Searching for Neverland Page 14

  “You called him sailor.”

  “Yup, sure did.”

  “What did you do? Watch every bartending movie ever made this morning?”

  I shrugged. “I might have watched a few.”

  “Any from this century?” he said, grinning at me in amusement.

  I ignored him and set the guy’s beer in front of him on a fresh coaster. “That’ll be, uh,” I turned back to Josh. “How much do we charge for beer?”

  Josh shook his head in impatience. “Imports are five dollars. You want that on your tab, Walt?”

  The guy at the bar nodded, and Josh started doing something with the register.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, peering over his shoulder.

  “What you would have learned how to do if you’d have let me show you the ropes before diving right in,” he said, as a receipt printed out of the top of the register.

  Josh grabbed it and stuck it in a glass in front of Walt. Walt just nodded at him and refocused his attention on the Rays game on the TV above the bar. They were losing to the Red Sox.

  “So Walt has a tab?” I asked Josh in a low whisper.

  “Yes,” he whispered back. “Walt comes in here a few times a week, and at the end of the week, he pays me.”

  My eyes went wide, wondering if that was a good business decision.

  “Do you do that for a lot of people?”

  Josh shook his head. “Nah, Walt worked with my dad. They were partners, and I think Walt feels like he’s looking out for me by coming in here. He only works part-time now, and his wife passed away last year, so he gets lonely.”

  I swallowed but didn’t say anything. Josh and Allison had lost their dad two years earlier to an unexpected heart attack – his second in a year. Josh was close to his dad and took his death particularly hard.

  “So who else has a tab?” I asked, choosing to skirt over the topic I knew Josh wouldn’t want to entertain. He didn’t like talking about his dad.

  “A few guys Stu was on the force with, along with Cole and Sean, but I’m not sure they’re ever going to pay me, the fuckers.”

  “Does Stu know?”

  He nodded. “As long as everyone pays up, he doesn’t care. I guess we need to talk about what that’ll look like now that we’re the owners.”

  “I’ll put it on the list,” I said, taking out my phone and adding it to the list of things we needed to iron out.

  After we’d signed the papers with Louise, we’d sat with Stu as he’d expelled all the knowledge he had about owning a bar and the advice he had for us to be successful. Josh and I had started writing down things we needed to do or figure out, and the list was getting pretty long. I figured we’d sit down the next day and start working on it.

  “So, am I special? Is that why you never charge me when I come in here?” I asked sweetly.

  I hadn’t paid for drink since Josh had started working there, and I wasn’t sure my uncle knew that.

  Josh grinned down at me. “I charge you each time you come in here, sailor, because you drink like a fish.”

  My jaw dropped. “I do not.” Yeah, okay, that was probably an incorrect statement. “You don’t charge me, do you? I don’t have some ridiculous bar tab I don’t know about, do I?”

  He shook his head. “No, you don’t. I don’t charge my family.”

  “Aww, I’m your family? That’s so sweet.” I grinned up at him. “Just out of curiosity, what would my tab be if you happened to add it up?”

  Josh looked like he was doing some quick math in his head. “Rough estimate?” I nodded. “Just since I’ve been working here, I’d say it’s somewhere in the ballpark of nine thousand dollars.”

  My jaw dropped. “I’m unemployed,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t pay that.”

  “Well then,” Josh said coyly. “It’s a good thing you don’t actually have a tab – and that you’re the owner of this bar now.”

  Hell yeah, it was.

  “Okay, for real this time, are you ready to learn all you can about bartending in two hours?”

  I nodded eagerly. “Lay it on me.”

  Yeah, that just sounded really sexual.

  * * *

  “You bought a bar today – with Josh?!” Taryn asked with disdain as we sat at the bar after my lesson.

  “Yes,” I said, as I took a sip of the vodka and cranberry juice I’d proudly made.

  I was treating myself to some well-deserved cocktails after working hard to learn the finer points of bartending, of which I’d only grasped the most basic principles – drinks with roughly two, maybe three, ingredients. But I’d gotten to taste test my creations – all of them – and as a result, I had a nice buzz going without even trying.

