WineBar: The Complete Story

by Alexis Angel

  Here I am, seen as this massive douchebag and fuckup of a person who just boxes well. The bad boy of the boxing world. The black sheep of the fight club.

  And what about Logan?

  Motherfucker is a fucking pillar of the fucking community apparently according to this piece of shit news story.

  How the fuck and in what fucking universe does this happen where I’m the fucking loser and he’s the hero?

  But that’s the fucking truth, isn’t it?

  I can beat as many poor Russians to a fucking pulp in the ring as I want, but until I get some good PR from the press, I’m still a fucking chump compared to a whining little bitch like Logan Daniels.

  “Thanks,” I say, handing the phone back to the girl whose name I didn’t even get.

  But it doesn’t even matter because I’ve already turned around and I'm walking to the exit. I can hear the girls call out to me briefly but I don’t have time to listen to them.

  See, I gotta get home. Get a good night's sleep.

  Then tomorrow, I gotta figure out how to make the appropriately needed level of splash at the Gazette.

  Logan Daniels, your days are fucking numbered.

  Natalie

  “Two more!” Michelle cries out, brandishing her empty gin glass. She’s already slurring her speech, but I guess that’s only normal; it’s hard to get the words right when you’ve been working your way through a bottle of gin.

  “I don’t think I can drink anymore, Michelle,” I tell her, steadying myself with one hand on the counter. I don’t know how she does it; I’ve been trying to keep up with her for the last two hours, but it’s an impossible task.

  “Oh, shut up. This is your party, and we won’t leave this place until we’re both completely drunk,” she says, still waving her empty glass around.

  “This isn’t a party,” I try to tell her, but I doubt she’s even listening. I guess she just wanted an excuse to go out for drinks, and she latched on to the success my article on Logan had. Yup, I’ve already published it, and I’m pretty proud of the way it turned out. Even Fat Ed seemed pleased with it, and that isn’t an easy accomplishment. I’m not sure if my article was the reason behind it, but the fact remains: this week we sold a lot more copies of our newspaper.

  “Of course this is a party! Why else would we be this drunk?” She laughs, winking at the bartender as he pushes two glasses of gin across the counter. I sigh as she hands me mine, but I set it aside; I need to pause for a few minutes, or else I’ll be leaving the bar on my hands and knees.

  “Tell me, Natalie…” Michelle slurs, throwing one arm over my shoulders and pulling me into her. She lowers her voice, or at least tries to, and adopts a more secretive tone. “That was a really personal article… How did you get to know him so well over dinner?”

  I knew this was coming. The moment I stepped into our office this morning, Michelle eyed me suspiciously, and I knew right away that I was wearing an unusual smile on my lips. I’ve never been that good at hiding things from Michelle, and now here’s the proof.

  “Journalistic skills,” I chuckle nervously, trying to feign my way out of the conversation. Of course, Michelle’s having none of that.

  “Journalistic skills my ass,” she continues, using her free hand to take the gin to her lips. “You got to know him… intimately… didn’t you?”

  “Michelle, I --”

  “I knew it!” she proclaims, taking her arm out from over her shoulders and clapping her hands together. “My God, I want to know every single detail, Natalie.”

  “Nothing happened!” I try one last time, but I can’t help but smile as I say it. The I’ve-just-had-the-best-sex-of-my-life kind of smile.

  “Yeah, right…! He must be a complete animal in the sack. He is, isn’t he?” she asks me, grabbing my arm and looking me straight in the eyes.

  “Well,” I start, shrugging my shoulders as I grin. “Yeah, he is.”

  “Oh my God, you’re the luckiest woman in the world… He’s so freaking hot, and rich, and --”

  “C’mon, he’s just a normal person,” I laugh, but in the back of my mind I know that’s not true. The way he handled me… No, a normal person wouldn’t be that good. More than just a regular human being, Logan is a God, and every single inch of his naked body spells the word sex.

  “Ed never gives me assignment like yours,” she grumbles then, throwing her head back and downing the rest of her gin in one single gulp. Jesus, when it comes to drinking, she’s a viking.

