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And Nick! What the hell had he said to her? If he did anything to upset her, I was going to kill him. Forget gathering more information, I would drag his ass in front of the board right now and flay him alive. His girlfriend, Kayla, too, if it came to that.
Jason was driving me to her restaurant. It was almost seven. She was sure to be swamped with dinner customers. What terrible timing. I was supposed to be at the bar at eight, but I had no desire to be there. I needed to grow up and forget this whole ridiculous farce. I knew I couldn’t play homeless forever, but I was terrified that I would lose Alissa if I gave it up. I couldn’t let that happen. She was the first girl who had ever meant anything to me. She hadn’t even known my last name, but I felt like she knew me. I had to believe that she would understand, that she would accept me despite my deception. I wasn’t giving up that easily.
Jason dropped me at the corner, and I jogged up the alley to the kitchen door. I knocked and an employee that I hadn’t met answered the door.
“Would you please tell Alissa that Jackson is here to see her?” I asked. He gave me an odd look and then closed the door and disappeared inside. I paced the alley nervously.
“How’s Hawaii?” her sweet voice called. I looked up at her standing in the doorway. She was so beautiful it hurt just to look at her. She was still wearing the skirt that she had worn in the photo. I wondered why she hadn’t changed. I had to physically restrain myself to keep from sweeping her into my arms and refusing to let go.
I couldn’t read her expression. It was a mix of anger and fear and confusion all at the same time. I just wanted to make it better, to see her smile. “God, Alissa, I am so sorry. I was going to tell you who I was, I swear to you…”
She shook her head. “I can’t have this discussion right now, Jackson,” she said, cutting me off. “I have a restaurant full of customers, and I somehow managed to order the most bizarre combinations of foods at the market this morning, then one of my servers didn’t show up, so we’re kind of behind, and truthfully I just can’t have a breakdown right now.” She took a deep breath for a moment, and I could see the tears in her eyes. “I am angry at you for deceiving me, and I am very confused right now, but I promised Lexy that I would hear you out. I will hear you out, but not right now. I can’t do this after the day I’ve had.” She was going to give me a chance. She would listen to me. Thank you, Lexy! She was just asking for a little space. I needed to be reasonable about this.
“Of course, Alissa,” I said. “You’re being more than fair. Just tell me what time you would like for me to be here, and I’ll be here. I promise, I’ll explain everything.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll come to you. The dinner crowd dies down around nine. I’ll be ready around ten. Where will you be?”
I considered that for a minute. She might as well see the whole picture at this point. “I’ll be at work,” I said, “tending bar at the 31st Street Bar and Grill.” Confusion flashed across her face. “Unless you want me to call in and say that I’m not coming?” She sighed. “No. Don’t leave the poor bar owner shorthanded. I know how it feels. I’ll come up and have a drink when I’m done.” She turned to go back inside. “You are one strange man, Jackson Hayes.”
The door closed behind her, and I slumped against the brick wall. She said she was angry and confused. I could understand that. I was confused as well. At least she had given me the benefit of the doubt. She was willing to be rational about this. She wasn’t throwing anything yet, and she was going to come to the bar later to be with me.
I walked out of the alley to the subway. I had a job to get to.
Alissa
Could this day get any stranger? Seriously? He really worked as a bartender? I guess he wasn’t lying about everything then. I couldn’t think about it or I would go nuts. I was going to stop making assumptions and wait until he had a chance to explain himself. For right now I needed to focus on filling the dinner orders.
I had to chuckle every time I looked down at the dinner specials. Jackson had me so damn distracted this morning that I’d purchased three kinds of lettuce, but no cucumbers, peppers, or really anything else appropriate for a salad. I bought a massive amount of tomatoes –
hence the tomato soup and the sudden abundance of marinara sauce on everything. I had no idea what to do with the tilapia because I hadn’t actually bought enough of it to serve it for a meal. It was a mess. I was never letting Jackson come on a shopping trip again. He was just too damn distracting.
The worst part was that I couldn’t even mange to be angry. He swept into my life and turned everything upside-down in a matter of days, and all I wanted to do was finish the dinner service so that I could be with him. I was hopeless. I didn’t care who he was, how much money he had, or why he was dressing like a hobo. I just wanted to be with him. The rest would sort itself out somehow.
Dinner dragged on even longer than usual, and it was already 9:30 when I marched my tired ass up the stairs. I took a shower and pulled my hair up. Forget the power clothes, I was going to be comfortable for this discussion. I was damn well going to take advantage of the bar scene too; I needed a drink.
Lexy offered to go with me, but I couldn’t deal with her right now. Truthfully, I didn’t even want to talk. All I wanted to do was sit and drink and listen to what I was hoping was going to be a very logical explanation for why my whole life had turned upsidedown over the course of two days.
I took a cab to the bar and tried to steel my nerves. What was the worst that could happen? We could decide that we couldn’t get over this, and then we would never see each other again. I would go back to my normal pre-Jackson life. I didn’t like that idea; in fact, thinking about it gave me an acute pain in my ribs, but that really was as bad as it could get. I would watch his career from afar, and he would forget about me.
A small part of me was hoping, though, that maybe he wasn’t just slumming with me.
Maybe he really had come back because he wanted to get to know me better. Maybe my breakfasts would be enough to keep him around for a while. I smiled at that. I wouldn’t mind waking up with him at all.
I paced back in forth in front of the bar for a few minutes. It wasn’t particularly crowded for a Friday night, which was good for conversation. It was now or never.
I walked into the bar and spotted him immediately. He was reaching up to put glasses away above the bar, and his shirt rode up enough that I could just barely see a sliver of skin above his low rise jeans. Hipbones didn’t come any sexier than that.
Focus, Alissa! You are not here to fantasize about his pelvic area.
I sat down at the end of the bar and waited for him to acknowledge me. It didn’t take long. He was a pretty attentive bartender. He gave me the most beautiful smile when he recognized me. Relief crossed his face. Did he really think that I wouldn’t come? I was later than I had said I would be, but I knew he would be here all night. I hadn’t meant to worry him.
“What can I get for you, beautiful?” he said.
You. Just you.
“Um, what’s your beer on tap?” I asked.
I settled on a light beer, and he went to the other side of the bar to get it. I really needed to focus. I was supposed to be hurt and angry, but I just wanted to watch him walk back and forth all night. He caught me checking out his ass, and I blushed all the way to my roots. Damn him!
He delivered my beer and gave refills to a group at the end of the bar. When everyone was situated he returned his attention to me. “Alissa,” he started, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.
I never meant for you to be involved in this complicated, confusing mess. It’s a long story, but if you’ll let me, I’d like to just start at the beginning and work my way through.”
“I think that sounds like a great idea.” I could tell that this wouldn’t be easy for him, and I did my best to reassure him that I would hear the story the whole way through before passing any kind of judgment.
He started with how he’d tripped over the homeless man in the street that day. He described himself as pious and self-absorbed. How could he have come so far in just four days? I couldn’t imagine him being so cold to anyone.
He told me about the bet with his brother, and I had to fight to contain my laughter. It really was ridiculous. Who made that kind of a bet? Jason sounded like a character.
He broke from the story to get me another beer and to check on his other patrons. When he came back, he told me about sleeping in the airport, looking for work, his struggle to get a social security card, and his first night in the shelter.
He really had gone through a lot in the first two days, and I was a little surprised that he hadn’t given up. He told me about the thief and the split lip. Finally, an explanation for the fight and the smelly clothes! He could have gotten hurt, though; he had really taken this bet to the extreme.