  “And you invited him to Marissa’s wedding?”

  “Yes,” I repeated.

  “Why?” she asked, screwing up her face in question.

  “Because he’s my friend, and I needed date.”

  “Just go solo. That’s what Trey’s doing. You could hang out with him and Tanner.”

  I shot her a leveling look. “I’m not hanging out with my little brothers at my cousin’s wedding.”

  “So you invited your roommate/business partner?”

  “Yes!” I said loudly, not sure what she wasn’t understanding.

  “But why?”

  “Taryn? Are you high? I already feel like crap that I’ll be twenty-nine in a few weeks, and I haven’t dated anyone noteworthy in two years. It’s pathetic, and I’d rather not feel pathetic when I watch my twenty-four year old, gorgeous, bitch of a cousin walk down the aisle. Josh is doing me a solid and helping me out. End of story.”

  “And he’s hot,” she added.

  “And he’s hot,” I repeated, knowing I would feel a hell of a lot better showing up with him at Marissa’s wedding than with anyone else.

  “You’re not sleeping with him, are you?”

  “What? No!” I said, taking a gulp of my drink and almost choking on it. “Why would you even link me going into business with him and taking him to a wedding to us obviously having sex? He’s just a friend. I’m actually seeing Alex again.”

  Consider me weak. Alex had called me the day before and told me how much he wanted to see me. And I caved. I am a weak, pathetic, flaccid human being who has a serious issue with letting go of a guy who can’t commit to her. I totally suck.

  “Oh Christ,” Taryn hissed, a definite tone of distaste in her voice. “I can’t believe you’re seeing that douchebag again. Everyone hates him. Why do you like him so much?”

  Yeah, you’re one to talk. How is Noah these days?

  “Oh, get over it. I could care less what you or Allison or anyone else thinks. I like him, and I’m seeing him, and that’s it. And he’s meeting me here later, so you’d better be nice to him.”

  “Then how come you’re not taking him to Marissa’s wedding?”

  Yeah, she had me there, but I wasn’t answering her. She and I both knew our parents hated Alex after the way he’d treated me, so there was no way I’d bring him to a family function. If we started seriously seeing each other again, I’d have to warm my family up to the idea very slowly.

  “It’s because he’s an asshole, and you’re going to regret making the decision to date him again, because he’s going to hurt you,” she answered for me.

  And then I heard the song abruptly change on the jukebox and looked up at Josh who was grinning at me. I narrowed my eyes at him, knowing he was pushing my buttons. He’d ventured close enough when he’d been pouring a beer for a customer to hear me confirm I was seeing Alex again, and the song he’d asked one of the waitresses to put on was so not funny.

  “You are hilarious,” I called out to him, shaking my head.

  “Just listen to the words, Swift. They describe Alex perfectly.”

  “The fact that you know the words to this song troubles me,” I called back to him, playing on the lyrics, as Josh sung probably the only line of the song he actually knew.
<
br />   My sister raised her eyebrows. “Josh knows the words to a Taylor Swift song? Are you sure he’s not gay?”

  I laughed and almost snorted vodka and cranberry juice through my nose. “No, he’s not. I share a wall with him, remember? The things I’ve heard – all female, of course.”

  “Eww,” Taryn said, wrinkling up her nose before she changed the subject. “So speaking of things that happen in the bedroom, doesn’t Alex have a small penis? Didn’t you tell me the sex was sub-par at best?”

  Yeah, I’d told her that one night when I was pissed off after our break-up. Oops.

  “No,” I lied. “I just said that because I was mad.”

  “Well, I think you’d be much better off with Josh,” she said matter-of-factly.

  I looked over at Josh and his toned arms and his firm jawline and felt all quivery inside. I imagined those arms braced on either side of me, as he hovered above me, naked and ready to– No! No, that was not an acceptable image to conjure. That was really bad, Taylor!

  My alcohol-soaked brain obviously had a mind of its own, and I had to remind it that Josh and I were just friends, and I was just drunk.

