Some fishing nets and other sea-related items hung on the walls, and there weren’t too many customers. Not surprising, probably, in the lull between lunch and the end of the workday. There were several men at the bar. A couple of guys in utility company sweatshirts took up one table, and there was a group of women at another. Watching her from behind the bar was a man about Gran’s age, with a long, silver ponytail and a scruffy beard to match.
Lucy smiled and walked to the bar, aiming for the widest gap between customers. “Are you Billy Loring?”
“Ayuh.” He squinted at her. “Who’s asking?”
“I’m Lucy.” There was no sense in offering the Macauley surname—changed from Griffin by her mother and stepfather during the eight-month marriage that had landed them all in Nevada—unless he asked. “I’m looking for temporary work.”
“Do you have any references?”
She didn’t really think him calling a Las Vegas nightclub that thought she was getting old and also fired her for breaking up Fairee would get her very far. “Willow Brown liked me well enough to send me your way. And I guess Nick Slater would vouch for me.”
Maybe.
He tilted his head. “How do you know Nick?”
“We live together.” The words were out of her mouth before she considered a better way to phrase their relationship.
“Ah.” He nodded once and went back to checking for water spots. “You’re Iris Macauley’s daughter.”
Ouch.“I prefer to think of myself as Helen Griffin’s granddaughter.”
That earned her a rusty chuckle and some eye contact. “Helen’s good people. You got experience?”
“I was a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas casinos and nightclubs for eight years, and I worked in various restaurants before I turned twenty-one.”
In her peripheral vision, she saw a woman’s head turn, and her eyes narrowed as she looked Lucy up and down. Lucy wasn’t sure if the woman didn’t like cocktail waitresses from Las Vegas or if she’d made the connection and recognized her as the sinker of the Fairee ship, but she tensed.
“I’ve never been to Vegas,” Billy said, nodding his head toward the grizzled man who smelled like low tide sitting three stools down, “but I bet Bones over there don’t tip like those high rollers.”
Lucy wasn’t sure she wanted to know why the man went by Bones. “I’m not looking to get rich—just something to keep me busy until Gran gets home from her travels.”
Snatches of whispered conversation from the table where the woman was sitting reached her.
Iris Macauley.
Reese Noonan.
Poor Faith.
Great. A trifecta of Lucy Macauley’s shame. Her face and neck heated, but she didn’t turn her head to look at them. Even before she blew up on the internet, she knew engaging usually only made things worse.
“And did Willow tell you I’m having surgery and Nicole can’t cover for me until school lets out sometime the middle of June?” Billy asked.
“It might have come up.”
“Can you make drinks, or do you just carry them on a tray?” He cringed and slapped his hand down on the counter. “That didn’t come out right at all. Didn’t mean to disrespect the job.”
“It’s all good.” Lucy wanted to tell him about some of the signature cocktails she’d designed because, honestly, shelovedtalking about them. But this didn’t seem like that kind of place. “I can make any mixed drink you can think of and some you’ve never heard of. And I can pull a draft with a perfect head.”
That got his attention. “Even a stout beer?”
“Just the right amount of foam, every time.”
“We’re not going to have any of that nonsense I heard about in Vegas, are we?”
And there it was. “I can’t guarantee nobody will ever show up to harass me or sneak videos of me while I’m working.”
He snorted. “I don’t care about folks like that showing up here. They wouldn’t be the first to find themselves out on their asses. I’m talking about the nonsense that started it all.”
