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“Shut up,” Chloe hissed, pushing off her stool to stand as she glared at me. “Just shut your—”
“Children!” her dad interrupted, finally appearing. “Back to your corners, please. That’s enough for this round.”
“Dad,” Chloe sighed in relief and hurried over to wrap her arms around him. “Thank God you’re here.”
“Yeah, thank God,” I echoed. “But did you seriously ask her to meet you out here? Inmyspace? What the hell, Pick?”
Pick kissed Chloe’s hair as he hugged her back and met my gaze over her shoulder. “I didn’t want to make her walk all the way back there to meet me.”
“But thank you for the stimulating conversation while I waited, Lucian,” Chloe added, gazing back to smirk at me. “It was a pleasure, as always.”
I sniffed at her, then returned my attention to her dad. “Can you just please hurry throughwhateverit is you need from her so she’ll go away again?”
Pick frowned at me, then looked down at Chloe.
Taking her arms in his hands, he smiled like a proud father. “Your mom and I wanted to do something special for you to help you celebrate your new promotion.”
New promotion?
I lifted my brows, not having heard about a promotion. News traveled fast among our friend group, and I typically heard about every facet of her life—along with everyone else’s lives—whether I wanted to or not. ButthisI hadn’t heard yet.
Chloe was a radio host for a local station and talked during a morning show with a group of three other people. Since I worked nights, I was rarely up early enough to listen to her, but on the few occasions I had, I’d enjoyed the program.
I was dying to ask if her show had been picked up by a bigger broadcast, but I’d chew off my own tongue before letting her know I was even remotely curious about any part of her life.
I’d hear all about it through the grapevine soon enough, anyway.
“Dad. Seriously, you didn’t have to do that.” Chloe’s face lit up with pleasure as if she’d never been given a gift before when her father handed her a thick envelope. “But thank you.”
Pick smiled fondly and cupped her face in his hands before kissing her brow. “We’re so proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished.”
Feeling like a creeper for just standing there, watching their father/daughter moment, I slunk back toward the back wall where the shelves full of hard liquor were set out on display. Then, I turned away, remembering—shit—I had a bar to get ready for opening.
That was the thing about Chloe. She had a bad habit of dragging my head away from whatever I’d been preoccupied with and tempting me into forgetting everything around me but having a bickering match withher. It was annoying as hell.
When one of the waitresses appeared from the back hall, carrying a garnish tray loaded with olives and cherries, plus lemon, lime, orange, and pineapple wedges, and then tried to set it down, I whistled and snapped my fingers to get her attention. “Nope,” I called. “Not there.”
I strode over to physically shift it another five inches down the counter before I explained, “You’re going to bang your elbow on it all night if you have it that close to the waitress station.” Then I winked at her to ease the reprimand since she was looking at me as if I’d just smacked her knuckles with a ruler. “And your elbows are way too pretty to turn so black and blue.”
Just like that, her fear seemed to melt into a blushing smile. “Thanks, Luke,” she told me.
As she hurried off, Deacon, the other bartender who was working with me tonight, appeared, stepping behind the bar and struggling to lug a keg across the floor.
“Dude.” I shook my head and hurried toward him to assist. “Don’t hold that there. You carry it here.”
I took the keg from him easily, hefting it by its designated handle, and hauled it over toward the draft station. “See. Much easier, right?”
“Hey, yeah. Thanks, man,” Deacon said, dogging my heels as he followed me over. “Shit, but you make it look like you’re carrying around a bag of marshmallows.”
I sent him a raised-eyebrow glance. “Been doing this ten years,” I answered. “So do you remember how to install it?”
“Uh…” He winced and scratched the back of his neck uncertainly, which told me I probably needed to show him again.
As I knelt, pointing and instructing, a niggling sensation had me glancing up mid-sentence, to discover that Chloe was hugging Pick goodbye and preparing to leave. And as she wrapped her arms around him, she glanced over his shoulder and right at me so that our gazes met briefly.
We didn’t even have time to narrow our eyes at each other as we usually did—she was pulling away from her dad too quickly and I went back to focusing on the shit I was pointing out to Deacon—but my gut tightened in that split moment of involuntary eye contact because I knew she was going to disappear now, and we were going to miss out on exchanging farewell barbs where I would’ve no doubt said something bad enough to make her storm off in a huff.
Not sure whythatfelt like such a must-not-skip event, but I found myself rushing through my instructions, anyway, so I could stand up faster. Except, by the time I did, she was already halfway to the exit. I watched her make it the rest of the way to the door to see if she would glance back.