  “And that’s not all. I still have the Hunter profile to write, which means I have one more handsome guy to meet,” I tease her, discretely nodding at the bartender for him to take my still half-filled glass of gin.

  “You’re the luckiest person I’ve ever met, did you know that?”

  “Not so fast. I still have to set up an appointment with Hunter. I got lucky with Logan, yeah, but I don’t know how things will go with Hunter. He seems… wild.”

  “Oh, he’s definitely wild,” she agrees with me, nodding gravely. “If there’s something that guy likes more than punching people, it’s fucking hot women. So, you know… You’re in luck.”

  “It’s not like that,” I protest. “What happened with Logan… I don’t know, it just happened, okay? And I’m not planning to sleep with Hunter!”

  “Yeah, right…”

  “I’m serious! I need to keep my focus, Michelle. I know that there’s a story there. I can feel it,” I tell her, thinking back to the way Logan reacted whenever I said Hunter’s name.

  “What kind of story? Are we in for a scandal?”

  “I don’t know… But I have a feeling that it might be a game changer. At least for me. If I uncover whatever skeletons these guys have in their closets, Ed will see what I’m worth, and he’ll start giving me better assignments.”

  “Ed, pfft. He’s just interested in selling newspapers, you know that, don’t you? He doesn’t really care about journalism… If turning the Gazette into a tabloid helped his bottom line, he’d do it in a blink of an eye.” She shrugs as she says this, completely accepting the way her corporate overlords see the newspaper we work for. I have no illusions about Ed, but having Michelle put it like this… well, it’s a sobering thought.

  Still, if I manage to uncover something interesting, I can launch my career into the stratosphere fast. Be it at the Gazette or somewhere else.

  “It doesn’t really matter,” I tell her, feeling a surge of renewed confidence. “One step at a time, right?”

  “Right,” she grins, “and one cock at a time.”

  “C’mon,” I protest, but I can’t help but laugh at what she just said. She really doesn’t have any kind of filter between her mouth and brain.

  “Seriously, though… How are you going to approach Hunter? That guy is always up to something crazy, I doubt he’ll even pick up his phone.”

  “I have no idea,” I admit, tapping my fingertips against the counter. It sure as hell isn’t going to be easy but—hang on, my cell is vibrating. “It’s Ed,” I say, raising my eyes from the screen and looking up at Michelle. “What the hell does he want this late at night?”

  Without waiting for Michelle’s reply, I put the phone up against my ear.

  “I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but it’s working,” Ed grumbles in that ruined voice of his. “Hunter’s agent just gave me a call… He wants to set up a meeting with you.”

  Oh, Michelle’s right—I gotta be the luckiest woman in the world.

  Natalie

  “I don’t know how you can eat with these fucking things,” Hunter complains, giving up on trying to grab the sashimi. Instead, he turns the chopsticks around in his hand and uses them to stab one of the thin slices of raw fish on his plate.

  “It takes a bit of time,” I admit, deftly maneuvering my chopsticks as I pick a slice from my own plate and take it to my mouth.

  “I've never been a fan of sushi,” he continues, stabbing another piece of sashimi. “But this i
s good!”

  “Oh, yeah, this is probably the best sushi restaurant in New York. I just found out about it a few days ago too.”

  Truth be told, bringing Hunter to Asakura’s wasn’t my first thought. But then I started thinking about it, and I realized Asakura’s had to be our meeting place. It doesn’t seem to make any sense, right? Well, just think about it; Logan owns this place, he’s friends with the chef, and he comes here a lot… Which, if I’m lucky, means that he’ll show up while I’m having dinner with Hunter. And once these two are face-to-face, then I’ll know if there’s a story to be told or not.

  “So, how do you wanna do this?” Hunter asks me then, turning on his seat to face me while he drinks from his sake cup.

  “We can talk. Just a normal conversation, and we’ll go from there… I’d like to know more about your upbringing, your background; you know, the usual.”

