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My eyes widened and I bit back a retort. “As you can see, we have no customers to take care of.”
“Time to lean,” he pulled a bar towel from his shoulder, “Time to clean. Boss.” He motioned to the bar he knew damn well I kept impeccably clean as I gazed at his reflection in the mirror.
“I’ve already cleaned the bar. You know I always keep it in order. You want me to do it again?” I challenged.
“Yes. Yes, I would.”
“Why don’t you say please.” I seethed, wanting to remind him of our night together, but he still didn’t catch my implied meaning.
The Lord Of My O’s could fuck off.
FIVE
THEO
Say please, my ass.
Listening to them talk about me—the way they thought I would run this bar into the ground—pissed me the fuck off. Pompous asshole? Who me? They didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about.
I wasn’t born yesterday and I worked hard for everything I had. There was no silver spoon in my mouth when I was born, and I never failed at anything I ever set out to do before in my whole goddamn life—and that was a fact.
I tugged at my tie as the heat coursing through my agitated veins compounded.
The previous owner told me business was good, and even showed me his books. Glancing around at the empty bar area, I questioned if he fudged the numbers, somehow. If we continued to do business like this, The Bearded Goat would be out of business before I could run it.
All in all, the staff was efficient, nothing I couldn’t work with. There were even a few who I would consider for management. They worked hard and I appreciated it.
But, this Penny Marks, now standing around twiddling her thumbs, doing nothing, tested my patience. I stood behind her as she polished a liquor bottle, and my anger heightened.
“Would you please clean?” I asked, stooping to her childish level.
She held up the bottle she was wiping, glancing at me through the large mirror behind the bar. “I am cleaning, Mr. Sullivan,” she said in an overly exaggerated sarcastic voice. Irritation rose inside of me. She couldn’t even take a second to turn around to face me.
“Cut the crap, Penny.” I cracked my knuckles in annoyance as my eyes tightened. “You’re polishing a bottle.”
She spun around with wide eyes to face me. Her breathing picked up and her cheeks reddened with either embarrassment or anger—at this point I didn’t care which.
“Excuse me, sir. The bottles get dirty when we pour drinks. If we don’t polish the bottles then we’ll get fruit flies. Do you want flies?”
“Of course I don’t want flies.” I leaned back against the bar. “Did you have a nice chat with Fiona?”
Her mouth hung open and the sassy expression was replaced with guilt. “Um, I can explain,” she said.
“Save it, Penny. Let me explain something to you. Do your job, show up on time, and work hard and maybe in a year we can discuss the management thing again.”
“A year? You’re kidding right?”
I cracked a smile. “Sure, of course I am. I would never say a year. Maybe two.”
“Oh ha ha very funny, Mr. Sullivan.”
“You can call me Theo, as for the management position, try not to talk bad about me anymore.”
“Theo, I didn’t mean to be…”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. I never fail at anything I set my mind to. You best b
e remembering that.”
