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When I looked back up at him, I was sure I’d find him staring at me with that same cynicism as before. But instead, the heat in his eyes had only increased. If a look could remove someone’s clothes, that one would do it.
“I have some old-timers here.” He shrugged and looked down at the label. “What can I say? One guy loves this stuff.”
“That drunk guy I just met?” I meant to glance in the direction of the bar, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
Bo shook his head. “No, this guy comes in for dinner once a week with his wife. Drinks one glass of this, no mixer. I have it shipped from a distributor in Florida.”
“Of course, the bartenders you train won’t be able to do special orders like that,” I said.
“Sure. But here in Blackbear Bluff, if it’s someone who comes in once a week reliably and orders your most expensive meal, along with his wife who just drinks a glass of wine, I’d say it’s worth it.”
The heat had dimmed in his eyes a little, but he was still staring down at me, and I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off him. It would be so easy for him to lower his head and kiss me right now. I was having a hard time thinking about anything else.
Our stare was interrupted when the front door opened, and voices filtered in. It was a group of guys. Bo and I split apart like we’d been caught doing something wrong. Maybe we had, but it felt right somehow.
It was a large group of guys on lunch break from the logging crew. They seemed to be in tight with Bo, so I stood back and watched as he did his job, knowing I was supposed to critique his work. Instead, all I could seem to do was stare at those broad shoulders and muscled biceps, visible under the black long-sleeve t-shirt he wore.
Yeah, this definitely was going to be a tough job. But surely, I could make it through another twenty-four hours without kissing him.
Even as the thought flew through my mind, though, I had serious doubts.
3
BO
I’d never been so exhausted at closing time. In fact, for the first time in years, I warned customers we were closing. I didn’t want to wait another hour or for people to drag their asses out the door.
“Wow,” Emerald said as she worked on melting the ice. “Is it always that busy?”
I picked up the bus tub, loaded down with dirty glasses, and prepared to walk it back to the dishwasher. “No, but it’s not every day we have a bunch of hunting buddies show up.”
“Hunting in January.” She shook her head. “Sounds miserable to me.”
I was still smiling as I carried the tray to the back room. “Last load,” I called out.
The kitchen crew had already finished up and were shooting this shit as they grabbed their belongings from the cubbies. The dishwasher, a recent high school graduate named Brendon, usually exited around the same time I did. But I wouldn’t be in a hurry tonight. I wanted at least a few minutes alone with Emerald.
Once I’d filled the mop bucket with clean water, I pushed it out to the floor. Emerald helped me move the chairs on top of the tables, then went to grab the broom, following my directions to the closet near the restrooms.
“You don’t have a server to help with all this?” she asked as we worked.
“Too hard to find someone to help,” he said. “We sometimes get a high schooler in the summer months, but when school’s in session, it’s impossible. I just do it all myself.”
She seemed to accept that, and we worked in silence from there. At some point, it hit me just how nice today had been. All afternoon and evening, I’d worked side by side with the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, hands down.
It wasn’t that I was drawn to her. That was almost a distraction. No, it was just nice working with her. We seemed to be in sync.
“I guess that’s it,” she said as she returned from putting the broom away in the closet. “What time do we start tomorrow?”
I was prepared to push the mop back to the kitchen, but her words stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t want her to leave. Not just tonight, but ever. It was the first time in my life I’d ever felt that about a woman. In fact, usually my goal was to get them into bed and out of my life as quickly as possible. But Emerald was different.
“I usually arrive around ten, but you can come in anytime you want,” I said. “Wait right there. I want to ask your advice about something.”
As I wheeled my bucket to the now-empty back room and dumped out the water, I ran through the possibilities in my mind. I had plenty of things to ask her advice on, but I couldn’t think of one that was an absolute emergency. All I knew was if I let her leave, I’d spend the rest of the night kicking myself for not finding a way to spend more time around her.
“It’s in the back,” I said when I returned to the dining room. “In my office.”
Those were the last words I said before I headed toward the back room. When I heard her footsteps behind me, I smiled. I wasn’t sure where this was going, but at least she hadn’t left yet. I could work with that.
