Colorado 02 Sweet Dreams (6 page)

“I got kegs to switch, you good with the re-stock?” 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 re-stock 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.”

I turned fully to him. “And I said, sure.”

“You said it but you didn’t mean it,” he returned.

No, I didn’t.

“I did,” I lied.

“Babe, you didn’t,” he replied.

“I did,” I repeated and turned back to the table and started wiping.

“Ace, look at me,” he demanded and he sounded like he was getting impatient.

I straightened and looked at him, again raising my brows.

“Let it go,” he ordered.

“I’ve let it go,” I lied again.

“You haven’t,” he shot back.

I inhaled deeply and on the exhale, I said. “Due respect, considering you’re my boss, but since they don’t exist, you’re not a mind reader. I’ve let it go or I
would
if you’d quit talking about it.”

“You haven’t,” he repeated. “You’re stewin’ on it.”

This was true too. If I had a dollar for every time his words in his voice popped into my head and made me flinch the last two days, I could move to the Riviera. They even woke me up in the middle of the night. Then again, I had insomnia and always did, even as a kid. I regularly thought of stuff in my life, stuff that embarrassed me or hurt me or worried me or freaked me out and I couldn’t get to sleep. Then, when I did, I’d wake up three, four times a night sometimes tossing and turning for hours before finding sleep again. This beautiful man saying those horrible words when talking about me was not only fresh, it was the worst of all my nightly demons by far and it would be in a way I knew would last the rest of my life.

But it hit me just then that since not only did he feel free to shout those things about me when he barely knew me but also he knew I heard it and he didn’t apologize but told me to shake it off and let it go because I should somehow accept he was in a shit mood and just deal with it, that he obviously wasn’t a very nice person and maybe, even though I
was
a nice person, there were some people who deserved to get back what they got.

I mean really. Why did I always have to be nice? Why did I always have to do the right thing, turn the other cheek, a blind eye? Why did I always have to be the good girl?

So he could fire me. Whatever. I’d just see if they needed cashiers at the grocery store or move on. If I could find one Carnal, I could find another. It might take another four and a half months but I had money and I had time.

Fuck it.

“Yes,” I said softly, staring him straight in the eyes. “I’m stewing on it. I hear you say those words again and again. So much, I can’t get to sleep at night. So much, they come to me in my sleep and wake me up.”

“Ace –”

“But you said them, I heard them and those are the consequences. No taking it back, no shaking it off, no letting it go. It happened. I deal and move on and maybe you’d do me the courtesy of shutting up about it.”

He walked from behind the bar and toward me and I watched him do it while forcing my body to stay where it was and not take a step back or, better yet, flee.

He stopped a foot away and looked down at me. I saw, that close to him, he didn’t have dark brown eyes. They were dark brown but they had tawny flecks in them that made them even more interesting.

Great, the lucky jerk was even luckier.

“I’m a silent partner,” he declared.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“Me. I’m a silent partner,” he repeated.

I tipped my head to the side and felt my brows draw together. “So?”

Tate threw a hand out to indicate the bar. “I look silent to you?”

Considering he was clearly my bartender that day and he was changing kegs, the answer to that would be no.

Instead I said, “And?”

“Deal was, I put in the money because Krys and Bubba didn’t have the cake to take this on but I wasn’t involved. I just get my piece and I do my own thing. Five years, Ace, I find more often than not I usually gotta wade in. Bubba’s off fishin’ and Krystal’s always hirin’ folk who suck. Tonia and Jonelle both make an art outta being the worst waitresses in history. They’re here to socialize, when they drag there asses in that is. I got shit to do and I ain’t doin’ it ‘cause I’m here, ‘cause I gotta keep an eye on my investment, ‘cause Bubba’s a moron and Krystal’s tryin’ her best but she can’t do it on her own. That pisses me off. Bubba’s gone again and I got pissed again and you bore the brunt of that. It was an asshole remark; I said it and didn’t mean it. I get pissed I say a lotta shit I don’t mean. Now you know that, you need to shake it off.”

Maybe for him it could be that easy. For me, it was not.

“I appreciate that but you’re old enough to know better. You’re old enough to know words have power and to use them wisely. You’re angry at Bubba, take potshots at him, not some woman you don’t know.”

“Like I said, when I get pissed I say a lotta shit I don’t mean and what I said about you I didn’t mean,” he repeated, beginning to look as impatient as he sounded.

“And like I said, you’re old enough to learn you shouldn’t do that,” I repeated too, probably also looking impatient.

“That isn’t me,” he replied.

