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As he walked away, she interjected, “Um, is Pete around by any chance?”
The man turned around slowly. “I’m sorry—who?”
Her first thought was she’d gotten his name wrong. It had been four and a half months, and she had pregnancy brain, so her automatic reaction these days was that she was mistaken.
“Um, Pete? He’s one of the owners?”
“I’ve worked here for almost two years, and I don’t know a Pete who’s an owner.”
Olivia nervously tucked her hair behind her ear. “He’s a little older? Dark hair, but grey at the temples? He was in the Navy?”
“You mean Maverick?”
“Uh—Maverick?” She replayed the conversation they’d had in her head. “No, I’m sure he said his name is Pete.”
Another man walked behind the bar carrying a rack of glasses.
“Derrick, this lady is looking for someone named Pete?”
Derrick glanced over at her and shook his head, sticking out his bottom lip while shaking his head. “Pete?”
“I think she’s talking about Mav,” the original bartender offered as he stood punching buttons on a computer screen.
The other man started putting the glasses away, scowling at her as he did. “What do you need him for?”
“Well, um, if they’re the same man, he and I went out a while back. I just need to talk to him.”
“You went out—but you don’t know his name?”
Her spine stiffened. She didn’t appreciate the attitude. “He said his name was Pete,” she grumbled. “And that he co-owned this place.”
His smile was condescending. “I co-own this place. I think maybe you were conned, sweetheart.”
Was she? She didn’t think so.
She pursed her lips. “Well, the bartender that night seemed to know him. And he went back into the kitchen, and he paid my tab.”
Derrick snorted. “Sounds like you dated a waiter.”
She glared back at the man, but didn’t reply. It felt like anything she did say, he was just going to scorn.
He sighed. “Look, Maverick, Pete, whoever. Like you said, we might not even be talking about the same person, but I haven’t seen Mav in weeks, and I have no idea when he’ll be in next—he doesn’t have a set schedule. It seems like you’d know that if you’d really gone out.”
If he was trying to make her feel small—and she suspected that was exactly his objective—he was succeeding.
Still, she’d come here to find Pete and tell him about the baby. She had to at least try to find a way to get in touch with him, despite this jerk.
She took her business card from her purse and wrote her personal cell phone number on the back, then slid it across the bar. “Well, when he comes in next, would you please ask him to call me? It really is important.”
The first bartender took the card and handed it to Derrick, who barely glanced at it before sticking it in his shirt pocket. “Will do,” he said as he walked away.
She didn’t feel confident.
A woman in a server uniform set her plate of food in front of her with a smile. Olivia had suddenly lost her appetite.
“Would you mind bringing me a to-go box?”
She set her credit card on the bar, signaling she wanted her check.