  “Uh, yeah, right,” he whispers distractedly, running one hand through his hair as he looks away from me. For a guy that seems to thrive on attention, it doesn’t look like he enjoys talking about himself.

  To be honest, I wasn’t expecting his hesitancy. The moment he strolled inside the restaurant, I was already sitting by the counter; he came in loud and confident (to the point of arrogance), and greeted me from the other side of the room, taking his sunglasses off and looking at me with a devilish grin. Just like Logan, he’s wearing a suit that wouldn’t look out of place in a James Bond movie set, and everything about him oozes confidence and raw power.

  Still, so far he’s proving to be different than what I expected. From what I read about him, I expected a complete asshole, but he’s actually very gentlemanly. Sure, he’s very different from Logan, while one is calm and collected, the other is a brash fast-talker with a penchant for cursing. He’s very cocky and, unlike Logan, he grew up in the United States. Maybe that explains why they’re so different.

  “I had no idea you'd be this good looking,” he tells me suddenly, the grin on his face letting me know that he sized me up the moment he stepped inside the restaurant. I noticed the way his eyes lingered on my cleavage then (this time I made sure I had one that was sexy enough), and I gotta say… I don't mind the attention, not at all. After all, not only is he one of the most fit people on Earth, he's also one of the most good looking.

  “Thank you?” I laugh, tucking a lock of hair over my ear as I smile at him. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not acting like a well-behaved journalist; no, I’m leading him on. I know that Hunter can’t help himself whenever he’s around a woman, and maybe I can use that to my advantage. Besides, it isn’t particularly difficult to act as if I’m being charmed when, in fact, that’s really happening.

  “Just saying the truth,” he laughs, once again using his chopstick as a spear. As I laugh with him, I notice Asakura frowning behind the counter. He probably knows who Hunter is (who doesn’t), and he isn’t particularly impressed with the way the heavyweight champion is stabbing the food he prepared. Yeah, finesse isn’t a word you’d use to describe Hunter, but I’d counter that’s just part of his charm. A very rugged, American charm.

  I spend the next thirty minutes pestering him with words about his upbringing and, despite his reluctance to talk about himself, I still manage to wrangle some answers out of him. Unlike Logan, for instance, he wasn’t born to a family with means; he was part of the lower class, another troubled inner city with a passion for punching every kid taller than he was, and he fought long and hard to reach the top. He’s the embodiment of the American dream, it seems, and I like that; it gives me a nice angle to work with.

  Still, it isn’t as juicy as I need it to be.

  I keep on making all kinds of questions, hoping to bring Hunter into the conversation, but he sidesteps and disarms me each and everytime. Instead of answering me, he deflects my questions and turns them on their head, always coating his words with some kind of innuendo.

  “It’s hard to focus, you know?” he eventually tells me, cleaning up what’s left on his plate and washing it down with a cup of sake. I arch one eyebrow questioningly, and he opens up into a wide grin. “I have a hard time focusing whenever I’m around beautiful women.”

  “You really don’t know the meaning of the word subtle, do you?” I laugh, feeling my cheeks burn.

  “I do. I just don’t like to risk being subtle.”

  “And since when is being subtle a risk?” I ask him, not entirely sure where the conversation is headed.

  “Subtlety means you’re using tactics. It means that you don’t want to face whatever it is head-on. Whenever I want something,” he says, lowering his voice and looking straight into my eyes, “I just go and get it.”

  With that, he reaches for me and lays his hand on top of mine. I look back into his eyes, my gaze drawn to his lips, and --

  I turn my head around as I hear the restaurant’s door swing open, and my heart almost stops as I notice the man standing there.

  Just like I planned, Logan’s here.

  Logan

  I walk into my favorite sushi restaurant and freeze as soon as I enter.

  What the fuck?

  I reach up and rub my eyes. I can hardly believe what's in front of me. Am I seeing this correctly?

  No. This can't be happening.

  What the fuck is Hunter doing in my favorite sushi restaurant? And what the fuck is he doing with Natalie? Who does he think he is, putting his hand on Natalie's?

