I slid off the stool, careful not to put much pressure on my ankle. I moved forward. Sure, it ached a little, but if you could walk a runway with half a placemat and light bulbs on your head (thank you, Fall line 2011), hobbling around on a banged up ankle was cake.
I inched toward the backroom, following through the hallway the man had disappeared into. It stretched out a hundred feet and then split off left and right. Making my way to the ‘fork’, I passed a room on the right with a huge padlock on it. The door was wooden and looked even older and more neglected than the rest of this place. But that wasn’t the strangest part. There a symbol, like a crescent moon, painted red with a few dots on the inside.
“Damn!” came another shout from the left.
I turned to find him on his knees, soaked to the bone, jabbing at what looked like an ice machine. A plastic bag, no doubt where my ice was intended to reside, lay empty on the floor.
He growled. “This blasted contraption!”
“Blasted contraption?” I asked, arching my eyebrows.
“You shouldn’t be standing,” he said, giving me the briefest of glances. “I don’t have the time or resources for a lawsuit, so if you could kindly limit the amount of damage you inflict upon your body, I would appreciate it.”
“I bet you’re popular,” I said, leaning against the wall and taking the pressure off my foot.
He stood, his dripping shirt clinging to his hulking chest. Well, damn. He probably actually was popular, regardless of how he treated people.
He pressed his hands against his knees and shook his head. “I can’t get this ridiculous machine to work.”
“I gathered that.”
“There are so many buttons, and so many different kinds of ice. Who would want their ice to be crushed, anyway?”
“Me.”
“Figures,” he muttered.
“So how are you going to run an entire nightclub if you can’t even fill a bag of ice?”
He threw his hand toward the machine. “No one could work that stupid thing.”
“Press power twice,” I said, “then hit crushed, and then enter.” I hopped over to the machine and filled the bag the way I had a million times back when I was still working at that restaurant before my agent landed me my first real gig. “It’s pretty standard. It works the way you think it would.” I gave him a quick look over and amended, “Well, maybe not the way you think it would.”
His mouth fell open, but he snapped it shut it before mumbling, “I have a soda machine on the way.”
“I can work that.”
“And an espresso maker.” This time his raised his eyes to me. He looked defeated and hopeful all at once.
“I can work that, too.”
“What if I put a stipulation in your contract saying you can’t sue me for throwing yourself down the stars?”
“I didn’t throw myself anywhere, but sure, I’ll sign it.” I grinned. “Boss.”
He picked himself up off the floor and stepped out of the room and into the hall with me. “Abram Canavar,” he said gruffly—or perhaps he was just bitter over conceding I knew my way around a club. “When can you start?”
Chapter 4
“I can’t believe you,” Dalton said, taking a sip of his coffee and staring at me over the brim of his mug. His blond hair hung lazily in his eyes, and though I couldn’t see his lips, there was no doubt in my mind he was smiling.
I tried a swallow of my cappuccino, but it was way too hot. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Yeah, you do.” He wiped his mouth. “Not to toot my own horn or anything, but it isn’t every woman who’d make me wait two weeks for a date.”
He swept his hand to indicate his body, and I couldn’t argue there. He was dressed down, in a gray t-shirt and corduroys; his pistol dangling visibly from his hip sure as hell didn’t hurt. He was, indeed, not the type of guy you expect to wait for you. But I wasn’t going to tell him that.
I lifted my eyebrows and grinned. “Did you really just use the phrase ‘toot my own horn’?”
“I know. It’s sexier than you thought, right?”
Coming from him, yeah, just about anything would be sexier than I expected. But the whole situation was still strange. I mean, this was Lulu’s little brother. I basically watched him grow up. He’d at least traded in his tastes for earth worms for expensive coffee. And seeing how we were flirting shamelessly, apparently my tastes had changed, too.
“Who said this was a date?” I asked, half toying with him and half genuinely not sure if I wanted to commit to that idea.
“Nobody,” he admitted, plunging a stirrer into his coffee and twirling it. “But nobody came out and said the sun was up, either. Doesn’t mean we don’t need shades. We’re both grown now, Char. Let’s not pretend we don’t know what’s going on here.”
He bit his lip, which was admittedly much sexier than I would have liked it to be.
“I’ve been busy,” I said, trying—and failing—not to stare at him. “That’s why it’s taken me so long. It’s not because—” I cleared my throat. “I don’t know if Lulu told you, but I got off my ass and actually found a job.”