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“You’re welcome.” Her usual smile is missing. In fact, she doesn’t smile at all. Her melted chocolate eyes meet mine, hold, and I swear she looks like she wants to say something more.
Tell me something.
She even licks her lips.
But then she’s gone. Lost to the tasks at hand.
My food goes cold while I watch her, waiting, wishing I had the right to call her back. To talk to her the way I want. To touch her. Kiss her. Whisper in her ear. Tell me what’s on your mind, honey. What do you need?
I shove a cold fry between my lips, silently cursing the whole fucked up situation.
TWO
piper
“When are you going to ask him out?” Rachel murmurs from her side of the bar, placing drink after drink onto her tray, her brow arched in question.
I put the gin and tonic she ordered on the rubber mat and act clueless. “Who?”
She gives a soft grunt as if to say ‘bullshit.’
“You know who. Every time you fill in for Heather, he shows up, and you guys eye-fuck each other all night.”
“We do not,” I deny, heat bursting in my cheeks. We totally do.
“Mmm-hmm, whatever you say.” She takes the tray and heads off, but I know she doesn’t believe me.
I run my fingers between my brows, trying to rub away the headache forming. It does little good.
A new group tumbles through the door, and I straighten my spine, ready for the next marathon of bartending.
“All I’m saying,” Rachel sing-songs when she returns for another round of drinks, “is he’s a sure thing. A definite yes. So you need to jump his bones before someone else does.”
And with that, she’s back into the crowd, beers in hand.
There’s no way, my heart protests. Then again, why wouldn’t he go out with someone else? For all I know, he has. Does. Regularly. It’s not like I have a tracking device on him.
He could be traveling a town or two over and— Do I really expect him to stay celibate just because I am?
A cheer goes up across the room, shocking me out of my stupor.
The machine prints out another order, and I tear off the slip. But my eyes have trouble focusing on the letters.
“Everything okay, Piper?” Hunter’s deep voice reaches across the bar and sends a shiver down my spine.
We lock eyes, and I take a deep breath so I won’t spew out all the ways I’m not okay. Instead, I try for a smile, but I can tell he doesn’t buy it. Hunter Dawson sees me, deep inside me, and has since the moment we met five years ago. “Busy night.”
And then I’m off, checking on the group of women that just settled at the other bar top.
“What can I get you ladies to drink?” I hand over a stack of menus and glance from one to the next. I peg them as a few years older than me. Early thirties, maybe? And since I’ve never seen them before, I’m guessing they’re staying at the resort on the other side of town.
The blonde with the whole can of hairspray in her hair glances past me. She makes a low purring sound in her throat. “That tall drink of water and a Chardonnay, please.”
I follow her gaze and see she’s staring at Hunter’s ass. I suck in a breath and bite the inside of my lip.
“We can’t—” His words whisper through my mind. Words he spoke to me five months ago. Pained and tortured but steadfast.
The other two women rattle off their orders, and I zip back to the bar.
