Swallowing hard, I watched him stop and stare at me. “My entire life is on hold,” I said again, much lower, and then everything just came out in the worst case of diarrhea of the mouth. “Mom cleaned me out. She took my entire savings account, which held all my money—my tuition money and what I planned on using for emergencies and for when I searched for a job. Not only that, she took out a loan and credit cards in my name and didn’t make a single payment. She tanked my credit, and I’m not even sure I’ll qualify for any student loan now.”
His eyes widened slightly as he lifted an arm, running his palm over his chest, above his heart.
“I don’t have any place else to go to,” I continued, feeling an odd lump in my throat and a stinging in my eyes. “I can’t stay in the dorms because I couldn’t enroll in summer classes. She left me with nothing except the little money I have in my checking account and a house that apparently is a crack house. On top of that, she’s run off doing God knows what with a dude named Rooster. And my only hope—my only prayer at this point, is that she has some kind of money, something to pay me back with. So, yeah, I get that there’s nothing really here for me and that I’m a giant pain in your ass, but I seriously don’t have any other place to go.”
“Shit.” He looked away, jaw tight.
Then it hit me. Humiliating. I squeezed my eyes shut. Where were the staples? I needed them for my mouth.
“Shit,” he said again. “Calla, I don’t know what to tell you.”
I forced my eyes open and found him staring at me. There wasn’t pity in his gaze, but his eyes were lighter again. “There’s nothing you can say.”
“There is no money here, honey. Nothing that she can give you.” His eyes searched mine. “I’m not bullshitting you. It sucks. Fucking really sucks, but there’s nothing. Not a drop outside of what this bar is just starting to make and that isn’t much.”
I sat back as I let out a shaky breath. No. No. No. That one word was on repeat.
“If she took your money, she doesn’t have it. And if she had any money herself, it’s also long gone, too. Trust me.” His voice dropped lower. “A week doesn’t go by that there isn’t someone sniffing around this bar looking for her because she owes them money.”
Shifting my gaze away, I drew in another deep breath. “Okay. I need to accept that there is no money and I won’t get a red penny back.” He didn’t respond to that, which was okay, because I was mostly talking to myself. “That’s it. I’m broke. All I can do is pray that financial aid comes through.”
Bile rose in my throat as what I was saying really sank in. I was seriously broke. My life was seriously on hold. I also might seriously be sick.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
I flinched.
Jax had moved around the desk and he was closer. I didn’t want him closer. Nervous, I smoothed my hands over my denim-clad thighs. “Plan B,” I whispered.
“What?”
My voice shook as I spoke. “Plan B. I need to get a job and make as much money as I can this summer.” I glanced around the office and I suddenly knew what I needed to do, to get the control back. There was a knot in my chest, and I wanted to cut it out, but there would be no cutting it out. “I can work here.”
He started, and then he frowned. “Work here? Honey, this is not your kind of place.”
I spared him a look. “It doesn’t look like it’s your kind of place, either.”
“Why is that?” he fired back.
“Look at you.” I gestured in a wide circle in front of him. “You don’t look like you should be working in a dive bar.”
An eyebrow rose. “I like to think it’s one step up from a dive bar.”
“A little step,” I muttered.
One side of his lips kicked up. “Where do you think I should be working at?”
“I don’t know.” Sitting back, I brushed my hair off my forehead and sighed. “Maybe at Hot Guys R Us.”
His brows flew up. “So, you think I’m hot.”
I rolled my eyes. “I can see quite fine, Jax.”
“If you think I’m hot, then why were you so resistant to going out with me when you first came into the bar?”
I stared at him, wondering how the conversation veered off to this. “Does that really matter?”
“Yes.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
His eyes glimmered with amusement. “We’ll agree to disagree.”
“We aren’t agreeing on anything.” I pushed up and stopped. He hadn’t moved, and the space was cramped. I couldn’t walk around him. “I can work here.”
“A rough crowd comes in on the weekends. Maybe you should try the Outback down the street or something.”
“I’m not afraid of any rednecks,” I grumbled.
Jax narrowed his eyes at me.
“What?” I threw up my hands. “Not like the bar can’t use my help. And I need money. Obviously. And maybe by working here I can make some tips and maybe get back some of the money, even if it’s a small percentage.”
“Making tips?” He took another step forward, and I was stuck between him and the chair. “What do you think you’d be doing here?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I can bartend.”
“Have you ever done that before?” When I shrugged again, he laughed outright. Now my eyes were narrowing on him. “Honey, it’s not that easy.”
“Can’t be that hard.”
Jax stared at me for a long moment, and then probably one of the most fascinating things to watch happened. Each tensed muscle relaxed, and a slow, knowing grin appeared on his lips.
My tummy did a cartwheel.
“Well, we can’t have this, now can we?”
“Have what?” My tumbling tummy? There was no way he knew about that.
“You not having any place to go.” When I didn’t answer, he cocked his head to the side. “Okay, honey, you want this . . . you got it.”
For some inane reason, it felt like he was talking about something else, and tiny, tight coils formed in my belly. “Good.”
His grin spread until a flash of straight white teeth appeared. “Great.”