I knew exactly what he was saying.“I promise I’ll only be gone two days.I’m the old lady of the group anyway.”
He kissed me soft.“Then maybe you should just stay home and let the youngins have the fun.”
I smacked his shoulder with the back of my hand.“I can still keep up with my cousins.”
“Yeah, but do you actually want to keep up with them?”He tipped his head toward the floor.“You leave me here all alone with Alice, Cora, Raven, and Mayra covering your tables, and I’m telling you now: Alice is likely to bring a cow to work, Raven and Cora will tell at least four customers to fuck off, and Mayra will spend the entire night trying to put out all the fires those three light.”
I laughed so loud Thorn glanced over and smirked.“That’s… painfully accurate.”
“Adley!”Penny’s voice carried over the clack of pool balls and the game on TV.“Come here!”
I pressed a quick kiss to Mason’s mouth.“Gotta go.Love you.”
As I grabbed my tray, he smacked my ass, quick, proprietary, playful, and I tossed him a look over my shoulder that promised I’d pay him back later.
The cousins were clustered near the giant beer pong.Eden lined up a shot and sank it clean.Bell whooped like she’d just won the lottery.Clove flapped her hands and did a little happy dance that made two guys at the end of the bar grin like idiots.
“What’s up?”I asked, bracing the tray on my hip.
“Do you think we could sneak Eden into the bars in Chicago?”Penny asked, dead serious, eyes sparkling with bad ideas.
I looked at Eden, eighteen going on nineteen with a baby face that gave her away from a mile out.“Uh, maybe if it’s really smoky and the bouncer is blind.”I paused.“And deaf.”
They cracked up.Eden stuck her tongue out at me and then reached for a soda.
“Hey,” someone said behind me.
I turned and found Star stepping up to the circle, a little windblown from coming in out of the night with a pool cue in one hand like she’d been born leaning on it.That bright, curious look she always had was softened by the way she looked at the cousins, as if she’d already been adopted and didn’t quite know how it happened.
“Hey!”Penny beamed.“You working tonight?”
Star rolled her eyes.“Mac stuck me with cataloging B-roll.If I watch one more wide shot of the parking lot, I’m going to start narrating tumbleweeds.”
“Welcome to Weston,” Calla snorted.“Half our landmarks are parking lots and one Dairy Bar.”
They were already off and running, the Girl Gang 2.0 making space for Star like she’d been there all along.
“Be right back,” I told them, because four guys had just taken one of my tables.
I plastered on a smile, grabbed four menus off the endcap, and headed over.
They turned as I slid the menus down, and my stomach did a slow, ugly roll.
It was them.Four of the guys from last week.Loud, sloppy, harmless enough in that way a bar can absorb.And their friend.The one who’d been kicked out.The one who’d put his hands on me like he owned a piece.
Oh, boy.
“Evening, gentlemen,” I said like my nerves weren’t pinpricks just under my skin.“What can I get you to drink?”
Three of them ordered without fuss, beers and a round of wings, extra napkins, all of it routine.I wrote fast, nodding, not giving them much room to get a foothold.Then I turned to him.
Up close, he was all hard edges and mean eyes, sour twist to his mouth that said he hadn’t come back to make peace.
“I’ll take your phone number,” he said, sitting back like he’d scored a punchline.
I laughed, airy and practiced.“Uh, I don’t think my boyfriend would be too fond of that.”I held my pen at the ready.“How about a beer?”
His gaze swept me, slow and ugly.“Yeah?Boyfriend work here?”
