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Suddenly, Emily has materialized in front of us, popping up from where she must have been crouched below the bar doing…something. I don’t know what. But now she’s here, her smile bright and open and welcoming.
And then I realize…she’s looking at August. Not me.
Her hand reaches out and rests on his in an affectionate gesture, and that’s when I remember August was the one who suggested Emily as a nanny in the first place. What did he tell me? She’s friends with his sister?
My body bristles at their familiarity and the easy way she chats with him, surface-level catch-up stuff, before she’s walking down the bar to grab two pint glasses for us.
“So I was thinking we could…” But August’s voice trails off when he looks at me, his brows furrowing. “What?”
For the life of me I can’t answer him.
So I just shake my head. “Nothing.”
When Emily returns with our drinks, I accept mine with a tight, uncomfortable smile before tilting my head in the direction of an open table in the corner.
“Let’s go grab a booth.”
chapter six
emily
It’s a busy Saturday night at The Lighthouse because there’s a surf competition in town, so I’m hustling all across the place, serving drinks, clearing away empties, wiping down tables. It isn’t until closer to eight that I finally feel like the crush of incoming drinkers has slowed to a steady hum, which is when I decide to take a non-break break by chitchatting with August and Colton at their table for a few minutes.
I’ve always been on good terms with August. He’s one of Leighton’s older brothers, so it feels like second nature to pop by their table to say hey once I can take a breath.
Though I didn’t take into account the fact he’s here with Colton, or the fact I’m working for the guy and we aren’t exactly on easy terms.
Yet.
Part of me hopes by chatting casually with both of them at their table tonight, whatever weird, angry vibes there are between us can mellow out. He can see me as just a normal human instead of…well, I guess I don’t understand his problem with me, so I don’t really know how to solve it.
But, the second I walk up to their table and catch that same, familiar angry expression on his face aimed my way, I know whatever hopes I had of a truce or ceasefire or something like that are dust in the wind.
I turn to face August, who is smiling at me, and that eases the tension in my shoulders.
“Had a few minutes after the rush and thought I’d come say hi,” I tell him. “Bug you for a few minutes.”
“You know you’re my favorite kind of bug,” he tells me, a running joke between us from back in the day when my nickname was…well, Bug. “When she was in elementary school, she was obsessed with ladybugs.”
“And butterflies. And bees,” I add. “Anything with wings because they could fly away.”
August chuckles at the memory.
“It took her quite a while to drop that nickname if I remember correctly.”
Rolling my eyes, I swat his arm.
“And whose fault was that?”
We both laugh, but when I turn to Colton, who has that same irrationally irritated look on his face, most of my joy evaporates.
“Leighton said you’re moving tomorrow. Finally getting off her couch, huh?”
I swallow thickly at August’s question, unsure how to respond. If Colton wasn’t here, and if I hadn’t thought through the fact they are friends, I’d tell him the truth: that ‘getting off Leighton’s couch’ equals renting a cheap room at the highway motel.
But Colton is here, and I don’t want my boss knowing, firstly, any more of my personal details than he needs, and secondly, that I lied to him when I said it wasn’t a big deal that the position isn’t live-in. Employers don’t take it well when they’ve been lied to, and Colton strikes me as the kind of guy who might actually fire me for it, even though this particular lie has no bearing on his life whatsoever.
“Yup. Excited to have some space and get out of her hair,” I reply, keeping it purposefully short and vague and deciding now is the time to walk away.
