Page 25 of Cozen

“Thanks, Marissa.”

“Everything checks out, right?” the redhead asked.

She was pretty with dainty features and blue eyes that made her look doe-eyed. Men had a habit of going for that kind of thing.

“So far. Get back to me on the second order, though.”

“Will do, Chase.”

Chase.

Such a fuck-boy name.

Cozen plastered on a smile as she came up to the bar, and Chase finally looked her way.

“Can I help you?”

His short tone told her that Miss Rowena in the kitchen wasn’t the only person here with a fucking attitude problem.

“Maybe you can help me,” Cozen said. “I was told The Kingdom was looking for new hires. Something behind the bar, or someone to work the floor.”

She hadn’t been told that.

It didn’t matter.

Chase lifted one well-manicured eyebrow. Yeah, fuck-boy was a guy who groomed his eyebrows, apparently. Cozen was the type of woman who appreciated a little ruggedness in a man, but that was just her preference.

He pointed at the girl down the way with far too much concentration in her face as she chewed on the tip of a pen, and looked over the sheet. “Bar position has been filled.”

“Twelve times twelve is one-twenty-four, right?” the girl asked.

Cozen cleared her throat, and clicked her tongue before saying, “One-forty-four, actually.”

“Oh, okay, thanks!”

Chase stared blankly at Cozen. “And I haven’t needed a server in a long time.”

Shame.

“You sure? They were pretty specific—”

“Chase, you’re a fucking asshole, and I don’t give a shit what you want!”

The blonde that came rushing out of the kitchen from the right looked crazy as hell as she slipped around the bar where Cozen was still standing. She had a glinting, silver serving tray in her hand, and in her haste, stumbled over one of the barstools.

The woman went flying.

Cozen stepped out of the way of the falling woman, but managed to catch the serving tray in one hand, and the pen and pad that slipped off it with the other. She straightened up, and handed it over to a very frustrated looking fuck-boy manager behind the bar.

“Here you go,” Cozen said. “I suspect these are a bit too expensive to be dropping all over the place, right?”

Chase scowled. “You know what, keep it. Your first day starts now.”

“You haven’t even asked my name.”

“Although I don’t care as long as you know how to work a table and not be a bitch every day you show up to work, do tell,” he said dryly.

She could pretend not to be a bitch.