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The bartender shrugged her right shoulder. “Not my problem.”
“Well, I don’t have any cash on me,” he snarled before taking a drink of his pint.
“Guess I’ll add it to your tab, then,” she said, giving as much attitude as she was getting. “You fuck around on my shift and you’ll always find out.”
“This is the dumbest thing—and coming from you of all people.” He smacked his pint down, sending some of the beer sloshing over the side onto the otherwise pristine bar. “This is a hockey town,” he said, getting louder with each word. “Everyone talks about the Ice Knights.”
The man, his cheeks red with anger, shot up from his stool and crowded the bar all puffed chest and bullshit. The guy had a solid foot on her, but she didn’t even flinch.
“Not during my shift,” she said. “You talk hockey, you put a fiver in the jar.”
“This is bullshit, Astrid. I have rights.” He smacked his palm down on the bar. “I’m not gonna let some bossy little bi—”
Cal didn’t think.
He didn’t formulate a plan.
He was just sitting watching the show on the inhale, and on the exhale he was on the other end of the bar with his left hand to the back of the asshole’s head, holding his cheek firm against the wood as he twisted the man’s arm behind his back.
“Whatever you’re about to say next better start with ‘I’m sorry’ if you know what’s good for you,” Cal bit out. That’s when the sticker on the glass jar caught his eye and made him smile despite the circumstances. “And then you’re going to agree to add twenty dollars to the ‘Fuck Hockey’ jar.”
Chapter Three
Astrid believed with her whole heart that there was one thing in the world that would most efficiently and effectively tank a person’s opinion of humanity.
Surprisingly, it was not getting dumped at the altar.
It was working in customer service—especially when the son of the owner was your manager, your landlord, and your biggest nightmare customer.
Astrid really needed to stop taking Nola’s shifts at the pub. She had a whole other job as a personal organizer managing the lives of Harbor City’s rich and chaotic. Fine, she didn’t particularly love arranging strangers’ lives, but at least it wasn’t like the before times when she did that job for an entire hockey team.
That was one job she’d never, ever take again because, as the jar said, fuck hockey.
She hadn’t watched a game or talked to her dad about how coaching was going (beyond the basics of “How’s work? Good? Good.”) in the five years since her non-wedding.
It had been fucking glorious.
Also, glorious?
Seeing Andy the dipshit get his what for from the hot guy who’d come in wanting a cheeseburger. Forget a knight in shining armor; she had a hangry defender—one with dark, wavy hair, biceps that made her bite down on her lip, and intense brown eyes that didn’t even have a hint of laugh lines around them. It wasn’t that he wasn’t old enough for them, but it was as if he never smiled. Not even a little. Not even a smirk. Not even after he’d had two cheeseburgers and a malted chocolate shake that he’d dipped his fries in.
Andy squirmed against the bar, but her grump who must have parked his white horse in front of the bar didn’t relent a millimeter.
It was marvelous.
And wrong.
Also? So fucking hot.
Was she turned on by this caveman bullshit?
Nipples? Perked.
Panties? Damp.
Thighs? Clenching.
Yep, she was definitely turned on by her self-proclaimed bodyguard in a pink crewneck sweater with the sleeves pushed up so he was showing off his deliciously (and currently hardworking) sinewy forearms. Oh, Mama. If she kept staring at his arms, she was going to have to reevaluate the status of her panties.
