by Natalie Ann
The women he waited on probably felt like he only had eyes for them. The men were given the impression Brody was their best bud and they were just hanging out after work together. And since she knew he’d honed that skill well, she told herself he was just doing the same with her. Nothing more, nothing less.
Brody was talented, she knew. Not just with his job, his palate of drink creations or his skill and speed of mixing. Not even when he was flipping bottles around at the request of a few single ladies wanting a show.
No, his talent came from his personality. Everyone felt at home, everyone got his undivided attention, even when he was doing multiple things at once. She thought she could multi-task well, but never as efficiently as he had today. He was filling orders for his staff at the same time refilling for his regulars with just a toss of their hand in the air. It was like Brody was one with his surroundings and could anticipate the next move.
“Hey, baby girl. What are you still doing up?” Aimee asked when she opened the front door to her stepfather’s house. Dust bunnies were clinging to Sidney’s clothes, making her realize she needed to spend some time here cleaning as well.
“She didn’t want to go to sleep for me. But I’ve got her all ready for the night. Even changed her diaper a few minutes ago.”
“Thanks, Dad. She was good for you? No problems?”
She’d wanted to call and check on Sidney but couldn’t manage to sneak away for privacy. She didn’t want to be caught on her phone. Besides, Rick would have called or sent her a text if something was wrong with Sidney.
“No problem. I took her to the park and let her run for a good hour, then she took a three-hour nap.”
“Three hours?” Aimee asked. That would explain why Sidney was still up and showed no signs of tiredness.
“How long does she normally nap?” Rick asked, his eyes troubled.
“Ninety minutes, tops. But I’m glad she went down for you and gave you a break. Think nothing of it. I wish she’d sleep three hours for me tomorrow so I could get some chores done.”
She reached down and picked Sidney up since her face and hands were scrubbed clean and she was barefoot for the night. No use getting her dirty with the walk to the apartment above the garage out back. Aimee wished she could do better, but for the moment the tiny one-bedroom place would have to do. When it was free you couldn’t be picky.
“Try to enjoy your day off,” Rick said to her. “Let me know if you need any help with anything.”
“We’re good. I’ve just got laundry to do and some cleaning, a few errands, and then I’m done.”
She was dreading the line at DMV, but it had to be done. Getting a North Carolina license felt so final to her, but she didn’t know how she could be anywhere else right now. Besides, Rick needed her as much as she needed him.
“I can watch Sidney while you run out,” Rick said.
“Thanks, but we’ll be good.”
She didn’t want to take advantage of his help. She’d already felt bad asking him to watch her daughter on Wednesdays, but until she could find another sitter for the day, she had no choice.
At sixty, Rick wasn’t in the best of health and she didn’t want to burden him. She knew he felt useful helping her out, but the truth was, she came home to ease his burden, too. With only each other left, she couldn’t turn her back on him now. Not after everything he’d done for her. And after looking around the house, she could see he was struggling to keep it up.
“I’m here if you need me,” he said again. “I might just take care of the lawn, but other than that, I’ve got no plans.”
“We’ll be good,” she repeated, adding the lawn maintenance to her list of things to do.
Thankfully Sidney passed out cold twenty minutes later. With the sun still shining, she put on a pair of ratty shorts and a T-shirt, and made her way downstairs to the garage to fight with the old lawnmower until it coughed and sputtered to life, shooting a few black puffs of smoke out. It was a small lawn and she’d be done in fifteen minutes at the most.
This was what her life turned out to be. Twenty-six years old, mowing the lawn of her stepfather’s house at barely eight o’clock at night, her daughter sleeping inside, her body stiff and sore, and the only thing she was dreaming of was her bed.
Oh, how the partying days of the twenty-one-year-old were a thing of the past. Slick-talking men had a way of bringing you back to reality.
***
Friday at eleven, Aimee swiped her card to unlock the side door to Fierce, the May heat already causing her shirt to cling to her skin. Stupid air conditioning was on the fritz in her car again, but it was way down on the list of things she could dole money out for at the moment.
Her long curly hair was pulled back in a ponytail today, her attempt at taming the mess from the humid air that was blowing through it on the drive over.
Somehow she wasn’t surprised that Brody was already there and seemed to have the bar stocked and ready to go.
“How am I going to learn to set it up on my own if you have it done before I get here?” she asked, a smile on her face. A few good nights’ sleep without the stress of finding a job or keeping a roof over her head had done wonders for her.
“Maybe you should get here earlier,” he said, glancing up at her.
Great, just what she needed. He was in a mood today. Guess Wednesday was an exception to the rule. His siblings did warn her, but she’d thought they were just joking.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m still a few minutes early for my scheduled shift. Should I be starting at ten thirty instead?”
“Your shifts are eleven to seven,” he said, not looking at her.
She ground her teeth. “Then what is a good time to come in so I can have the bar set up the way you’d like it?”
“You should know that being a manager doesn’t lock you into set hours. You’ve got to be flexible.”
