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“Rough day?” he asked as she approached the bar.
She dropped her bag on the top of the bar and hopped onto the barstool, slouching on the bar top. “Are all men assholes or just a select few? Is it like a gene or something?”
“Boyfriend trouble?” he asked.
Her lip curled in disgust. “Ex-boyfriend. And kind of.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“Okay then what can I get—?”
“It’s just that we were together for a long time, and you would think I would have noticed I was dating a total jerk. But no, I was blissfully unaware of the magnitude of douchebag that was contained in that custom suit of his.”
Shane rested his arms on the bar beside her and leaned forward. “Maybe you didn’t want to see it.” She blinked up, brown eyes like deep pools of chocolate he’d be more than happy to drown in for a night. “Sometimes it’s easier to pretend everything’s okay rather than accepting that it’s not.”
He’d done it all too often. First when he was sick, refusing to accept his diagnosis. Then when Mom got sick. Denial was a better state of mind… until it wasn’t.
“I guess you could be right. Look at me now. I had to do my own blowout this morning.” She made a sweeping motion toward her hair. “I’m homeless, jobless, and an emotional train wreck.”
Shane shook his head and laughed. “No, the other night you were an emotional train wreck. Today you seem like you’re on your way to figuring out your next steps without him in your life.”
Her glossed lips pressed together in what looked like an attempt to hide a smile. He wished she didn’t suppress it. Her smile was beautiful. “I hope so. Right now, I feel like I’m never going to figure out my next step.”
He rested a comforting hand on hers; an unexpected jolt of electricity shot through his arm and right to his groin. He swallowed down the rise of desire the touch of her skin against his awakened inside him and focused on the conversation.
“You will,” he said.
“How do you know?”
A smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Because there’s a fire in you. I saw it the first time I met you, and I can see it now, and that fire is not something that can be contained.” He felt it when he touched her, too. Heat roared beneath the surface, begging to be released. He wouldn’t mind helping her free the built-up inferno for a night. He’d bet money that one seductive touch to her prissy demeanor would spark a blaze of passion inside her, making her become overzealous and eager to take him.
“You’re good at this,” she said.
His brow furrowed, knocking him away from visions of Olivia satiated and naked beneath him. “And what’s that?”
“Being a bartender.”
“I haven’t even offered you a drink.”
“No, but a good bartender is much more than the drinks they make. A good bartender knows how to talk to people, and a good bartender knows exactly what to say to make their train wreck of a customer have hope again.”
“I’m happy I could help. Now back to the other portion of being a good bartender. What can I get you? A burger?”
Her head tilted, and her hair fell forward and brushed against her cheek. “How do you know I’m going to order a burger?” She pushed the chestnut strands behind a delicate ear.
“You look like you need a cheat day.” He wrote down her order. “Besides, why would you order anything else other than the best?”
Her eyes dropped to the bar, and a sadness surrounded her, sagging her shoulders and frowning.
“Hey, you okay?” Shane asked. He didn’t mean to upset the girl. If she didn’t want to commit to a cheat day, he’d get her a kale salad or whatever it was she ate.
She glanced up, a forced smile on her face. “It’s silly really.”
“I like silly. Tell me.”
She bit her lip as if she was debating whether to tell him or not. An air of shyness floated around her. He waited, hoping she’d let him in on whatever she was thinking. Normally, he wouldn’t care, but he wanted to know what went through her head.
