I accepted the leather and denim apron Sherry “Fi” Fiasco handed me and tied it around my waist.
“Shirt looks good,” Sherry said, giving my Honky Tonk v-neck an approving nod.
“Thanks,” I said and tugged nervously at the hem. The shirt was tight and showed more cleavage than I was used to accentuating. But, per my research at the library, ladies with their “girls” showing tended to make higher tips.
Honky Tonk felt like a country bar that had a brief but satisfying affair with a glitzy speakeasy. I liked the “fancy cowboy” vibe.
“This here’s Maxine, and she’ll be training you on the POS,” Fi said, plucking the lollipop out of her mouth. “It’s also how you clock in and out and order your own meals. Here’s your pin number.” She handed over a sticky note with 6969 scrawled across it in Sharpie.
Nice.
“Hi,” I said to Maxine. She had dark skin dusted with glitter over her enviable cheekbones and modest cleavage. Her hair was cut short and left to curl tightly in tiny magenta coils.
“Call me Max,” she insisted. “You ever sling drinks before?”
I shook my head. “I worked in HR until two days ago.”
I gave her points for not rolling her eyes at me. I wouldn’t want to train me either.
“But I learn fast,” I assured her.
“Well, you’re gonna have to since we’re short-handed tonight. So unless you suck, I’ll be pushing you out of the nest early.”
“I’ll do my best not to suck,” I promised.
“You do that. We’ll start with the drinks for my eight-top.”
“We’ve got two drafts of Bud,” Maxine began, fingers flying over the screen. Her glittery nails hypnotized me with their speed.
I was nervous but highly motivated. My bank had told me it would take up to a week for me to receive my replacement debit and credit cards. And Waylay had already polished off the entire box of Pop-Tarts. If I wanted to keep my niece in groceries, I was going to have to be the best damn server this town had ever seen.
“Then you hit send, and the printer at the bar spits out the order. Same for food, only it goes straight to the kitchen,” Max explained.
“Got it.”
“Great. Here’s the next one. Your turn.”
I only fumbled twice and earned a “good enough” nod from my trainer.
“Let’s get those tips flowing. I hope your feet are prepared,” Maxine said with a quick grin.
I blew out a breath and followed her into the crowd.
MY FEET HURT. I was hours behind on my water intake. And I was really tired of explaining that I wasn’t Tina. Especially since that seemed to have earned me the nickname Not Tina.
Silver the bartender said something that I missed as I wearily unloaded glasses at the service bar.
“What?” I yelled over the music.
“Hangin’ in there?” she repeated louder this time.
“I think so.” Max had given me two tables of “understanding regulars” to handle on my own, and so far no one besides me was wearing beer or complaining about how long it took to get their brisket nachos, so I felt like I was doing an adequate job.
I felt like I’d walked ten miles just going between the bar and the tables.
Most of the patrons seemed like regulars. They knew each other’s names and drink orders and razzed each other over sports rivalries.
The kitchen staff was nice enough. And while Silver wasn’t exactly friendly, she was a pro pulling pints with both hands while taking a to-go order over the phone.
I admired her efficiency.
I’d just dropped off a fresh round of drinks when I realized I’d spent the last few hours not thinking about…well, anything. I hadn’t had time to worry about Waylay at Liza’s or about the four emails from Warner I hadn’t opened. And the small roll of cash in my apron made me forget all about my thieving sister and my overdrawn accounts.
I also hadn’t given my hot, grumpy, urinating neighbor a passing thought.
That’s when I lost my focus and walked smack into a solid wall of chest under a black t-shirt.
“Pardon me,” I said, slapping a hand to the muscley obstacle to stay upright.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Not. Again.
“Are you kidding me?” I squeaked, looking up to find Knox scowling at me.
“What are you doing here, Naomi?”
“I’m checking Santa’s Naughty List. What does it look like I’m doing?
I’m working. Now get out of my way, or I’ll hit you with my tray and I’ve had a lot of espresso today. I could get you on the floor in three or four whacks.”
He didn’t respond verbally. Probably because he was too busy taking me by the arm and dragging me out into the hallway. He stormed past the restrooms and the kitchen door and opened the next door with a well-placed boot.
“Evenin’, Knox,” Fi said, without looking up from her monitors.
“What the fuck is this?” he snapped.
