“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.”
My heart rate ratchets up a few notches as I continue appraising the situation out of the corner of my eye. The other table of four is pretending not to watch, but it’s quiet in the bar tonight, so it’s a hard confrontation to miss. When the Jansens roll past, everyone stares because there’s usually some sort of spectacle not far behind.
I shift on my stool and use the mug as cover to take another long look at what’s unfolding at my four o’clock.
But I freeze at the top of that motion because whoever the fuck Seth is has taken the liberty of sliding his palm over the curve of Bailey’s ass, fingers curving inward below her cheek.
I promised her I wouldn’t make any more scenes at her bar.
But I’m about to break that promise.
Because gawking at her while watching porn is bad enough. But laying a single fucking finger on her without her consent?