wondered if the girl was beautiful. She wondered if Jayce had been with anyone over the past few weeks.

  He came back and jotted something on his list.

  “What about Janice?” Maya asked.

  Jayce frowned at her. “Huh?”

  “I mean, if you’re ready to be with someone again, why not Janice?”

  He looked surprised at the question. “Janice is done with me. I asked.”

  He’d asked. “How long after breaking things off with me did you wait to ask?”

  He slowly sat his pen down and turned to her. “You broke things off with me. And I didn’t wait at all, I asked her the first chance I got.”

  Maya gulped. “And she rejected you?”

  “Yeah. What’s it to you, Maya?”

  Maya took in a shaky breath. “I was just curious, is all. I was wondering if you’d been with anyone since me.”

  For just a moment his face reddened and his eyes hardened. “How the fuck is it any of your business?”

  Maya shook her head and backed away. “It isn’t. I’m really sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?”

  “Yes. Sorry. I’ll see you at breakfast?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Jayce said. “Give Kellen my apologies, but I think I’ll pass today.”

  Maya took a breath. She’d wanted to do this some other way, some more memorable, meaningful way, but she couldn’t afford to wait. So she took a deep breath. “Jayce, I just want to explain my feelings.”

  He scowled at her, fully intimidating, now, much as he had been when she’d first started working for him.

  Maya’s mouth went dry. “Do you…still want me?”

  His scowl darkened. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. “Isn’t it enough that I’ve pined over you like a teenage girl for the past…forever? Isn’t it enough that I begged for you? I’m
not pathetic enough, you wanna keep me on a leash? Do you get some sort of thrill knowing I’m in my bed at night alone because I can’t get over you?”

  “No!” Maya shrieked. This wasn’t at all the way she wanted to tell him of her love. “No, Jayce, that’s not what this is.”

  “Then what?” He stood tall and folded his arms over his chest in a clear, closed-off stance.

  She couldn’t do this. Not now. Not with him like this. “Nothing,” she muttered, backing away. “It’s nothing. Nevermind.” She turned and left, crying all the way back to Zoey and Kellen’s house.

  #

  Jayce was doing his very best to manage his heartbreak. He thought he might do better if only he could get laid, several times, with a variety of women. But everywhere he turned, Maya seemed to be hovering nearby.

  He’d thought to ask out the blond bachelorette who’d come to him asking about a party. Maya had had her meeting with the two women a week ago there at the bar.

  Maya waved him over. It was Monday night. Jayce had one customer at the bar who was nursing his last beer, so Jayce meandered to the table where Maya was sitting with the two women.

  Jayce gave the blond one a little extra eye contact. He still wasn’t sure she was single, but the way her eyelids lowered and her smile widened, he guessed she was available.

  “They like the idea of doing it here,” Maya said.

  “Yes,” the blond continued. “But we were wondering about renting the whole bar. I mean, this is going to be a big party.”

  Jayce would have liked to say yes to anything the woman wanted just because of the way she was sizing him up, clearly as interested in him as he was in her. But there was no way the woman could afford what it would cost to rent the whole bar for one night. “The cost it would take to cover closing the bar for a whole evening would be huge—”

  “Oh, we were actually hoping for an afternoon, before you open. We could have the party, like, an hour before opening and then anyone who wanted to hang around and drink afterward could.”

  Jayce pondered it for a moment. “Yeah, we could probably do something like that.”

  “Great,” the blond said with a lustful smile. “And I hope you will be tending bar that day.”

  Jayce started to grin, but then Maya slid her hand around his shoulders. “If you want him shirtless, it’ll be extra.”

  The girls laughed, but Jayce was now frowning at Maya, who was talking and smiling.

  “Okay,” Maya said. “We have your notes. Let us get together with a caterer and we’ll get you a quote by tomorrow, sound good?”

  All the ‘we’ talk and Maya’s hands on him had cooled the blond woman’s gaze. At the end of the conversation, her handshake was completely professional.

  Jayce had turned to ask Maya what the hell she’d been doing, but she’d already gone to his office to make phone calls to caterers. Throughout the rest of the week she’d stayed near him: offering him breakfast whenever he went by the house to take Mattie to the gym; asking him to show her how to mix drinks when bar hours were slow; sometimes just standing there behind him, wringing her hands looking like she wanted to say something.

  It took a visit from Kellen a week later to open Jayce’s eyes to the situation.

  Kellen came in Monday afternoon, sat at the bar, and said, “So, you’re not picking up the signals.”

  Jayce was drying a couple of glasses and placing them behind the bar. “What are you talking about?”

  “Maya. She wants to ask you out, she just can’t get up the nerve.”

  Jayce turned to face him. “Huh?”

  Kellen sighed. “I overheard her talking to Zoey and Addy yesterday about how she can’t find a way to tell you she’s changed her mind.”

  Jayce let this sink in. He thought about her weird behavior lately and about how he’d been trying to avoid her because of it. He thought about the conversation where she’d asked him if he was sleeping with anyone and he’d basically told her to fuck off. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, so I’m giving you a courtesy heads-up,” Kellen said. “Thought you might like to know.”

