#grumpysunshine #enemiestolovers #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #authorsofinstagram #amreading #amwriting #booklovers #booksofinstagram #booknerd #romancereads #romancebooks #contemporaryromance #booktok #smutreaders #militaryromance #bookish #smutreaders #coho #collegeromance #bookofthemonth #bookrecs #bookrecomendations #readersofinstagram #readersofig #romancereader #smalltownromance #bookworm #booksta #booklover #alphahero #oppositesattract
AFTER I FALL: CHAPTER 12
Parker
It is nearly two a.m. and I am dead on my feet. The bar is finally slowing down, thank God.
“You look ready to collapse.”
If I close my eyes, I can still feel Eli’s mouth on mine, the soft scrape of his beard against my skin as his lips moved against me. I can think of nothing better than curling up in bed right now and letting my brain take that thought to some very interesting places. Well, maybe I can think of something better. But that’s assuming I’d make it home to my own bed. I’m so tired, I’m seriously considering sleeping in the car.
I haven’t been this tired in…I can’t remember the last time. Maybe not ever.
Eli motions toward Mr. Glenfiddich with his chin. “You’re being paged. Has he behaved?”
I press my lips into a flat line. “Well, he hasn’t grabbed my ass or called me Tits McGee again, so does that count?”
“Well, it’s Saturday, so yes, I guess that counts.”
“What does Saturday have to do with anything?”
He shrugs. “Nothing, really.” He shifts then, and stuffs his hands in his back pockets. “You don’t have to go over there. Your shift is up.”
There’s a strange silence surrounding us. It’s like the world is passing us by, leaving us alone in this quiet, not quite bubble. “Do you ever sleep?”
“Sure.”
“That’s a non-answer,” I mumble, half to myself.
He looks at me funny then, an odd expression in his dark grey eyes. “Yes, Parker, I sleep.”
I’m too tired to be able to read between the lines. I’m not sure if he’s flirting with me or not. I might just be sleep-deprived enough to claim impairment and throw myself at him again. Just to see if he would still say no the second time around. “I’m going to go finish up with Mr. Glenfiddich, then I’ll head out.”
“Have fun.”
Oh, I’m sure it will be a blast handing Mr. Expensive Tastes in Whiskey his tab for just shy of five hundred dollars. And I bet he’s not even got a light buzz. Awful expensive way to spend an evening.
“Ready to call it a night?” I ask, handing him the small slip of paper inside a real leather bill envelope.
Eli has some strange propensities. Real leather doesn’t make sense for a run-of-the-mill bar—it’s too expensive but in that subtlety, he’s signaling class to the people who notice details like that. People who drink five hundred dollar a glass whiskey. And even if it is more durable, it’s a subtle touch that most of the crowd in here wouldn’t notice.
“Sure.” He slips what I assume is his credit card into the envelope but when I open it, I see a business card. Cream, with canted edges. And dear lord do I sound like a weirdo obsessed with American Psycho.
I hand the card back to him. “Sorry. Not interested.” I stop myself. I’m not going to say thank you for attention I didn’t ask for and had actually already said no to.
“I’m a journalist. I’m writing a piece about veterans returning to civilian life.”
I set the card on the table when he refuses to take it. “I’m not a veteran.”
“No, but you’re working at a bar filled with them.”
“So?” There’s something nagging at the base of my spine. A cold warning, slithering over my skin.
“So, I wanted to interview you as a baseline—see what civilians think about working here. Drinking here. Playing here.” He reaches back into his wallet and hands over his credit card while he talks.
“I’ll have to talk to the owner. I’m sure he’d like to be aware of any media presence.”
“That’s Eli Winter, right?”
I know better than to say anything that can be misconstrued or quoted out of context. Life is funny that way. While other kids were learning how to ride a bike, I was being coached on how to act in front of the media. I suppose that’s the very definition of First World problems, isn’t it? “Sure. I’ll be right back with your final bill.”
Despite my misgivings, I take the card and slip away, into the empty shadows toward the bar. Deacon swipes the credit card through the card reader.
“What’s that about?”
“Reporter. Wants to do a story on the bar.”
Deacon looks up at me sharply. He says nothing for a long moment, letting the uncomfortable silence drag on. It feels like forever before he swipes the card again and hands it back to me.
It’s only when he hands it back to me that I bother to look down and read Mr. Glenfiddich’s name. Ryan Pool. Mr. Pool has an exceptionally large bill. I wonder if he’s expensing the alcohol tonight as research for his story. And what accountant is going to be stupid enough to fall for that.
“Eli is pretty careful who he talks to.” I’m not so new that I can’t read between the lines of Deacon’s quiet statement.
It makes sense that Eli would be a private person. Everything about him is reserved, despite the public-facing persona I’ve read about in the local paper. The details are generic. No sense of the man behind the bar. Just enough detail to fit into the comfortable professional veteran stereotype the American public thanks for their service.
I can imagine the reporter is curious. That makes two of us. But I’m not looking for a scoop or a story.
I never was.
I look across the bar. Eli is talking to a couple of guys. I recognize one of them as Josh from class last semester. He was fun to argue with.
There are worry lines around Eli’s eyes now, a strain around his mouth. But there is something else in his eyes.
Something I would give anything to see looking back at me.
Eli
Noah looks like shit. But I can’t tell if it’s because he’s using or because he’s not. Pain pills are funny like that. And I’m not his fucking commander. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“I’m good, man. I started doing this meditation shit before Beth left on her trip.”
