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“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
Every minute, my eyes flitted up to the little window in the swinging door, seeing if Charlie was on one of his dates like usual. But tonight he was alone.
At some point in the last few months, I’d started noticing every little thing he did: the way he pushed back his dark hair with his fingers when he was stressed out. The way he was so nice to people who recognized him from the TV show he’d been on, always offering them a selfie. The tattoos that lined his left arm, only revealed when he pushed up the sleeves on his usual black long-sleeve shirts.
And especially the way his warm brown eyes got a little sleepy and droopy by the end of the night, even though he wasn’t drinking any alcohol.
As my break came to an end, I leaned against a cold steel shelf full of paper towels and napkins, taking a deep breath. My heart pounded in my chest for no reason.
It was just a dumb dream.
I checked my phone, which was a mess of notifications as usual. I was in group chats for the fraternity, for study groups, and for my family, and I always had dozens of unread messages and little red dots to get to. Sometimes hundreds of messages, when people got talkative.
“Big group just came in,” a voice sounded out as the door to the kitchen swung open, and I jumped like I’d just seen a ghost. I glanced up in the bright fluorescent light, immediately pocketing my phone.
“Hey, boss,” I said as Rush came through, looking slick as hell even while carrying a giant bag of lemons in one arm. “You got it. I’ll be right out.”
“You’re awesome, Jax,” Rush told me with a smile. Rush owned this brewery and ran it—he’d inherited it from his late father, and over the past couple of seasons he’d kept the spirit alive, maintaining it as a beautiful, thriving local hangout for everyone in Jade River. I loved working for him, even though it kicked my ass. I’d started bartending here as a clueless college kid who could barely make a Shirley Temple, and now I was getting pretty damn confident behind the bar.
I sucked in a deep breath before bouncing back out into the bar again. The raucous sound of chatter, laughter, and music filled the air. I immediately headed over to the large group Rush had been talking about and I got busy helping with their drink orders.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched where Charlie was sitting. Ten minutes later, as I finished up with the big group’s order, I headed over to that side of the bar, looking around for a fresh bottle of bitters.
“Jax,” he said. My heart instantly jolted up toward my throat.
I looked up and met his eyes. There was something off about his expression.
“Everything okay?”
He shifted on his seat. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Typically I would have loved to hear Charlie saying he wanted to talk to me, but right now, he seemed almost a little upset.
“What is it?” I asked, taking a step closer to the bar.
“You haven’t checked the Fixer Brothers show page on Instagram today by chance, have you?”
“Haven’t looked yet,” I said. “I had class in the morning, then coaching, then a workout, and… I’m rambling. I’ve had a busy day.”
Busy day trying not to think about you.
The concern on Charlie’s face was already starting to worry me. “Apparently the producers posted a clip of the two of us, from last night.”
“Oh,” I said quickly, waving him off. “That’s okay. I told the producers I’m comfortable with anything they want to film or post with me in it.”
Charlie bit his lower lip again. “It’s not the video that’s the problem. It’s the comments.”
He put his phone down on the bar, turning it toward me so that I could see.
I looked down and scrolled through dozens and dozens of comments, most of which were saying variations of the same thing.
OMG. Those two are totally fucking.
Did you see the way they looked at each other?!
Hottie fucking bartender with Charlie? Give me his name!
Holy fuck, the sex they must be having…
So Charlie’s lying about being single, right? He must be.
I ship them. They’re in love.
Give me more of these two, please.
There were endless comments, all of which were people speculating that Charlie and I were together.
My throat suddenly felt dry. “Wow,” I said feebly. My skin started to overheat.
“Jax, if these make you uncomfortable, I can talk to the producers,” Charlie said immediately. “We can get them to take this post down. But I’ve learned that once these kinds of things are out of the bag, the fan base never really shuts up about them.”
I had so many thoughts swirling around in my head that I could no longer speak normally. All I could think of was what it might really be like to be falling into bed with Charlie every night, the way these online fans apparently assumed we were. I was already running on a lack of sleep, and a cozy bed with Charlie in it sounded like heaven on Earth right now.