“I am, and I can be.” Which meant she better talk to Melanie about longer days, and hope it wasn’t going to be a problem. She couldn’t afford to lose that daycare right now.
“Then put your stuff away and get over here so that I can catch you up to speed.”
“Since you asked so sweetly,” she mumbled to herself. It was going to be a long day, she decided, but the sooner she could learn everything, the sooner she could be on her own. Just a few more weeks, she hoped.
Once she was caught up, which took him no more than twenty minutes to show her what he’d already done—and was no different than what he’d shown her the day before yesterday—she signed into her monitor and picked up the menu of specials for the day. Thankfully, Aiden planned that the night before.
So far, Brody hadn’t said much more than instructions of things she already knew. She wasn’t stupid—she didn’t need the reminders—but decided not to test his mood and followed along as if he were showing her for the first time again.
“What’s your recommendation today?” he asked her, nodding at the menu in her hand.
“Why?” she asked.
“Just give me a food and drink recommendation. A combo, for lack of a better word.”
He didn’t have to be so testy about it. She looked over the menu and decided loaded waffle fries were just calling her name. Then she looked at the brews on tap, grabbed a small glass and sampled two, then finally gave her choices.
“Why did you choose the sour with the fries?”
“The fries are heavy and a little greasy with the bacon on top; the beer is lighter. I was thinking of something heavier to go with the fries, something that would hold up to it, but decided in this heat, refreshing is the better choice. Going lighter with the beer would make them order another, rather than filling them up on both.”
He snorted at her, then turned his back and walked over to his computer. Well, thanks for your opinion, she wanted to say, but didn’t.
A minute later, the screen over the bar lit up announcing the drink special…and something she hadn’t seen before. A barten
der combo special. Her fries and beer choice.
“What’s that?” she asked, a grin stretching across her face.
“What does it look like?” he asked, crossing his arms.
“It looks like I’ve pissed you off for some reason, but besides that, it’s obviously the food I just suggested.”
“I’m not pissed,” he grumbled, then turned his back again.
Could have fooled me. “So is this something that I wasn’t told about?” she asked.
“Nope, something new.”
Her teeth hurt she was grinding them so hard. “Is there an incentive to push it today?”
“Do you need an incentive to do your job?”
She looked around the bar, hoping to find some hidden camera. Or another witness to what was going on. Something to let her know this wasn’t the guy she’d worked with on Wednesday. This attitude was the perfect way to remove his sex appeal. It was probably for the best.
“Of course not. I meant, is there a reason we’re pushing a special? Is an event coming up? A new beer going to be released? Is this something Cade decided to do as a promotion?”
“No. None of the above.”
“Then what?” she asked. How could she do her job efficiently if she wasn’t told why she had to do certain things?
“I’ve been informed that you have good ideas and a clear sense of food and drink.”
“And…” she said when he stopped talking.
“And that Wednesday the tacos and double IPA was the most popular combo ever sold in one day before. Everyone wants to know if it was a fluke.”
Look at that. Hmm, did she manage to impress her new bosses that early? Good for her.
“That ticks you off?” she asked, holding her grin back now. No need to push it.
“Yeah, it does.” He turned his back on her again and walked into the kitchen. How she wished she could have grabbed a dart from one of the boards and stuck it right between his shoulder blades. Jackass.
Your Behavior
“Loaded waffle fries is the bartender’s combo today.”
“That’s one item. What’s the other to make it a combo?” Aiden asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“You’re the one stocking the bar now?” Brody asked his brother.
“What bug crawled up your ass and nestled in for the morning?”
“The citrus sour,” Brody said and turned to walk away.
“Brody,” Aiden snapped out firmly, his authoritative kitchen voice stopping Brody in his tracks. “What the hell is going on?”
He walked forward, past the line chefs looking at him under their lashes, and into Aiden’s office, knowing his brother was following him. “What’s my problem? You want to know my problem? You guys are doing it again.”
“Doing what?” Aiden said.
“Controlling the bar. Controlling my part of the business.”
“Seriously? Your balls are in a twist because Aimee had some hot sales and Mason and I thought it’d be a good idea to do the combo and see if it happened again? Talk about shallow, dude.”
Brody took a deep breath. Shit, he was being childish, he knew. But he wasn’t going to back down. If he let them do this without a fight, then they’d do it all the time.
“What happened to teamwork? What happened to bringing things up in a meeting to discuss before it was decided?”
“It was a suggestion,” Aiden argued. “No one told you that you had to do it today. You know that. And,” Aiden said, holding his hand up when Brody started to speak, “you wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t think it was a good idea.”
Beside the point. “I didn’t say it wasn’t a good idea.”
“Oh. I get it. It wasn’t your idea. That’s what this is about.” The narrowing of Brody’s eyes didn’t stop Aiden from rubbing it in. “You’re pissed off that we hired Aimee without your knowledge and not only did we do a good job with her, but she might actually be better than you.”
