I made it back to his table with the beer before my nerves could talk me into stalling any longer at the bar. He was watching me the whole way — not subtly, not pretending otherwise — and by the time I set the glass down in front of him, I'd half-convinced myself he could hear my heart from across the room.
"Thank you for the drink," he said, and there was no glare in it this time. Just a kind of quiet amusement, like he found something about me funny in a way he hadn't decided whether he liked yet.
"You're very welcome, sir." I kept my voice light, hoping it would cover for how long the trip to the bar had actually taken. "Hope you enjoy it."
"I'm sure I will." He didn't reach for the glass. Just kept looking at me like the beer wasn't the reason he'd asked me over here in the first place. "I was wondering how long you've worked here."
"A while now," I said, narrowing my eyes slightly. Why do you care? "Is there something I can help you with?"
"I was wondering how many men work at this club," he said, finally picking up the beer and taking a slow sip. "Not bad, actually."
"Only two," I lied smoothly. "The bartender and the owner."
"You don't say." He smirked like he could smell the lie on me, which — fair, probably he could. "So the rest are women."
"That's right." I kept my face perfectly pleasant, the way I'd trained myself to during a hundred shifts exactly like this one.
"And what do they call you," he said, leaning back slightly, "if you don't mind me asking."
I opened my mouth to answer, and that's when Frank's voice cut through the noise behind me. "Alex!"
I turned to see him waving me over, his expression doing that thing where it looked annoyed on the surface but worried underneath. "Sorry," I said, glancing back at the man. "Boss is calling."
"So your name is Alex." He said it slowly, like he was filing it away somewhere permanent. "I'm Law. I have something I want to ask you — when do you get off shift?"
"Four a.m.," I said, already half-turned to walk away. "I'm not waiting around if you're not here."
"That's fine with me." His smile widened, slow and sure of itself, like he'd already decided how this was going to go. "I'll be waiting."
I walked off before he could see how much that smile got to me, and I definitely didn't turn around in time to catch him watching me go — except I did, and he winked, and I felt my whole face go hot.
Why does anyone get to be that good-looking, I thought, weaving through tables back toward Frank. Every hot guy who comes through here is either married or might as well be. He's probably got someone waiting at home. Someone who isn't a six-foot idiot in a maid costume who blushes the second anyone looks at him twice.
Frank was still wearing that worried-dad expression when I reached him — the one that always made me feel like a kid getting picked up from the principal's office, even though I was twenty-five years old and paying my own rent.
"What's up, Frank?" I asked, stopping in front of him.
"Why'd it take so long with that man," he said, eyes searching my face for something he clearly wasn't finding.
"Nothing happened. We were just talking about the club." I smiled, hoping it landed soft enough to ease the crease between his eyebrows. "First time here. He had questions, that's all."
"If that's all," Frank said, and I watched the worry drain back out of him. "Keep working. Anything happens, you come find me. I'll handle it."
"I hope you don't have to," I said, and meant it.
He smiled, squeezed my shoulder once, and disappeared toward his office. I went back to work — drinks, spills, the particular special hell of cleaning up after people who'd had four too many — and somewhere in the back of my mind, the whole night, I kept doing math on how many hours stood between me and four a.m.
By the time my shift actually ended, my feet had gone past sore and into some new category of pain I didn't have a name for. I bolted for the break room before anyone could catch me for one more thing — Frank loved finding "one more thing" right as a shift wrapped — and changed out of the costume in record time. Sweats, an old t-shirt, a hoodie zipped up to my chin. I left the light makeup on, the same way I always did. My hair had grown out long enough to brush my ears, soft enough to read as feminine if you weren't looking too closely, and my face had never been particularly good at growing facial hair anyway. Small mercies.
When I came back out onto the floor, I scanned the room half-expecting him to already be gone. Wouldn't be the first time some guy said I'll be waiting and meant it right up until he found something better to do.
But there he was. Same table. Same posture, like he'd been carved into the chair.
And — strange thought, but it landed before I could stop it — he looked a little like a man I'd seen earlier that day, at the casino I'd wandered into on a tip from a friend. Same eyes. Same easy, dangerous calm.
I shook the thought loose and started walking toward him, ready to find out what exactly he wanted to ask me.