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Taryn, you’re insane.”

  “Of course, if you don’t make a play for him, I might,” she said then, and I felt the sudden urge to elbow her in the ribs.

  “No! You can’t,” I said quickly, realizing too late that my reaction had been much more aggressive than I’d intended.

  “Why not? He's freaking hot,” she said, eyeing Josh as he wiped up at the end of the bar.

  As if on cue, he looked up and smirk-smiled at us. Yeah, he was hot alright.

  Dammit! I did it again.

  “You got awfully territorial there for someone who’s ‘just friends’ with him,” she teased, and I knew I had to respond very carefully.

  “He has a girlfriend,” I said, both explaining my reasoning and telling her she could not make a play for him. I knew she was considering it, and something about that just didn't sit right with me.

  “Damn, that sucks. All the good ones are taken.”

  Amen to that, sister.

  “No, she sucks. I can’t stand his girlfriend, and I don’t think she likes me very much either.”

  Taryn laughed. “I’m going to guess, and this is just a hunch, that she is not cool with you working in such close proximity to her hottie boyfriend and wearing little sexpot outfits like the one you have on?”

  No, she’d probably hate it if she knew. That thought made me smile.

  “I don’t think she knows we bought the bar yet, so yeah, we’ll see how that goes,” I said, as I took a long pull of my drink, and Taryn shook her head at me.

  An hour later, several beers, and few minutes before Alex arrived, as if it couldn’t have been timed better, Kimmy sauntered into the pub dressed in a suit and flanked by who I could only assume were her friends. They both had a stuck-up bitch look about them that told me we just wouldn’t get along.

  “Josh baby!” she called out to Josh, who looked surprised to see her.

  I was annoyed that she was there. I hated seeing them together. And that nickname was horrible.

  “So that’s his girlfriend?” Taryn asked loudly.

  “Yup, that’s Kimmy,” I confirmed, as I finished off my beer in one big gulp. I’d switched over to beer since the liquor had started hitting me harder than I liked. I wanted to be sober when I met up with Alex.

  “Kimmy?!” my sister clarified, her eyes going wide as she took in the petite blond batting her eyelashes at Josh.

  She’d walked right up to him at the bar, leaned over, and waited for a kiss. He obliged her, but it was a quick, chaste kiss. Then he gestured for her and her friends to have a seat, and he’d be with them in a minute.

  It was then that she spotted me and my sister sitting at the other end of the bar and walked right up to us.

  “Taylor, how are you?” she asked sweetly, but it was in such a way that I could practically smell the venom on her breath.

  “Hey Kimmy,” I said through almost gritted teeth. “What are you doing here?”

  She smiled, but her eyes drifted over my barely there outfit and narrowed in response. “I just wanted to see my boyfriend before I headed out with the girls for dinner since he has plans to go out with the guys for some manly fun tonight,” she said, and my sister nearly choked on her beer.

  “Manly fun?” Taryn muttered, and I elbowed her as discreetly as possible. “Where are they going? Mons Venus?”

  Mons Venus was an infamous strip club in Tampa, and I was pretty sure that wasn’t where they were going.

  “And you are?” Kimmy asked haughtily, turning to glare at my sister.

  “Her sister,” Taryn said, gesturing to me with her thumb. “And the bitch who’s going to fuck your boyfriend out from under you if you don’t keep a tight rein on him. Yum-my.”

  “Taryn!” I hissed, smacking her on the forearm.

  I knew she was kidding, but it was likely that Kimmy didn’t know that. And now that I think about it, Taryn’s comment was pretty freakin’ hilarious. I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. I didn’t want to piss Kimmy off.

  Kimmy appraised Taryn with a distasteful look on her face, but she didn’t visibly react to my sister’s threat. “Yeah, you’re cute, I guess, but I don’t really see you as a threat,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

  And that set my sister off.

  “Actually, Josh and I used to sleep together,” she responded, in an attempt to further goad Kimmy, and my jaw dropped.

  Not only was that a complete lie, but Taryn had just pushed Kimmy over the edge, and she knew it. She was such a trouble-maker, and I loved her for it.

