“This isn’t funny,” I whispered and then, desperate, I leaned toward Krystal. “Am I dressed okay?”
She gave me a once-over and I took two steps back to give her the full view. I had on a pale pink blouse with a mandarin collar, little ruffles on the edges of the little poofed sleeves and darts up my ribs, molding the top close to my midriff. I had some cleavage going, for tip purposes (upon research, I’d found this was an excellent motivator for higher tips). My hair was down and styled. I had maximum makeup (for me, when it wasn’t evening makeup of course). And I was wearing jeans, a dark brown belt with little, round silver rivets at the edges and a pair of hot pink, high-heeled, strappy sandals. I had on my flowery jewelry at ears and throat and a bunch of stretchy, beaded bracelets in hot pink, baby pink, clear and blue.
“Well,” Krystal drawled, “you wanna catapult him straight into puberty and discovering alternate use of socks, you picked a winner.”
“What?” I breathed as Jim-Billy guffawed.
Krystal grinned and I stared at her because she rarely did that as in, never.
“You’re fine,” she assured me but I felt far from assured.
“I should go home and change,” I declared and turned toward the door.
Jim-Billy got up off his barstool, a virtual miracle in itself, and headed me off.
“Darlin’, she was jokin’. You look sweet,” he told me.
“Krystal doesn’t joke,” I reminded him.
“I got a computer in my stockroom with a spreadsheet you made that makes stock takes a piece of cake. I got a full stable of waitresses and only one of ‘em gives me fits. Business is up so much I’m thinkin’ about lettin’ Dominic turn me into a redhead. So, even though Bubba is fishin’, I’m in the mood to joke,” Krystal stated and I forgot my nerves and walked back to the bar.
“Bubba’s fishing?” I asked as Jim-Billy settled back onto his stool.
“Didn’t come home last night, don’t ‘spect him home tonight, tomorrow or God knows when,” she answered.
I looked at Jim-Billy and Jim-Billy lifted his brows, his mouth a grimace as his ear tipped toward his shoulder.
I looked back at Krystal. “I’m sorry, Krys.”
Her face changed and I felt a knife in my gut because she let me see pain before she wiped it clean.
“No offense, honey, you know I like you but the worst thing a woman can hear is another woman, a woman who has a good man, sayin’ she’s sorry about your man.”
Then Krystal walked away and I grabbed onto the edge of the bar to hold myself up because my legs were trembling. This was with both sadness and anger, sadness for Krystal, but mostly anger at Bubba for making her feel that way.
I looked at Jim-Billy. “She was joking,” I whispered. “Then I messed it up.”
“She’ll be okay, darlin’,” Jim-Billy whispered back.
“I’m gonna get Tate to call Bubba and get his ass home,” I declared and Jim-Billy shook his head.
“Jonas is home which means Tate is home which means Bubba is g-o-n-e, gone. Even if Tate calls him, Bubba won’t be back until Sunday night.”
I felt my eyes get wide. “Always?”
“Yup.”
“But, Tate can’t come down to help if Jonas is here.”
“No, but he can if there’s trouble.”
I felt my lips thin.
I liked Bubba. He was funny and he was sweet and he called me gorgeous in a way that I knew he thought that was true. He wasn’t as good a bartender as Krystal, Dalton and Tate but he knew his way around the back of the bar. He was slow because he saw no reason in life to go fast.
But I didn’t like him taking advantage of Tate or causing Krystal pain.
“Uh… Laurie?” Jim-Billy called and I focused on him. “It is what it is and has been goin’ on a long while. Leave it be.”
“But –”
“Darlin’, listen to Jim-Billy, leave it be.”
“I –”
“Ace!” I heard, jumped and turned to the door.
Tate stood there. I’d been so caught up in Krystal and Bubba I hadn’t been paying attention. My legs started trembling again and I didn’t move a muscle.
“Babe, you gonna stand there starin’ at me or you gonna come meet Jonas?” Tate called.
“Go get ‘im, tiger,” Jim-Billy encouraged, I licked my lips, looked at him, nodded and walked on jellied legs toward Tate.
“Um…” I started when I got close. “Did everything go okay?”
“No,” he answered.
“What happened?” I asked as I made it to him.
His hand came up and curled around the side of my neck. “Tell you later.”
“Hey, Tate!” Krystal called and Tate’s head swung to her. “Laurie’s off. Wendy’ll be in in half an hour to finish her shift. She’s got the weekend.”
I stared at Krystal then I looked at Tate to find he was grinning down at me.
“Good news, Ace,” he said.
“I can always, you know, paint another room or something while you do boy stuff,” I offered.
“How ‘bout we do boy girl stuff, the clean kind durin’ the day, the dirty kind at night?”