“Is it helping?”
He shrugs and offers a lopsided half-grin that’s mostly forced. “Well, I’m getting some sleep as opposed to none.”
“When’s Beth coming back?” I need to know how long to keep Josh checking on him. How long I need to be on edge for another one of my adopted band of merry miscreants.
Josh and Noah are two of the guys I met through The Pint. They haven’t been coming in as regularly anymore, but they will always be mine to watch over. The shit we carry doesn’t magically disappear when you get a girlfriend. But they’re both trending positive these days, unlike Caleb, who hasn’t really learned anything from his latest brush with alcohol poisoning.
“Pick her up tomorrow.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I still can’t believe she landed this consulting gig.”
Parker catches my eye, and I watch her hand Mr. Blowjob his receipt. I don’t miss the way she’s careful not to touch him. She’s exhausted, but she’s too stubborn to quit.
And I really need her to clock out for the night. To give me space from the need that seems to be overwhelming my rational thought process capabilities.
“You hired Parker Hauser?”
“You know her?” I don’t like the tone in Noah’s voice.
“Yeah, she’s been in a bunch of my classes.”
It’s amazing how defensive his comment made me, almost instantly. “She needed a summer internship. She’s doing fine, too. She made it through the first night.”
He grins and it’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen on his face since he got sober. “Okay, I’ll admit I’m a little impressed. She didn’t strike me as the hard-working waitress type.”
I say nothing, watching her work.
Deacon rings the bell for last call and Noah heads out. Mr. Blowjob hands Parker something. I hope it’s a tip and not his phone number.
She turns away and starts picking up glasses on a nearby table. She looks dead on her feet.
“You don’t make it a habit of staying up this late?”
She offers me a tired grin. “There’s a world of difference between staying up partying and staying up working. I have newfound respect for you people.”
I don’t flinch at her use of you people. I might have, that first night I met her. When I was convinced she was royalty out to play with the commoners. Now? The more time I spend around her, the more I feel like she’s…like me.
Just looking for a place to belong.
“You get used to it.”
She tips her chin and looks up at me. “How?”
I shrug. “Got used to not sleeping well on deployment. Never really readjusted.”
A shadow flitters across her eyes. Lightning fast and then it’s gone, leaving only the shadow of fatigue. “I’m not sure what to say to that.”
“Just don’t say ‘thank you for your service’.”
“I’ve heard that some vets don’t like that.” She finishes stacking glasses on her tray and straightens. “Why don’t you?”
“You and all your questions.” I brush the tip of her nose with my index finger. “It’s a long story, best shared over copious amounts of alcohol.”
“I’ll take a rain check.” She frowns then, and pauses. “Oh, so Mr. Blowjob? He’s a reporter. Wants to do a story on this place.”
I am instantly still. The ice that shelters my heart from the world spreads through my guts. “What did you tell him?” My words are thick. Lodged somewhere in the vicinity of my heart.
Hoping her next words don’t carry betrayal.
She hands me his business card. “I told him that was up to you.”
Relief is hot and cold all at once, flashing across my skin. “Thank you. For checking with me first.” I drop the card into a small box near the register where I put the rest of the cards people leave.
She shrugs. “It’s no biggie. I learned a long time ago that the media aren’t your friends.”
There’s more there in those quiet, tired words. But tonight isn’t the time. And the bar isn’t the place. “Are you going to be all right to get home?”
“I’m tired, not drunk.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
She lifts her chin and studies me quietly for a moment. All I can think about is how she tasted earlier. How she felt beneath my fingertips.
How much I want to touch her again.
“I’ll be okay. I don’t live that far from here.”
It would be so easy to ask her to come upstairs with me after the bar closes. To draw her close to me and just feel her body against mine.
It’s such a basic fantasy. Nothing sexual. Nothing twisted. Just the feeling of two bodies, skin to skin, breathing together in the darkness.
And sweet baby Jesus, when did I turn into a fucking warrior poet who wants to snuggle? Keeping track of everyone has turned me into an old man.
“Where’d you go just then?” she asks.
“Sorry. Thinking about the close-out report I have to do before I can crash.”
“You don’t have someone that does that for you?”
I shake my head. “Nah. It’s easier this way.”
“Except when you want to sleep or do other things after the bar closes.”
I don’t resist the easy smile that slides across my mouth. “I don’t really have a good response for that.”
She sets the final empty glass on her tray and straightens. “That actually raises an interesting point. Can I swing in after the bar closes and ask you some questions about who you hire and why?”
“Tonight probably isn’t good. Five minutes ago, you were dead on your feet.” The reporter’s card is a lead weight in my hand. I hate that the suspicions are there, dancing at the edge of my thoughts. Taunting me with what-ifs that are anything but good.
She makes a warm sound in the back of her throat. I am almost lost in what that sound does to me.
“Good point. I’ll write some things up so they’re more coherent.”
She turns back to the bar, bringing Deacon the rest of the glasses.
It’s a good thing it’s closing time. I need some goddamned distance from this woman in tight jeans who is playing hell on my imagination.
I let my thoughts wander, thinking about the feel of her skin. The taste of her lips and the warm slide of her breath across my tongue.
Because if I don’t, the insidious fear that the reporter’s card has raised in the back of my mind will consume me. And I know what that feels like already.
I left the war and its demons behind in Iraq.
There’s no reason to resurrect them now that I’m home.