“Well, then, this obviously is eating you and that’s
your
consequence because I have feelings and you walked all over them and you can’t order me to shake it off so you can feel better. It’s there, burned in my brain and I can’t just forget it because you tell me to. So you have to live with that. You can’t and want me gone, say it now because I’m beginning to like Betty and I met Shambles and Sunny and I’m having dinner with them tomorrow night and I’d rather not make ties when I’m going to need to hit the road because my boss is going to get rid of me.”

“Shambles and Sunny?” he asked.

“Shambles and Sunny,” I answered but didn’t share more. “Now, can we just move on and do our best to work together and all other times avoid each other or do you want me to go?”

He moved forward an inch and I again fought the urge to retreat.

“Forgiveness is divine,” he said softly and I’d never heard him talk soft. He had a very nice voice but when it went soft, it was beautiful.

This also sucked.

“I’m not divine,” I returned. “I’m also not Ace and I’m not Babe. I’m Lauren. You don’t like my name, don’t call me anything at all. Now can I clean the danged table?”

I had my head tipped back to look him in the eye but I could tell he was expending effort to hold his whole body still.

Then he said in that soft voice, “I’m sorry, Ace.”

“Me too,” I replied instantly being clear I didn’t accept his apology which wasn’t a nice thing to do but then again, I was trying out this not being nice thing and I found that what he said hurt so much I could do it so I was going to go with it. “Now can I get back to work?”

He moved so he was far less than foot away and edging into my space.

“Krys told me your story,” he said quietly and I sighed but didn’t speak. “You bust your husband’s balls like this?”

I felt my innards seize and it didn’t feel very nice.

Then I asked, “Are you pissed now? Is that the reason for the latest asshole remark?”

“Nope, just curious.”

“Then no,” I replied and went on to share with brutal honesty, “I loved him. He meant everything to me. I thought we were happy, mostly. We had our crap times but most of the time I thought we were happy. Or at least I was. So I didn’t need to bust his balls because I loved him, we were good together and we had a good life. That is, until I found out it was all a lie, every last nuance of it, and I
still
didn’t bust his balls. I granted him a divorce, sold our house and stepped aside. I could have wrung him dry but it would only prolong my sorrow and maybe build bitterness so what’s the point of that?”

Tate watched me while I spoke, his eyes riveted to mine in a strange way that made it seem like the words I spoke etched themselves on his soul the instant I said them and when I was done he asked, “So you forgive him for bein’ a cheatin’ asshole and a liar and a dickhead who’s so fuckin’ dumb he throws away a good thing but you can’t forgive me for sayin’ somethin’ stupid?”

“I didn’t forgive him. I just didn’t bust his balls. That was your question and that was my answer.
Now
can I wipe down the table?”

He was silent for several long moments before he said, “Yeah, Ace, you can wipe the table
and
we can find a way to work together but I’ll tell you straight, I ain’t puttin’ the effort in to avoid you just because you’re holdin’ tight to somethin’ that didn’t mean shit. You can try to avoid me but it ain’t a big bar, it ain’t a big town – you got attitude and you’re stubborn as all hell but you ain’t gonna be able to avoid me. Our paths will cross.”

I looked to the ceiling. “Great, more reasons to lose sleep.”

“Babe,” he called and I rolled my eyes back to him.

“Stop calling me babe,” I demanded.

Tate ignored me. “You want sweet dreams, lose the attitude and you might find I’ll give you reason to have them.”

I felt my body seize at his words but he was done. I knew this because he turned and walked away, going straight down the hall until the murky darkness enveloped him and I lost sight of him.

My body stayed frozen while new words in Tate’s deep, rough voice ricocheted around in my brain.

And a dickhead who’s so fuckin’ dumb he throws away a good thing...

And if that wasn’t enough…

You want sweet dreams, lose the attitude and you might find I’ll give you reason to have them.

The first one was undeniably nice. The second one I didn’t get at all.

“Hey there, Lauren,” I heard, jumped at the sound and whirled to see Jim-Billy entering. “I’m early but could I have a draft?”

I looked at my watch then at Jim-Billy. “It’s just past eleven thirty.”

“I had a tough mornin’,” Jim-Billy replied, heading to his stool.

“What happened?” I asked, abandoning the still dirty table and going to Jim-Billy.

“I woke up,” Jim-Billy answered and then stopped talking.

“You woke up…” I prompted.

“Yep,” he said. “Now can I have a draft?”

I couldn’t help it, after that scene with Tate, what he said, what it might mean, the fact that I really didn’t like him and not only had to work with him but he was my boss, what Jim-Billy said made me laugh so hard I had to throw my head back to do it. Maybe it wasn’t that funny but I really needed the release of a laugh so I took it.

I put down my cloth and the spray and headed behind the bar.