It wasn’t unheard of for some of my female bartenders to ask for a hand. Sometimes men got too friendly or couldn’t take a hint. But Kayla usually wasn’t shy about telling someone to back off.
“No,” she replied, jaw set. “I just don’t want to serve him.”
I followed her glare to a man at the end of the bar who looked vaguely familiar, like he’d been in a time or two, but I couldn’t place him. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties. Thin mustache, receding hairline, bland expression. The pale blue button-up was baggy on his slim frame, but the blond he was chatting up didn’t seem to mind.
“I got it,” I told Kayla and then made my way down the length of the bar.
I didn’t notice anything weird when I took their order. Then we got another rush of tourists, and I put the man and his date out of my mind, checking in occasionally to grab refills. At some point, the chair beside him emptied before the guy moved down to set his sights on a different blond.
After we announced last call, I started closing out tabs and running receipts for the stragglers to sign.
The name on the last card had me staring down at the blue plastic in my hand.
Daniel Jensen.
My gaze shot to the man. He had a different woman beside him now. Maybe the third or fourth one he’d chatted up tonight. His arm was on the back of her chair as he smiled and toyed with a strand of her honey-blond hair. It looked like he might be about to close the deal and be rewarded for his efforts.
My hand tightened around the credit card reflexively, and I scanned my memory from the last few months, recognizing that he’d been in more than a few times. Bartenders were good with recall. Repetition always helped, though. And this guy—Daniel Jensen—had been regular enough that my eyes narrowed now. I couldn’t remember much more than that. Always coming in alone, but rarely leaving that way.
He was picking up women in my bar and had been for a while.
I thought about Bonnie, weeks ago, curled up on my bathroom floor, crying over this man. I racked my brain but couldn’t recall if he’d been here on the prowl before that night.
Kayla walked up and started organizing her own stack of receipts.
“Is that him?” I confirmed quietly before clearing the roughness from my throat. “Bonnie’s husband?”
Kayla didn’t even bother glancing up. “Yeah, that’s Danny, her ex.”
“And you didn’t want to serve him because . . . ?”
“Because he’s a dick,” she said without missing a beat.
Couldn’t argue with that. Everything I knew about him, I didn’t like either. And, honestly, I was fucking dumbfounded thathe’dbeen married toher. Bonnie could do so much better.
It wasn’t just the looks thing, because I knew Bonnie well enough to know that shit wouldn’t matter to her. But this guy, over there spouting cheesy lines, and trying—and failing—not to glance too often at some stranger’s chest, was the human equivalent of wilted lettuce. He was as uninteresting and bland as a mayonnaise sandwich.
Seriously, what the hell?
“How long were they together?” I found myself asking.
“Since high school,” Kayla replied. “Freshman year.”
“Jesus,” I breathed.
This was the guy she was so broken up over. The one she didn’t want to give up on, who she’d devoted half her life to.
She’d been so young. Probably hadn’t known any better or to hold out for someone who would have earned her love instead of claiming it for himself. I bet he’d never put forth any real effort because he’d known all along he’d landed someone loyal and devoted.
I slapped the credit card on the bar top with a little more force than necessary.
Danny straightened abruptly, peeling his eyes off the woman’s rack.
I wasn’t sure what expression I wore, but it must have been hard enough to have Danny standing and scrambling for his card, urging the woman beside him to stand as well.
Then I turned and walked into the kitchen to keep from telling him to get out and never come back. Luckily, by the time I finished going over the side work and running the last of the glasses through the industrial washer, Danny and the blond were gone.
I shook my head, wondering if the douchebag even realized he was picking up women who looked like his wife.