  I feel my pulse kick in my chest and there's an anger building behind my vision. It almost makes me dizzy. I try to take a few, deep, mindful breaths but it doesn't help to ease the tension building behind my temples. I unconsciously ball one hand into a fist.

  Hunter doesn't even like Japanese food. And look at the way he's eating … fumbling his chopsticks, and pouring soy sauce over his sushi. It's all wrong.

  It's more than wrong. It's borderline embarrassing.

  The way he pours it is greedy and wasteful.

  I'll admit; I'm normally a calm and contained person. But right now? In this moment? There's a vein in my temple that's pulsing so fast, it feels like it might burst. I'm trying to resist the violent urge to rub wasabi in his eyes.

  I'm anything but calm right now … to say the least.

  There's something about Natalie that makes me feel possessive … and protective. It's animalistic. It's a feeling I normally don't experience.

  For a moment, I debate whether or not I should just turn around and leave and pretend like I never saw this. I could sweep this under the rug of my mind and move on. I have bigger things in my life to worry about. I could be the bigger man.

  But as soon as I think this, I know it's not true.

  I can't sweep this under the rug. I can't ignore it.

  It's more than just an emotion. My entire body is reacting to this.

  I know Hunter, and I can't let that cocky bastard get away with this. The way he's looking at Natalie. The way his hand is on hers.

  No, that's going to stop right now.

  I approach their table, and without wasting another moment I say, "What's going on?" My voice is calm but serious. It's hiding the rage boiling just below the surface.

  I catch them off guard and Hunter seems genuinely surprised to see me.

  "Well, look who it is," Hunter smiles. "Logan the swingin' Lion … or should I say lamb? You aren't much of a lion these days, are you? Tell me. How long has it been since you've lined up a fight? Months? Years? Let's be honest. It's been so long, we've all stopped counting."

  My jaw grows tense and I grit my teeth. "I didn't know you were one for … second place."

  As soon as the words leave my mouth, the realization hits Hunter and I watch his eyes go from me to Natalie, and back. And then he grins.

  "I'm never in second place," he growls. "Jealous?"

  I know I've struck a nerve because he pushes his chair back and stands up so that we're facing each other with an even gaze.

  Our chests are puffed out and
the way we're breathing is causing our nostrils to flare.

  The air between us is thick with tension.

  "Stop, both of you," Natalie pleads, but Hunter and I ignore her.

  "I'll take it from here," I say to Hunter. "You can leave now."

  He laughs. "You're fucking kidding, right? What are you, fucking mental? This is my dinner date, which you've so rudely interrupted. I was here first."

  "I was with the girl first," I growl.

  "I'm going to give you three seconds to get the fuck out of here before I make you wish that you never showed your face here," Hunter says, a seriousness growing across his brow.

  "You've always been a big talker," I growl. "You talk a big game Hunter, but you can't back it up. Natalie is mine."

  "Sure doesn't look that way," he sneers, taking another step closer to me, "and time's running out. Now you've got two seconds … and that's generous."

  "Good, then that gives me just enough time to put my fist in that mouth of yours." My eyes are now shooting daggers, and every muscle in my body is taut, and ready for action. If he wants to talk big, he better be ready to back it up.

  "What the fuck did you just say to me?" Hunter growls. He steps toward me and we bump chests.

  Just then, Natalie jumps out of her seat. "I said stop! Please!"

  Now we're listening. We have to. She's pushed us aside and is standing in between both of us.

  Then she turns to me. "I don't belong to you Logan. I want you to remember that. I don't belong to anyone. You don't own me like some pretty piece of furniture."

  I shake my head. "I didn't mean it like that, I—" but Natalie quickly cuts me off.

  "Go home Logan; I mean it," she says to me, and then grabbing Hunter's hand, she storms out of the restaurant, dragging him behind her to make her point clear.

  Fuck.

  That's the last thing I thought would happen.

  Natalie

  I was right. There’s a story between these two. Did you see the way they reacted? Even though they like to pretend they don’t know each other, this was the proof I needed. These two definitely know each other, and there’s more than meets the eye here.