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Surprisingly, they had all been respectful. All of them had been more interested in drinking, eating, and watching whichever dancer was on the main stage than me. All of them except for Garret. He’d spent the night watching me, and I’d thought it was because he knew who I was. I’d been tense that entire night, thinking he was going to call me out for being a Ramirez, even if it was just as the late Matias Ramirez’s adopted daughter.
But he hadn’t mentioned anything about my being Calista Ramirez.
Even more surprising, each time one of his friends even looked twice at me, he would snap at them, and they would turn their gazes back to their food or the dancers.
When they left that night, I’d gotten over a thousand dollars in tips from them combined. Garret’s number had been wrapped up in the wad of twenties he’d personally left for me.
The next night, he’d returned, alone. He sat in the same booth, never once looking at the dancers on the stage, and flirted with me. And that was how it had been every night for the past two weeks.
At first, I thought he was just fucking with me, like he’d done back when I was a teenage social medial influencer. The messages he would send me, not just comments he made, but the DMs he would drop in my lap, on top of everything else I was already going through at home, had been the second worst thing that had happened to me—every damned day—until Nova had helped me escape.
But I saw no recognition in Garret’s eyes whenever I looked into them. Just a hunger that shook me. I didn’t want to feel anything but hate and disgust for the asshole, yet my body had its own plans. My second archnemesis was the only person to ever cause this reaction, and I was seriously struggling with how to digest that.
Placing my order pad on the tray I was still holding, I cocked my hip and gave him a tight smile. His glower turned darker. “Why do I never get the bright, flirty smiles like every other jerk-off in this place?”
I liked that I could annoy him, but I kept my face neutral as I waited patiently for him to give me his order, although I already knew what he was going to say. Every night, it was the same thing. Macallan whisky, neat. Cheeseburger, no tomatoes. Side of loaded cheese fries. For thirteen straight nights, that was what he’d ordered, without a single deviation.
If his mom knew he was eating like that every single night, she would be after him with a wooden spoon. But he didn’t know that I was acquainted with Felicity “Flick” Hannigan. He had no idea I’d spent the previous summer in his hometown, recovering from a broken jaw and the emotional trauma that had been accumulating for years.
Even if he did, I doubted he would care. I might have only met Garret in the flesh very recently, but my past knowledge of him told me he was a narcissistic asshole.
When I didn’t speak, he muttered a curse. “You haven’t called me.”
Instead of answering, I scribbled down his usual order. “Your drink will be over, and I’ll have the cook get started on your food.”
Turning to go, I tried to put him out of my mind so I could focus on work, but before I could take the first step away from his booth, he wrapped his huge hand around my wrist. I stiffened, but I told myself to relax. This was not Manuel. I was safe here. Garret Hannigan wouldn’t physically hurt me.
Would he?
He’d threatened to many, many times. But that was just him being a keyboard warrior—or so Nova had told me. His sister had assured me Garret would never put his hands on a woman with the intention of violence. And if he ever did, she and their mother would make sure it never happened again.
Heart pounding with fear and memories of how Manuel would have already jerked me down beside him in the booth raced through my mind. He would have taken delight in the terror that was undoubtedly shining out of my eyes. And then he would have done things to me that no one would have seen beneath the table.
Panic made my breathing come in sharp gasps, and I began to tremble as I glanced down at where Garret’s fingers were wrapped around my flesh. There was no chance he missed the way my pulse was close to two hundred beats a minute.
“Hey.” His voice sounded far away, but because it didn’t have that thick Colombian accent to it, I was distracted enough to lift my terrified eyes to look at his face.
He’d stood and was in my personal space, standing over me despite the six-inch heels that were part of my waitress uniform. With his right hand still wrapped around mine, although gentler now, he lifted his other to touch my cheek. “Take a deep breath, little Lis. I swear on my life that I will never harm you.”
Seeing his green eyes helped remind me that this wasn’t Manuel. My stepbrother’s eyes were an ugly brown color, not the warm hunter green of Garret’s. I swallowed and attempted to regulate my breathing.
“I’m sorry,” Garret murmured after a long moment passed, and my heart rate finally slowed to something that wouldn’t cause my heart to explode at any moment. Lifting my hand, he kissed where his fingers had been. Every fine hair on my body rose in reaction. When my nipples instantly hardened, I had to swallow a gasp. I hadn’t reacted like that to anyone—ever. I thought Manuel had killed that urge in me. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“I-it’s okay,” I choked out, watching as he skimmed his thumb over a faint scar on my wrist. I remembered that injury well. Matias had been away, and Garret had made yet another comment on my social media that had baited my stepbrother. Manuel had dragged me down to his room, thrown me on his bed, tied my arms above my head with barbed wire, and—
Shutting down that horrible memory, I tugged my wrist free from his grip. “I-I, um, I’ll just get this order in and be right back with your whisky.”
Garret
A feeling I was unused to experiencing settled in the pit of my stomach as I watched Lis walk away. I hadn’t meant to scare her, but there was no mistaking how frightened she’d been when I’d suddenly grabbed her.
In the two weeks that I’d been coming to Cherry Bomb to see her, I’d never seen her be anything but sassy. Nothing seemed to faze her.
Guilt churned in my gut, and I gritted my teeth as I retook my seat. But my gaze fell on her ass as she walked toward the bar, and like every other time I was presented with that back view, my body turned to stone. When she walked out of view, I tilted my head, keeping those ass cheeks in sight until she reached the bartender. I couldn’t hear what she said, but I could read her lips as she called out for my drink before punching my food order into the computer at the end of the bar.
The entire time I had my eyes on her, I was acutely aware of every other motherfucker in the vicinity looking at her too. Especially the two jerk-offs at the high-top with their hands dirty from their hot wings and their cheap draft beer quickly disappearing.
As I’d sat there waiting on Lis, watching her with her other customers, I’d been ready to pull out my Glock and put a bullet in every fucker’s skull. Acid had burned in my throat and stomach as she’d touched them flirtatiously, letting her fingers trail over their arms or backs, pressing her tits into them.