“Don’t push your luck,” Brody snarled. “She had one good day. Let’s see if she has another.”
But by seven when Aimee’s replacement came in for the night, Brody had already had to tap into the third keg of citrus sour. Figures. If it wasn’t for the profit they were making, he’d start slamming crap around.
“Are you all set for the night?” Aimee asked before she unlocked the drawer for her purse.
“Of course,” Brody said. This was his bar. He’d been running it without her for months. Just because the other bartender on shift outsold him on the combo today again, it didn’t mean anything. Nor did Aimee’s replacement when he asked what was going on and wanted to know when his turn would be to pick a combo.
“Then I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, grabbing her things and pulling out her keys. “Have a good night.”
He watched her walk away. His eyes landing on her tiny rear swaying as she pushed the door open.
“She’s pretty awesome,” Logan said, one of the two part-timers that were going to be working next to him tonight.
“Yeah,” Brody said, then walked away to fill another drink. That his staff liked her didn’t diminish the fact that she’d shown him up today in front of his siblings.
***
Brody heard knocking at his door on Saturday morning but just grabbed the comforter and pulled it over his head.
Not that it would stop the person outside his door at nine in the morning from banging. No, they obviously didn’t know he’d closed the bar at two and didn’t get home until closer to three, and climbed into bed at almost five.
More banging on his door, and more growling under the covers. Then it stopped. The banging and his growling. His body relaxed and he started to doze back off only to have the comforter ripped right off of him.
“What the f—”
“Don’t you dare use that language around me.”
“Mom,” he said, reaching for the sheets that were also yanked back. The comforter was on the floor. “A little privacy here. I’m not dressed.”
“Get your ass out of bed,” she said, then turned and walked away, only to turn her head and look at him with a smirk. “You’ve got nothing I haven’t seen before.”
He flopped his head back on the pillow, heat filling his face. She could still make him feel like a kid she caught doing something in the shower other than getting clean.
Grabbing shorts off the floor, he pulled them up and walked to the kitchen to find her brewing coffee for him. That was something at least.
“You know I got home late last night. Why are you here right now?”
She opened the fridge—making herself at home—grabbed the carton of eggs and a pan, then got to work cooking. “Because your father and I are going out on the boat in an hour and I needed to catch you before we left.”
“What’s wrong? Why me? Why not one of the others? Someone who might have had more than a few hours of sleep already?” he snarled, too tired to catch himself.
She only raised her eyebrow at his tone. “Because you’re the one that needs the talking to. Do you need another timeout?” she asked, holding his stare.
He snorted, since he’d inherited her boldness. “Timeout? I’m thirty. I outgrew timeouts twenty-five years ago.”
“If that were the case you wouldn’t have needed one last week. I can send you right back there again.”
It was laughable that this woman, who was barely five foot four, could make him back down like a mouse running in front of an elephant. “What did I do this time?”
“I heard your behavior yesterday was anything but nice to your new manager.”
“Who ratted me out?” He was going to kill Aiden.
“You don’t think your siblings are the only ones that report back to me on everyone’s behavior, do you?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. Now he was going to have to screen his staff. There was a fine line at loyalty with the employees and someone crossed it. “What were you told?”
“Get that look out of yo
ur eye.” She placed his coffee in front of him, just the way he liked it. Straight up and strong enough to grow hair in places on your body that had no business being there. “It wasn’t anyone working.”
“Do you have spies?”
“I have friends. Something you’re lacking and will continue to lack if you treat everyone the way you did Aimee.”
He flushed again. “I’ve got plenty of friends.”
“Regulars that come into the bar and chat with you while you work aren’t friends. Don’t delude yourself over that. I thought you knew that by now.”
Lava was flowing under his skin. “What is the point of this visit?”
When she was done with his eggs, she placed them in front of him and then sat down across from him at the table. “The point is, you aren’t going to have any staff left if you treat them like shit.”
“What happened to the woman who yelled at me for my language ten minutes ago?”
“I birthed five of you at once. I reserve the right to tell you to watch your language while I cuss and swear at my lack of parenting that resulted in you treating someone like you did.”
The lava was ready to erupt. “What were you told? I didn’t do anything.”
“You weren’t nice. You were short with Aimee for no reason other than your pride was bent. Get over it, or I’ll break your pride in half.”
She was the only one he’d allow to use that tone on him. “I was moody yesterday, so what? It’s not like I yelled at her. Or swore at her…like you’re doing to me.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t or I would have slapped you upside the head the minute I tugged the comforter off of you.”
“Tugged my a—” She narrowed her eyes. “Butt. You exposed my family jewels,” he said, breaking into a smile. The one he knew always melted her heart. He knew how to play her.
It failed this time though. “Jewels I gave you. Brody, get your act together. I’m not going to hunt down more staff for you. You’re good at telling everyone you can handle running your end of the business, then step up and do it. No more lip service.”