  “How nice for you,” she said coldly, as she clenched her fists at her sides.

  “Tell his dick I said hi,” Taryn said casually, and I wondered if there was any end to her raunchy thoughts. “I hear he misses my blow jobs.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Kimmy said haughtily, hands on her hips. “Josh doesn’t like blow jobs.”

  Taryn laughed out loud, and I almost followed suit. Was Kimmy kidding herself? What guy didn’t like blow jobs.

  “He loved them when we were together,” Taryn defended, and Kimmy started to open her mouth to respond.

  “Okay! Don’t listen to her, Kimmy,” I said, jumping in before she or my sister could say anything else. I didn’t need Taryn causing a rift between Josh and Kimmy no matter how much I didn’t like her. “She never slept with Josh. She’s just drunk.”

  “I didn’t believe her anyway,” Kimmy said. “And besides, it’s you I’m concerned about.”

  “Me?” I questioned, wondering what exactly had led her to believe that. She’d barely seen Josh and me together.

  “He’s not going to fall for your tricks, you know,” she said then, completely catching me off-guard. “Nice outfit, by the way.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, turning my bitchiest voice on for her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You’re outfit. It’s trashy, and it’s a pretty pathetic attempt to get Josh’s attention.”

  I wanted so badly to tell her that he’d seen me in much less over the years, but I was fighting to keep my cool, and opening my mouth at that moment was so not a good idea.

  “You’re so pitiful,” she continued, and from the corner of my eye, I could see Taryn’s hand make a fist, and I knew she wouldn’t be above swinging at Kimmy if it came down to it. My sister could be a little bit of a loose cannon. “I see how you look at him, how you always have to be the center of attention when it comes to him, and how you guys have your little inside jokes, but it’s no use. He’s with me. He’s not interested in you. You’ll never have–”

  I could not believe that bitch had the nerve to go there. I put my hand up to stop her.

  “Okay,” I said, cutting her off. “First of all, Kimmy, I’m not interested in Josh. Our ‘closeness’ has a little som
ething to do with the fact that I’ve known him since we were kids. Second, there’s going to come a time when he’s going to see what a bitch you are and dump your sorry ass. Third, I’m seeing someone else, so please, get over yourself, and get a life. Quit worrying about mine. Oh, and by the way, I bought this bar this afternoon, and as the owner, I do have the right to refuse you service if I choose to do so and kick your sorry ass out. And I’m not sure Josh would try to stop me if he found out how you’d been talking to me just now. Think about that.”

  She was looking at me in a dumbfounded sort of way, and I wondered how she fared in a courtroom if I could render her speechless with one blow. Next to me, my sister was staring at me with an open mouth and wide eyes. And I think she was hoping I really would kick Kimmy out of the bar.

  “Do it,” she muttered under her breath. “Kick her out.”

  “What’s going on?” Josh asked, looking confused but guarded as he approached our side of the bar, his eyes darting between the three of us.

  “Did Taylor buy this bar today?” Kimmy demanded, and it was as if she thought he’d tell her I’d been lying, she was that smug about it.

  “Yes, we bought it together.”

  “What?!”

  “Taylor and I went into business together,” he reiterated. “I told you I was thinking about buying the bar.”

  If Kimmy had the ability to shoot fire from her eyes, Josh would have been an incinerated pile of ash at that moment. “You never said anything about buying it with her,” she spat, pointing her finger sharply at me.

  “Is that a problem? I don’t understand.”

  Jeez, he was so cute and clueless sometimes.

  I turned to him before Kimmy could respond to his question. “It seems that your girlfriend thinks I like you, and she was just staking her claim, and now she’s uber-pissed that you and I are business partners. Bottom line, she was just being a bitch, and frankly, it was a little inappropriate, not to mention unjustified.”

  “Kimmy?” Josh asked, looking at her for confirmation.

  She was staring back at him with wide-eyed innocence, all the anger gone from her expression.

  “Jesus. I’m out of here,” I said, pushing away from the bar.