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I might be too far away to hear the conversation between her and the pack of alphas at table three, but the look on her face tells me everything I need to know. They’re giving her a hard time, and I’ll be damned if they do it on my watch. No one harasses my employees.
Especially Jessa.
My temper flares as I give the drink I’m making a dramatic shake and pour it into twin glasses rimmed with sugar. I pass them to a couple at the end of the bar and exchange a polite nod with the gentleman as he passes me a twenty-dollar bill.
Letting my gaze wander back across the restaurant, I study the pack of alphas laughing and joking amongst themselves. They look young and dumb, radiating unattractive cockiness the way most young alphas do. Typical, predictable, and in need of a slice of humble pie.
Or a swift kick to the head. Whatever does the job.
Despite the bad feeling they give me, I decide to wait and linger behind the bar. Tempted as I am to go over there and throw them out of the restaurant for making Jessa uncomfortable, I want to make sure I’m not reading too much into it. Maybe the troubled look on Jessa’s face and her tense, stiff movements were a figment of my imagination.
Maybe she’s just tired after a long day. It might not have anything to do with the pack of alphas.
My eyes move to the door leading to the kitchen, and they focus there until Jessa reemerges carrying a tray with the same two plates she just took back. There must have been something wrong with them.Were they made wrong?
Jessa has a nearly perfect track record so far of punching in her orders correctly, so I doubt it was her fault. Maybe Ronaldo’s?
I track her steps across the dining room, watching her posture carefully as she delivers the plates a second time and waits for the alphas’ approval. The blond on the left, who I can only assume is the pack leader by the way he carries himself–like a huge fucking prick–says something, and I wish I was close enough to hear the words that come out of his mouth.
Jessa’s shoulders sag, and even though I’m staring at the back of her head, I can only imagine the look of disappointment on her face at whatever he says.
Nope. I’ve had enough.
She might not want to tell me what’s happening, but I’m not content sitting by and pretending like nothing is going on. Attempting to keep a level head, I wave over Damon to leave him in charge of the bar, then make my way casually over to section one.
“...that’s not fair, and you know it,” Jessa finishes saying as I step up beside her, and when she senses my presence, she stills suddenly, her head snapping in my direction.
Her eyes are wide, her lips pulled together tightly. The apples of her cheeks are rosy, and she looks a bit distraught, which kicks my alpha instincts off a cliff and has the roiling fire in my chest threatening to swallow me whole.
What the fuck did they say to her?
“Gentlemen,” I say.
It takes every shred of will power I possess to tip my head to them politely when what I really want to do is crack a ceramic plate over each of their heads.
“How is everything going over here?”
The pack leader huffs a laugh, his eyes flicking to Jessa, who looks so scared she’s shaking, before looking back at me.
“Honestly, it could be better. First, our order was wrong and now, it’s cold,” he says, poking at one of the stuffed shells on the plate. “And our waitress has been kind of rude the whole time, to be honest. We’re pretty disappointed in the service, aren’t we boys?”
The other two nod in unison.
“Terrible, really,” the one with dark, slimy-looking hair says.
I look back at Jessa, who hasn’t made a noise since I walked up, and the fear in her eyes nearly breaks me. It could be the insults doing it to her, but something tells me it’s deeper. Whatever is truly troubling her is big, making her uncomfortable and jittery, but she won’t tell me in front of guests.
I’d be lucky to find out if I pulled her into the office, because when I asked her what was wrong earlier, she said nothing.
“Rude?” I repeat, staring down into her wide blue eyes and begging for her to give me any sort of hint.
Did they say something offensive?
Do something crude?
“I-I wasn’t rude, Mr. Costa,” she says, her bottom lip quivering.
Mr. Costa?One of my eyebrows raises involuntarily at the name. Since when does she fucking call me that?
