“One mistake,” he called after me.
I flipped him off over my shoulder and stormed into the hall.
“Get rid of her, Fi. I’m not working with some uppity, needy pain in the ass.” His words carried to me outside the door. My chee
ks flamed.
An uppity, needy pain in the ass. So that’s what the gorgeous, bad-tempered Knox Morgan saw when he looked at me.
I kept it together, pushing all thoughts of my stupid boss out of my mind and putting my full attention into getting the right drinks to the right people, busing tables for turnover, and being helpful wherever I could.
I squeezed in the shortest dinner break in the history of dinner breaks, sneaking a pit stop at the bathroom and a few bites of a spectacularly good grilled chicken salad from Milford in the kitchen. Then made a beeline for the bar, where Silver was pouring a stream of liquor into a cocktail shaker with one hand and opening a beer bottle with the other.
Her hair was buzzed short, leaving nothing to distract from the dramatic smoky eye makeup and tiny eyebrow ring. The sleeves of her black blazer were rolled up, and she wore a striped tie loose over a Honky Tonk tank. She was androgynously attractive in a way that made me feel like an eighth-grader with a crush on the cool girl.
“Silver, do you mind if I use the phone to check in with my babysitter?” I asked over the thump of the music.
She jerked her head toward the phone between the two tap systems, and I took that as approval.
I checked my watch and dialed the cottage’s number. Liza answered on the third ring.
“We ordered pizza stead of eatin’ that mound of veggies you left us,” she said over the blare of the TV on her end.
“Are those gunshots?” I asked, plugging my ear with a finger so I could hear her over the musical stylings of country singer Mickey Guyton on my end.
“Can you believe she’s never seen The Usual Suspects?” Liza scoffed.
“Liza!”
“Relax. We’re just shooting real guns in the house, not watching R-rated movies.”
“Liza!”
“You’re right—your aunt really is wound tighter than a necktie on Friday,” Liza said, presumably to my big-mouthed niece. “Everything’s fine. Way helped me in the garden. We ate pizza and now we’re watching a PG-13, edited-for-TV action movie. Sylvester Stallone just called someone a poop head.”
I sighed. “Thank you so much for this. I really appreciate it.”
“Kinda nice to have company for once. When’s your next shift?”
I bit my lip. “I’m not sure. This might be a one-and-done. My new boss doesn’t seem to like me.”
She laughed softly. “Give him time.”
I realized my babysitting fairy godmother had predicted this and wondered what she knew that I didn’t.
“This ain’t social hour. Get your ass off the phone, Daisy.”
I gritted my teeth at Knox’s interruption. “Your grandson says hi.”
Liza chuckled. “Tell him to kiss my ass and to pick up a rotisserie chicken for me tomorrow. I’ll see ya when ya get home,” she said.
“Thanks again. I owe you. Bye.”
I turned and found Knox looming over me like a sexy turkey vulture. “Your grandmother says kiss her ass and bring her a rotisserie chicken.”
“Why are you on the phone with my grandma on your first and last bar shift?”
“Because she’s watching my eleven-year-old niece so I can earn money for groceries and back-to-school clothes, you uncharitable oaf!”