“Later, Flower Petal,” Sunny said.
“Later,” I replied and walked out eating and sipping, crossing the street and heading the one block to Bubba’s thinking that maybe with Betty and Sunny and Shambles and great bread and coffee and a heated pool outside my front and only door, a door in a hotel that might not be five stars but at least it had personality, Carnal would be all right.
I was five minutes early for my shift but there was a Harley parked outside the door and it looked familiar. I didn’t think that boded well and I was right when I walked through carrying my cardboard cup and the last bite of bread.
Tate was standing behind the bar wearing another Henley, this one burgundy, not thermal but long-sleeved and skintight. I noticed instantly that burgundy suited him.
Dang.
He turned, eyed me, didn’t smile and greeted in his deep voice, “You got me today, Ace.”
Great.
I nodded and headed to the bar asking, “Can I have the key to the office?”
He reached into his front pocket, pulled out his keys and tossed them on the bar. I shoved the last bite of bread into my mouth, acutely aware that he thought I was fat and I was eating in front of him, and, not looking at him, I grabbed the keys and headed to the hall.
“I got kegs to switch, you good with the restock?” I heard him ask as I kept moving.
“Sure,” I replied still not looking at him.
I went to the office, stowed my purse and went back to the bar. He was working under it at a keg and I tossed his keys as close to him as I cared to get (which wasn’t very close) but I did it loudly so he’d hear them hit the top of the bar. His head came up and his eyes hit me but I turned instantly and surveyed the fridges.
“Ace, you’ll need the keys to get into the storeroom,” I heard him say.
Dang. I was so stupid. Desperate to return his keys and not have anything that was his touch my flesh, I’d made a mistake that made me look like an idiot.
“Right,” I muttered, turned to nab them and went back to what I was doing.
Silently I went about my task, taking notes, sipping coffee and going back and forth to the storeroom as Tate went about his business. If our paths crossed, I avoided his eyes and gave him as wide a berth as I could manage. After the restock I took down the chairs and inspected the tables while searching for forgotten empties. Unusually, half the tables in the bar were clean, the area devoid of empties; the other half of the tables needed a wipe down and I found two bottles of beer and a half full mug.
When I went behind the bar to deposit the empties and get the spray cleaner and a cloth, Tate spoke.
“Wendy was on last night. Came in late when Tonia didn’t show.”
Forced to look at him due to my innate politeness, I did but I didn’t speak. I lifted my brows in question.
“You haven’t met Wendy?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Waitress, only good one we got,” he told me. “She does her clean up.”
“Unh-hunh,” I mumbled and walked out from behind the bar wondering if Wendy wore halter tops or tube tops or if she had another way of exposing as much flesh as possible to the mostly male customers. Tonia had long, sleek, black hair, she was tall, slim to the point of skinny, had obviously fake boobs and wore high heels and short-short-cutoffs with her halter top. Jonelle had wild, huge, curly-slash-wavy auburn hair, was average height, rounded like Neeta (just a little slimmer and what I figured was a lot younger) and wore a micro-mini with her tube top. Wendy probably rounded out the line up with blonde hair and looked like a biker brand of supermodel.
I was dreading the night shift and going up against one of those girls. Not only had they, so far, proved themselves bitches, but also all the men would probably move from my station and tips would likely be even less.
I started toward the dirty tables when I heard Tate call, “Ace.”
Considering this was obviously his nickname for me which I thought was weird since he’d known me less than twenty minutes and you didn’t give a nickname to someone you’d known less than twenty minutes (more like ten years) and I figured it was meant to be not very nice, I looked at him even though I didn’t want to. However, I couldn’t ignore him. He couldn’t be calling to anyone else, ignoring him would be rude and he was my boss.
“Yes?” I asked when I caught his eyes.
“I know you heard,” he said.
I knew he knew I was just surprised he brought it up. I showed no response except to raise my brows again.
“I was in a shit mood, babe. Shake it off,” he ordered and I stared.
He’d called me old, sorry-ass and fat and he wanted me just to shake it off?
“Sure,” I agreed, turned and spritzed a table with the cleaner.
“Ace,” he called again when I’d bent to wipe. I sucked in a visibly annoyed breath and twisted only my neck so I could look at him. When my eyes hit his, he repeated, “I said, shake it off.”