  Jayce didn’t know how to feel. He just stood there, frowning with his mouth hanging open.

  “So? This is good news, right?” Kellen asked.

  Jayce snapped his eyes up to Kellen’s. “Why hasn’t she told me?”

  “I don’t know, man. She’s nervous I guess.”

  “Is she afraid of me? Because if she is, then I don’t want anything to do with her. I’ve done everything I can to show her how much I care about her and if she’s still afraid of me, I just can’t handle that, you know? I shouldn’t have to. Eventually she’s gotta give me a little trust.”

  “I don’t think that’s it, Jayce. She’s just nervous. You know how nerve wracking it is, asking someone on a date or telling them how you feel. If you wait her out, she’ll eventually get the guts to tell you. But I’m thinking if you wanted to, you could probably speed the process along by giving her an open opportunity.”

  A bar patron made his way to the end of the counter. Still wrapping his mind around this new and important news, Jayce made his way to the customer and filled his drink order. Then he dragged his feet back to Kellen, who was watching him with a mixture of amusement and expectation.

  Jayce stared at him. “You’re sure about this?”

  “Yeah, Jayce, I’m sure. I wouldn’t bring this to you if I wasn’t.”

  “It’s just I don’t think I could take it…” He left the rest unsaid.

  “I know. I understand. But this is solid intel. She likes you. She wants to make something happen with you.”

  After Kellen left a few minutes later, Jayce spent the rest of the evening thoroughly distracted by this new prospect. And despite his desire to protect his heart from more pain, he felt hope take hold and fill him up.

  #

  Maya worked the bar from five until closing on Saturday night. Working with Jayce had become an almost impossible task. The distraction made her nearly incompetent as a waitress. Not only was she worried about finding a time to tell him something she didn’t know how to say, she was also overwhelmed with attraction to him.

  Every time he talked to her, even when it was just to tell her a drink order was ready, she got all flustered. When she bumped into him or brushed against him accidentally, she became a complete wreck. She dropped three glasses and delivered two wrong orders that night, not to mention the countless times she’d had to have a customer repeat himself because she couldn’t stop her lustful thoughts from wandering to Jayce.

  By the end of the night, Maya was exhausted. After the last customer left, she helped Jayce close up. It was nearly two-thirty in the morning and they were alone in the bar. She was sweeping the floor when she heard the jukebox come on. The song was We Danced, by Brad Paisley. A song about two people alone in a bar after hours, losing themselves in conversation and falling in love.

  Maya turned to see Jayce leaning on the jukebox, his back to her. He’d played the song once before and Maya hadn’t paid attention to it, but now she knew why it made the drunk version of Jayce cry. He turned around, no tears in his eyes this time, his expression blank. “You wanna dance?” he asked, holding his hand out to her.

  She was transported back to high school. He’d asked her to that prom. He’d driven her to that prom. And yet she’d still been stunned when he’d turned to her and asked that same question.

  Now, she smiled and stepped into the circle of his arms, threading her arms around his neck and resting her cheek on his chest. They danced, swaying lightly to the music. His hard body full of warmth and the promise of good things to come.

  As the song ended, Maya stepped back and looked up at him. “I love you, Jayce.”

  He tried to keep his expression neutral. The effort was obvious. But his jaw tightened and his eyes grew more liquid; his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Is that so?” he asked. Even his voice betray
ed him when it cracked just slightly.

  Maya nodded. “That’s so.”

  He cleared his throat, shoved his hands in his pockets, and looked down at his feet. “Well, my feelings are the same as always. I love you, Maya.”

  This time, the words excited passion inside of her that she’d never felt possible. She was going to find happiness with this beautiful man. It seemed a gift too improbable to believe. “Would you like to go upstairs?” she asked.

  He looked up at her, then, fighting back a grin. “In a minute,” he said. “Kind of wanna get reoriented to this new world I’m in now.”

  She let out a laugh with a rush of relief. “I know exactly what you mean. I can’t believe this is happening.”

  He turned and put another song on the jukebox before taking her in his arms and dancing with her again. As they danced, he asked, “What’s this mean? For our future?”

  She ran her hands over his shoulders and upper back. “Right now, it just means we’re in love and we’re going to see where this goes. We can talk about the logistics later. Now, I just want to feel this. Feel you. You know?”

  He squeezed her close to his body. “I want you to know I’m miles ahead of you. I mean, I’m there. I’d propose right now if I thought you wouldn’t turn tail and run. So…the pace of this thing is on you. You need me to slow down or speed up, just let me know.”

  “Okay. And if you feel like I’m not giving you enough or understanding your feelings enough, you let me know, okay?”

  His hands were roaming further and growing more possessive by the second. “Right now,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “I just want to take you to my bed and make love to you with honesty for the first time; to not have to hold all this love inside of me while I’m inside of you. ” He pulled back and cupped her face between his hands. “Say it again. While I can see your eyes this time.”

  She smiled up at him. “I love you, Jayce.”

  This time he didn’t fight the emotion. The smile bloomed on his face, which flushed, darkening his skin and brightening his eyes. He let out a laugh and then kissed her deeply. Then he led her down the hallway, flipped off the last of the bar lights, and took her upstairs.