“Eight.”
“See you then.” I stand, picking up the laptop and piles of paper. “Oh, and in case you don’t recognize me, since apparently waitressing here requires such a transformation, I’ll be the hot one doing math in her head.” I lean toward Ryder, my lips close to his ear. “No push-up bra necessary.”
CASSIE
CH. 7
Being in England for the last two years with Sebastian, I didn’t socialize much. I didn’t know anyone before I got there, and didn’t meet many people once I arrived. Finally getting a job took forever, thanks to the visa process. So it was mostly just Sebastian and me, day after day and night after night, stuck in a relationship that didn’t work in an apartment that got smaller with every fight.
Basically, not much fun.
I had totally forgotten that nights like tonight at Altitude, when work feels like play, could even exist. It feels like a party. It feels like the old me.
Things were fairly quiet when I got here a little before eight, so Jackson offered to show me around the kitchen while the head cook took a pre-rush break. “You can eat during the shift,” he said, handing me a sweet potato fry from the plate he was carrying, “as long as you don’t tell Ryder I said so.” Afterward Cash trained me on the serving station computer and walked me through the credit card machine, in between staring at the tops of my boobs pushing out of my tight, black tank top.
Who can blame him? I wasn’t kidding about not needing a push-up bra.
“Why don’t you wear stuff like this every day?” he said as I waited at the bar for him to pour tequila shots for my first customers.
“Because men tend to forget that I have an actual brain when they see me dressed like this. And I don’t want to be the reason you don’t get any work done,” I said, hooking my thumbs through the loops of my new black skinny jeans.
“I don’t mind.”
“I do,” Ryder said as he approached the bar. The look on his face was stern, but even in the dark lighting, I noticed his eyes flickering down my body. “Are those people actually going to get their drinks, or are you just going to flirt with Cash all night?”
“Are you always this much fun?” I said to him, stacking the shots on my tray as Cash handed them to me.
“We’re not here to have fun, tiger,” he said. “We’re here to work.”
“Then make sure you don’t get any enjoyment from looking at my ass while I deliver these shots,” I said as I glided away on my new high heels, carrying shots to the booth of waiting, thirsty young men.
When I was with Sebastian, any time a guy paid attention to me, he would get instantly jealous. Not that he would say that’s how he was feeling. Instead, he’d mainly just get mad at me and eventually I’d figure out it was because the grocer had smiled at me too long for his liking, or the guy sitting next to us in the Tube had checked me out—that it wasn’t my fault at all. It’s not that I’m insecure, he’d say in his British accent that could sound simultaneously charming and condescending. It’s that those other blokes are too secure. He was always asking, didn’t I want to put on a sweater or wouldn’t pants be more comfortable than the skirt I had on? It was like he wanted to cover me up, hide me from the world.
Good thing he’s not here. Because even in the dimness of the bar, I feel like I’m lit up tonight.
The shift might have started slow, but now at almost midnight, it’s a packed house, girls sitting on guys’ laps, people dancing in booths when there’s not room on the floor, everyone ordering drink after drink after drink. And the more they drink, the better they tip, which means the closer I am to paying off Jamie’s debt. Win win win.
“Hey, how’d you get into jeans that tight?” a guy says to me at the bar as I grab three martinis for a table.
“Very carefully,” I say.
“Well, let me know if you need any help taking them off later,” he says.
“I doubt you’ll still be standing.”
“That’s okay,” he says. “We can do it lying down.” In spite of myself, I laugh. He’s drunk but he’s cute and it’s nice to be noticed.
But I’d rather ride Ryder. The thought appears so suddenly and clearly for a second I wonder if I’ve said it out loud.
And I wonder what would happen if I did.
I pick up the tray of drinks and turn to head toward the table when I hear Ryder call my name from the side of the bar. He puts down his glass of whiskey and beckons me with his fingers: Come here.
Wading through the shoulder-to-shoulder bodies—all while spilling not a drop, I might add—I make my way to Ryder. His blazer gone, his shirt sleeves are rolled up and for the first time I get a look at his ink, a swath of colors and black outlines that somehow make the muscles in his forearms even sexier and more defined.
“Yes, Mr. Cole?”
“Finally,” he says, “a little respect.”