She took it, assuming it was an additional tip. He winked and headed off with the cocktail. When she opened her hand, she realized it wasn’t a folded bill but a cocktail napkin with his phone number.
“Ugh.” She tossed it in the bin behind her and wiped her hands on the bar apron she wore over her shorts.
“Slimeball?” Diane asked, walking by, high blond ponytail swinging with each swaying step.
“Third one tonight. And that one came in with somebody!”
“Welcome to the life.” Diane turned and set a trio of import beer bottles in front of a male customer, who didn’t have any problem hiding the fact that he was staring at her cleavage in her unbuttoned polo. “That’ll be twenty-two fifty, sweetheart.” While the man dug for his wallet, Kat watched Diane actually press her elbows in a bit to create some more oomph in the boobs. The man actually dropped his wallet. Diane looked behind her shoulder and winked. After taking the money—and a healthy tip, Kat was sure—Diane sauntered back to the register. “It’s all about the tease. You tease them a bit, get their juices flowing, get them thinking some nasty thoughts, and then they run home and bang the hell out of their wife instead. Everyone wins, wife included.”
Kat watched as she tossed the tip in the locked box they would split at the end of the night. “I’m not all that good at advertising the wares, if you will. Plus I’m not exactly the curvy girl you are.”
“You’ve got some men who admire you. Those long legs of yours are a hit. And your ass makes me jealous.” She reached around and gave Kat a playful slap on the aforementioned ass before laughing and walking away. “Oh, and you have at least one hardcore admirer.” Pointing to the other side of the bar, Diane disappeared behind the double doors that led to the storage and inventory and back rooms.
Kat turned to find Michael watching her with a scowl. The same scowl he’d worn all night as he drank his water—no alcohol the night before a game—and kept such a close eye on her, she’d think he was afraid of her running away.
“Michael,” she said as she approached. “It’s going to be a really long night if you sit in this corner and stare at me like you’re waiting for trouble.”
“Maybe I am,” he countered, taking another drink of water. “This place is crawling with guys waiting to ‘walk you to your car.’”
She rolled her eyes and patted his cheek. “Go home. Get some sleep. I promise to be a good girl and let one of the bouncers walk me to a cab.”
He started to say something else, then stopped when a woman sat beside him. His scowl turned into a smile, and Kat felt her own jealous juices start to flow before she turned and found Aileen sitting beside her man.
No, not her man. Manny. Mentor. Michael. Not her man. Way too presumptuous to call him that.
“Hey, handsome.” Aileen accepted a kiss on the cheek and turned to Kat. “And hey, girl. A little birdie told me you were working here.”
“What little birdie?”
“Kristen. She knows everything. It’s magic. Anyway, I was coming by to see how you were… and check this place out.” Aileen looked around to the high exposed wood beams and then around a little more. “It’s not quite what I expected. Just looks like a normal country-style bar. Everyone I asked made it sound more like a den of sin…” She trailed off and laughed. “Oh, right. And there’s the name.”
“Just wait a bit.” Kat grinned and leaned her elbows on the bar. “They’re doing a chocolate pudding scavenger hunt in the back in around twenty minutes. They toss a few items in a baby pool, then pour a few gallons of pudding on top, and you have to stick your arms—or whatever—in to find the items. From what I hear, it gets… pretty messy.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” When Kat just smiled, Aileen’s eyes widened. “Yeah, I think I’ll skip that.”
“Killian would kill you,” Michael said in a sing-song voice.
“Killian is not my boss.” Aileen rolled her eyes. “Men. They think because they have to be all alpha tough on the field that they need to be the same way everywhere in life.”
Kat just gave Michael a pointed look. He pretended to be interested in something across the bar.
“So anyway, I was curious if you minded me doing a little story on you.”
Kat’s eyes snapped back to Aileen. “What? Why?”
“Just doing a little something about the plight of the professional athlete at the start of a career. You know, how everyone hears ‘pro athlete’ and thinks you make millions, when clearly that’s not the case for 99 percent of them.” Aileen gestured around the bar, as if to add case in point.
It was true. Kat wouldn’t work at a bar if she didn’t need the cash. But… “I’m not supposed to do any media stuff without Sawyer’s go-ahead.”
“Sawyer…”