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The man sprints away down the alley, and I’m about to come outside to check on them, but before I can open the door, Jamie turns around and approaches the small blonde. I stay inside, watching.
“Hey, are you okay?” Jamie asks the girl.
As the girl walks toward him, I get a good view of her from where I’m standing. She’s a pretty young girl in her early twenties, with blonde hair and emerald green eyes. I still don’t recognize her. As she approaches Jamie, she clenches her hands together and starts to sob, her shoulders shaking violently. Her knees buckle and Jamie catches her before she falls, helping her to sit on the curb at the edge of the alley.
I watch as Jamie wraps an arm around her, holding her gently. Rocking back and forth with her as she cries. He comforts her the same way my mom comforted me the day after…
An eerie melancholy washes through me, and a strange mix of confused emotions I don’t understand floods my mind. Jamie is comforting her… he actually looks like he cares.
While the whole episode in the alley took only three minutes, the bar has been completely unattended the entire time, so I turn and head back inside. I pick up the two bottles of gin, and squeeze a bottle of vodka under each of my armpits on the way back to the bar. The unfamiliar emotions continue to nag at me as I walk through the hallway back toward the bar. Had I misjudged him over all these years? Is he really as bad as I’ve thought he was? The way he stepped in and helped that girl is definitely not the Jamie Albrecht I knew.
As I emerge from the hallway into the front-of-house, the scene in front of me yanks me back into the reality of the moment. The bar is stacked four-deep with impatient guests screaming for alcohol.
Chapter 12
Lara
It'sbarelydusk,andEden's is closed for the night. Jamie told me that the Sunday strip club crowd would surprise a newbie like me, but he hadn’t warned me about this. Even he agrees that today was the craziest he’s seen, and it looks like a tornado whipped through the place.
Eden’s was blessed to be the warm up party for the rowdiest bachelor party crew He’d ever seen, even on a Saturday night. For this to happen on a Sunday afternoon has everybody, including Shelly, puzzled. And she’s been around a long time.
The doors are propped open; the glass reflecting the shower of red and blue lights emanating from the police cars parked out front. One officer is talking to Danny by the bar, another to the dancers by the stage, and two more talking to Jamie and the blonde girl who was attacked in the alley; Maddie, I think is her name. Or so Shelly tells me.
I can’t hear the conversation with the cops, but Maddie’s gestures and body motion are a replay of what I saw in the alley. She is obviously explaining to the officer what happened, and from her animated reenactment of the attack, it looks like she’s okay now.
When I saw it happening, I felt terrible for her. God knows I know what she was going through, but I’m not feeling so empathetic for her anymore. Even though they’re reenacting an attempted rape, Jamie and Maddie are laughing as they share the details of their experience with the officer. She keeps touching him, giggling like a schoolgirl in love, after every gesture.
Who the fuck is this girl, Maddie? And why would Jamie hire her on the spot? Without even talking with me first?
As the cop turns to leave, Maddie puts her hand around Jamie’s waist and pulls him into a one-armed hug, hip to hip. Jesus! If I touched him like that, he'd probably push me away, like he did earlier behind the bar. When I tried to kiss him in the car last night, he gave me some line about ‘not mixing business with pleasure.’ So, what the fuck is with this Maddie? If he wanted to fuck her, then why did hehireher?
Shelly steps up beside me and leans against the wall, crossing her arms. "Can you believe it? Some guy attacked Maddie outside. It’s a good thing Jamie was there to protect her."
Shelly is trying to get under my skin and it's working. It doesn't help that Maddie is beautiful. Even with smeared mascara, tussled hair, and dried tear streaks on her face, Sports Illustrated would hire her in a minute for their cover shoot.
"That was sweet of him." It takes everything inside me not to tell Shelly to fuck off.
Shelly doesn't back down. "I'm surprised you're back. When Jamie asked you to leave last night, I thought you were done."
I give Shelly a genuine smile. "You can't get rid of me that easily, Shelly."
"We'll see about that," she snorts.
As the cops begin to clear out and Jamie tells the dancers they can go home, I hang back to clear the bar. Jamie turns toward the bar and before he can take a step, Maddie reaches out and locks her fingers around his arm. Tugging him back, she wraps both arms around him in a hug, her small frame fitting perfectly against his chest. He pauses awkwardly, patting her on the back. When he glances across the room, his gaze locks with mine.
Fuck.
I look away and immediately start washing glasses. Maybe he didn't catch me staring.
Jamie kisses Maddie on the cheek and frees himself from her hug. "You can head home, Maddie," he says, and turns toward the bar, moving slower than usual, and still holding a bloody paper towel pressed to his cheek.
"Are you sure?" Her voice has an odd high pitched shrill, which gives me a tiny bit of joy. I may not have her looks, but at least I don't sound like an injured pigeon whistling in the wind.
"Yeah," Jamie sighs and smiles at her. "You've had a pretty stressful day. We’ll clean up here. I’ll see you tomorrow, right?"
That bitch. Oh. He’llsee her tomorrow. I bet he can’t wait.
He stares at me standing behind the bar. There's no flicker of emotion, no gratitude for cleaning up. He looks annoyed that I'm even here. I know I was late, but what the hell? He practically begged me to come back to work, and yet all afternoon he's been short with me, barely talking. And the few times he did, his tone was sharp and aggravated.