Sherry spared him a glance. “This?” she repeated blandly.
He pulled me farther into the room. “This,” he said again.
“This is Naomi. A human person who is halfway into her first shift,”
Sherry said, going back to her monitors.
“Don’t want her working here, Fi.”
I’d had enough of the pissed off at the world in general and me in particular routine. I yanked my arm free and whacked him in the chest with my tray.
Sherry looked up again, her mouth falling open.
“I don’t care if you don’t want me working here, Viking. Fi hired me. I’m here. Now, unless you have a reason for detaining me at a job I desperately need, you blond Oscar the Grouch, I suggest you take up your hiring concerns with this establishment’s management.”
“I am this establishment’s management,” he snarled.
Great. Of course he was management. I’d hit my new boss with a tray.
“I wouldn’t have taken this job if I’d known you managed this place,” I bit out.
“Now you know. Get out.”
“Knox,” Sherry sighed wearily. “We needed a replacement for the server you scared off with all your scowling and Oscar the Grouching.”
He pointed a threatening finger in her direction. “I’m not letting you make that a thing. Call What’s Her Name and get her to unquit.”
Sherry leaned back and crossed her arms. “If you can tell me her name, I’ll call her up right now.”
Knox muttered a curse.
“That’s what I thought,” she said smugly. “Now, who makes the hiring decisions around here?”
“I don’t give a shit if it’s the damn Pope,” he growled. “She’s not working here. I don’t want her around.”
Deciding I had nothing to lose, I hit him again with the tray. “Listen, Viking. I don’t know what your problem is with me. Whatever narcissistic delusional roller coaster you’re on, I’m not here to ruin your life. I’m trying to earn back some of the money my sister stole from me, and until the bank unfreezes my account, I’m not letting you or anyone else stand in the way of Waylay’s Pop-Tarts.”
“Unless you want to take her tables for her, boss, I’m siding with Naomi,” Sherry said.
Knox’s eyes glowed with icy fire. “Fuck. Fine. One shift. You make one mistake. Get one complaint and your ass is gone.”
“Your magnanimity won’t be forgotten. I’ve got tables waiting.”
“One mistake,” he called after me.
I flipped him off over my shoulder and stormed into the hall.
“Get rid of her, Fi. I’m not working with some uppity, needy pain in the ass.” His words carried to me outside the door. My cheeks flamed.
An uppity, needy pain in the ass. So that’s what the gorgeous, bad-tempered Knox Morgan saw when he looked at me.
I KEPT IT TOGETHER, pushing all thoughts of my stupid boss out of my mind and putting my full attention into getting the right drinks to the right people, busing tables for turnover, and being helpful wherever I could.
I squeezed in the shortest dinner break in the history of dinner breaks, sneaking a pit stop at the bathroom and a few bites of a spectacularly good grilled chicken salad from Milford in the kitchen. Then made a beeline for the bar, where Silver was pouring a stream of liquor into a cocktail shaker with one hand and opening a beer bottle with the other.
Her hair was buzzed short, leaving nothing to distract from the dramatic smoky eye makeup and tiny eyebrow ring. The sleeves of her black blazer were rolled up, and she wore a striped tie loose over a Honky Tonk tank. She was androgynously attractive in a way that made me feel like an eighth-grader with a crush on the cool girl.
“Silver, do you mind if I use the phone to check in with my babysitter?” I asked over the thump of the music.
She jerked her head toward the phone between the two tap systems, and I took that as approval.
I checked my watch and dialed the cottage’s number. Liza answered on the third ring.
“We ordered pizza stead of eatin’ that mound of veggies you left us,” she said over the blare of the TV on her end.
“Are those gunshots?” I asked, plugging my ear with a finger so I could hear her over the musical stylings of country singer Mickey Guyton on my end.
“Can you believe she’s never seen The Usual Suspects?” Liza scoffed.
“Liza!”
“Relax. We’re just shooting real guns in the house, not watching R-rated movies.”
“Liza!”
“You’re right—your aunt really is wound tighter than a necktie on Friday,” Liza said, presumably to my big-mouthed niece. “Everything’s fine.
Way helped me in the garden. We ate pizza and now we’re watching a PG-13, edited-for-TV action movie. Sylvester Stallone just called someone a poop head.”
