Page 61 of Just Past Two

He didn’t normally have flings with customers. It was unprofessional, made only slightly better by the fact that this wasn’t his full-time job anymore. And yeah, he’d bent those rules a time or two, but really, he wasn’t looking for a fling at all tonight. He flirted with everything on two legs, sure, because it made him a lot of money and flirting was fun. Generally, people flirted back, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Everyone wanted to feel like they were interesting or alluring enough to get someone’s attention, and Matthew had no qualms about lavishing that attention in spades, innocent as it was. Silas, though, had an intensity about him that made Matthew want to dig deeper. His years tending bar gave him the ability to read people, and Silas looked like the sort of uptight, controlling guy who would be really fun to unravel.

It didn’t hurt that Silas also looked like he’d just wandered out of a J.Crew catalog, from his tousled light brown hair to his two-day stubble and chiseled jaw. He wore a black necktie over a lavender shirt and tweed blazer, and while Matthew couldn’t see the rest of him, he was probably just as polished the whole way down. It was an inarguable truth that the more someone was put together, the more fun they’d be to take apart.

Silas was also pounding that Long Island Iced Tea distractedly, implying he didn’t drink very much at all. Matthew knew how those could sneak up on you, where one minute you’d be engaged in a heated discussion about Marvel vs. DC and the next minute rubbing up on some hottie on the dance floor. He didn’t know if Silas was the type of guy who got drunk, but he found himself hoping he stayed sober. His intentions for that were not entirely altruistic: he was definitely considering seeing how far he could go with this guy, but that wasn’t an option if Silas got drunk and sloppy. It was so not Matthew’s style to take advantage of the inebriated.

When he returned from serving the other customer, Silas was staring down into his drink, which was mostly gone. “This is a very good drink.” He looked up at Matthew. “I can’t even taste the alcohol, but I’m definitely starting to feel it.” He laughed, a nervous titter that made him seem a lot younger than he probably was. He looked to be in his late twenties, so likely a couple years younger than Matthew.

“Well, take it easy. There’s a lot of alcohol in there.” Matthew put the slices of lime into the half-empty fruit tray and then started slicing a lemon.

“I know. Five shots.” Silas took another sip. “Don’t worry. We took a cab here. It saved me from having to be the designated driver. Dee didn’t want to ruin my chances of picking up a date tonight.” He rolled his eyes.

“Silas!” A short black woman with killer curves and a gorgeous gold dress staggered over from the dance floor and threw her arms around Silas’s waist, squeezing him close to her from where she was standing. He reached an arm around her and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, then tried to extricate himself from her embrace.

“Aww, don’t pull away from me! You never let me hug you.” She pouted, the gesture exaggerated with her obvious drunkenness, but she let him go and turned her attention to Matthew. “Say! Check out this tall drink of cool water. I was wondering what could get you of all people to the bar, and now I think I know.” She waggled her eyebrows at Matthew, who smiled neutrally in greeting.

“You must be Dee. I’m Matthew. I hear it’s your birthday?”

“The big two-five! A quarter of a century.” She was holding a martini, clearly not her first, and she raised it in a toast to herself. “Happy birthday to me. How old are you, Matthew?”

Oh, so she was one of those people. Cheerful but way too nosy and uninhibited when drunk. He was starting to see why Silas had wanted to escape. This was part of his job, though, and he dealt with many people—both women and men—whose lips got a bit too loose after a few too many. “I’ll be thirty in a couple of months.” He had a hard time believing he was at that milestone already.

“Ooh! Not too old for my sweet Silas here, then.” Dee elbowed Silas. “He’s twenty-seven.”

So Matthew’s guess had been correct. Silas turned pink and tried to shoo her away. “Dee, I think you should go back and leave the bartender alone. You have a private server, right? Back in the room.” He moved his hands in a “go on” motion.

“What, you want him all to yourself?” Dee gave an exaggerated sigh. “Oh fine. I understand. He’s a cutie.” She made kissy faces in Matthew’s direction, but let herself be pushed gently but firmly away, back to the dance floor. “All right, all right! You two have fun.”

Silas shook his head and looked at Matthew with a mixture of horror and embarrassment. “I’m so sorry about that. Dee doesn’t get drunk very often, but when she does, she really goes all out.”

Matthew couldn’t resist teasing a little. “What, so you don’t think I’m a cutie?”

Silas’s eyes widened, and he scanned down Matthew’s torso quickly before looking back up again. “I think Dee has very good taste,” he said so softly that Matthew almost missed it. Immediately, he downed the rest of his drink and promptly started coughing.

“Hey, now, easy there. I’m just teasing you.” Matthew poured Silas a glass of water and slid it over the bar toward him. “Don’t choke and die on me now.”

When Silas could breathe again, he was laughing through the coughing. “I’m not going to die,” he wheezed, and took a sip of water. He blinked watering eyes and smiled. “That would be a fine thing, ending up at the hospital on Dee’s birthday.” He glanced over at the dance floor. Matthew followed his gaze and saw Dee dancing with a couple of people, and one white guy in particular seemed especially interested in putting his hands on her. Dee seemed just as interested in getting her hands on him, too, at least from this angle. Silas sighed. “Then again, she might not notice.”

“Nah, I’m sure she would. It’s obviously important to her that you’re here. She came over to say hello.” Matthew shrugged.

Silas rolled his eyes. “She did not come over here to say hello. She just tried to hook me up with you. For some reason, Dee fancies herself my ‘wingman.’ ” Silas made air quotes around the last word, his face a mask of distaste.

“And you don’t like having a wingman? Generally do fine picking up guys on your own?” Matthew found it amusing to think of Silas off picking up strangers, all straitlaced and uptight.

“I generally don’t have any interest in picking up strange men.” Silas gave him a once-over again, and Matthew noticed, although Silas’s gaze was fleeting. Then he deliberately looked away. “But yes, if I wanted to, I could. I have done it before.”

“You want another drink?” Matthew slid the empty glass out from in front of Silas.

“I suppose so, yes.” Silas watched his glass disappear beneath the counter as Matthew grabbed a fresh one.

“The same thing?”

“Something a little milder, I think.” Silas drank the rest of his water. “And another water, too.”

Matthew sized him up, trying to guess what kind of drink he’d enjoy. Something simple, probably, but with a little kick. No real frills. He guessed Silas wasn’t normally a Long Island Iced Tea kind of guy. “Vodka and cranberry?”

“That would be fine.”

Matthew began mixing up another drink, then slid it across the bar with ease and updated Silas’s tab. He could feel Silas watching him. The longer he spent here, the more interested Matthew became in seeing what he was like under all this uptightness. Matthew knew he could get Silas begging and gasping in no time at all if they were alone. Guys like this were a challenge, but the best kind of challenge, the kind that evoked his inner competitive spirit.