Hopeless (Chestnut Springs, #5)(11)

“Pay and leave before I do something I’ll regret.”

He fumbles with his wallet, tosses a twenty down, and stares at it almost regretfully.

“No change. That’s her tip for even tolerating you.”

His pale cheeks turn bright red as he stumbles away from the bar. I keep my glare on him as he hustles toward the door with his head down, fingers clasped tightly around his phone.

Fucking pig.

He’s gone and I’m still staring. I turn only when I sense Bailey coming up from behind me.

“Ahh,” she says, arms crossed under her breasts, the white cotton of her shirt making her tan skin glow. “The Eaton effect.” She gives me a smug smile. “If I had that last name, people would ask me how high when I said jump too.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

She whips the half-empty pint glass off the top of the bar and turns away. With a shy peek over her shoulder, she adds, “Thanks for what you did back there. It means a lot.”

I don’t know why such a simple sentence hits me so hard. Her bluntness, her gratitude. I feel like a kid. I almost want to blush.

“It was nothing.”

She laughs, soft and melodic, all feminine and amused. “Okay, soldier. Whatever you say.”

I’m not a soldier, but I don’t correct her. That sense of purpose—even just for a few seconds—felt too fucking good.

So I just drop my head and smile.

“Stop stewing.” Bailey doesn’t even glance at me as she tips over a spouted bottle of bourbon to fill a shot glass.

“I’m not stewing.”

“You are.”

I don’t feel like arguing with her. To make matters worse, she’s right. I am stewing. Stewing over what she said about The Eaton Effect. I don’t want her to be right. I’ve always liked Bailey, but over the past several weeks, she’s become something of a comfort blanket. A friend even.

She doesn’t pester me. She doesn’t fawn over me. She makes me tea and lets me be, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for the rest of the people in my life. Namely, my family, who’ve made it their job to overstep and inquire about what I’m doing, how I’m doing, and what I’m planning on doing with mind-numbing regularity.

So it irritates me that Bailey can be this fucking great and people can still be so fucking shitty to her.

It even irritates me that part of the reason I sit here four nights a week is because I’ve developed a totally inappropriate crush on my bartender, like I’m a fucking twenty-year-old bro waiting to make his move.

“Think Earl is rubbing one out right now?” Her lips curve up as she uses the soda gun to fill the rocks glass.

She knows she’s pestering me, and it works.

“Bailey.”

Now her head inclines in my direction, one eyebrow quirking up. “Beau.”

“Don’t.”

“Just trying to give you something to stew about if you’re gonna sit there all quiet and broody.”

I scoff and cover my smirk behind the rim of my mug.

This girl.

It’s with that mug up over my face that I hear a raucous group of people just outside. A quick glance at my watch tells me it’s 12:01—one minute past last call. A glance over my shoulder tells me the only patrons left are a table waiting on their last drinks.

She’s walking those drinks over when three men enter, and I can feel Bailey freeze on the spot before I even turn to look at her. All traces of playfulness on her melt away, the angle of her jaw changing as she sets it.

“Little sis!” Aaron Jansen calls out as he pulls a seat up at one of the round high tops just beyond the bar. “Get us a round on the house.”

Bailey keeps her distance but gives her head a little shake, as though that could clear the tension from her body. “Sorry guys, I’ve already done last call. It’s past midnight. That’s the rule.”

“Come on. What’s the point in having a sister who works here if we can’t get some special treatment?”

I drop my head low, trying to blend in as an unsuspecting regular. I don’t want to start more shit for Bailey, and her brothers and I are not on good terms. Not from when we were younger, and not from the time I recently took part in toilet papering their tractor with Cade and Rhett.

It rained that night, and I imagine picking wet toilet paper off of their tractor wasn’t a good time. Still, they deserved it. And that was fun.

I smile at the memory.

“Sorry, guys.” Bailey approaches her brothers’ table with caution, like she doesn’t want to get close to them but also doesn’t want a scene with the other patrons in the bar. “Not tonight. Management has set later hours for Thursday through Saturday, so try back then.”

The oldest Jansen brother, Lance, tips his head back with a groan. “Bailey, come on. We even brought a friend from out of town. Told him you’d take care of us tonight. Seth, this is our little sister, Bailey. Always a bit of a stick in the mud, if you ask me.”

My spine straightens, and I glance over my shoulder. The third guy is leering at Bailey in a blatant and unsettling way.

At least I leer at her subtly and beat myself up about it afterward. This guy has no such boundaries.

“Come on, honey. You take care of me, and I’ll take care of you.”