I sighed. “Thank you so much for this. I really appreciate it.”
“Kinda nice to have company for once. When’s your next shift?”
I bit my lip. “I’m not sure. This might be a one-and-done. My new boss doesn’t seem to like me.”
She laughed softly. “Give him time.”
I realized my babysitting fairy godmother had predicted this and wondered what she knew that I didn’t.
“This ain’t social hour. Get your ass off the phone, Daisy.”
I gritted my teeth at Knox’s interruption. “Your grandson says hi.”
Liza chuckled. “Tell him to kiss my ass and to pick up a rotisserie chicken for me tomorrow. I’ll see ya when ya get home,” she said.
“Thanks again. I owe you. Bye.”
I turned and found Knox looming over me like a sexy turkey vulture.
“Your grandmother says kiss her ass and bring her a rotisserie chicken.”
“Why are you on the phone with my grandma on your first and last bar shift?”
“Because she’s watching my eleven-year-old niece so I can earn money for groceries and back-to-school clothes, you uncharitable oaf!”
“Figures,” he muttered.
“Lay off, Knox,” Silver said as she shook two cocktail shakers at once.
“You know being a dick costs you in turnover.”
“I want this one to turn over,” he insisted. “Why don’t you hide in the kitchen and text like everyone else?”
“Because I don’t have a cell phone,” I reminded him.
“Who in the fuck doesn’t have a cell phone?”
“Someone who lost hers in a tragic rest stop accident,” I shot back. “I’d love to continue this stimulating conversation, but I need to help Max turn over some tables.”
“You tell him, Not Tina,” Hinkel McCord crowed from his barstool.
Knox looked like he was going to pick him up and hurl him through the door. I took a cleansing breath and did what I did best—stuffed all of my feelings into a little box with a tight lid. “Is there something you need before I go back to work?”
His eyes narrowed at my polite tone. We stared each other down until we were interrupted.
“There she is,” a familiar voice boomed over the din.
“Justice!” My cafe-owning future husband had his arm around a beautiful woman.
“I brought the wife so she could meet my fiancée,” Justice joked.
“Wait’ll Muriel hears about this,” Hinkel cackled, whipping out his phone.
“I’m Tallulah,” she said, leaning over the bar to offer her hand. “Hubs told me all about your first day in town.”
She was tall with a cascade of long braids down her back. She was wearing a St. John Garage t-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. “Sorry I missed your first time in the cafe. Heard it was quite a show.”
“This one hasn’t been half bad either,” Hinkel interjected.
“It’s nice to meet you, Tallulah,” I said. “I’m sorry for proposing to your husband, but the man makes coffee that angels sing about.”
“Don’t I know it,” she agreed.
“Where’s your section? We’re here to patronize you,” Justice said.
Knox rolled his eyes.
“Don’t mind him,” Silver said, elbowing the boss out of the way. “He’s just pissy because Nay hasn’t screwed up yet.”
I wanted to kiss her for giving me a nickname other than Not Tina.
“He gave me one shift and no mistakes,” I explained, not caring that he was standing behind me.
“Knox Morgan,” Tallulah chided. “That’s not how we welcome new Knockemouts. Where’s your sense of community?”
“Go away, Tally,” Knox grumbled, but there was no heat to it.
“Naomi, I’ll have your darkest, strongest beer,” Tallulah said. “And the hubs here will have a piña colada with whipped cream.”
Justice rubbed his palms together in anticipation. “And we’ll split an order of the pulled pork flatbread. Extra jalapeños.”
“No sour cream,” Tallulah interjected.
“You got it,” I said with a wink. “Have a seat, and I’ll bring your drinks right out.”
“You gonna write that down?” Knox asked as the couple wove their way through the crowd.
I flipped my hair over my shoulder. “Nope.”
He looked at his watch and smirked. “You won’t even make it to the end of the shift at this rate.”
“I’ll be happy to prove you wrong.”
“In that case, you just got yourself another table.”
He pointed to a rowdy table in the corner where an older man with a potbelly and a cowboy hat appeared to be holding court.
“Don’t do that to her on her first night, Knoxy,” Max chided him.
“If she’s so confident she can handle it, no use letting her wade around in the kiddie pool. Gotta throw her in the deep end.”
“There’s a difference between sink or swim when you introduce sharks,”
Silver argued.
