Page 11 of Rut Bar

“Your heat,” Jamie answers.

I blink, not quite sure I heard that correctly. “My what now?”

“Your heat. You’re…” He pauses as if he’s just now realizing what he said to me. “I can smell it’s coming. We all can. He thought… I mean… We thought you might want help. Because of the tax man.”

“You thought I might want you to help me through my… my heat because of the IRS audit?” I’m more baffled than upset.

“Yeah. Because you always come back so crabby after your heats. We thought you might like to be relaxed this time.”

My jaw drops, and all of my cool professionalism goes out the window. “Crabby?” The word comes out as a squeak.My staff is discussing my heat cycles?Mortification and irritation war with one another inside me.

Jamie panics and raises his hands in supplication, his eyes wide. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

“There’s a good way to take being calledcrabby?” I ask.

He drags in a deep breath and sighs, then lowers his hands to his thighs. “Sorry. I’m not good at words. You practically live at Rut. The club is your life. We all know how hard you work. And with Harvey being out, Anthony says there’s extra work being dumped on you and you’ll need help. We want to help you. You don’t have to do this alone.”

“You want to help me through my heat,” I reiterate. Perhaps if I say it enough times, he’ll understand how inappropriate his offer is.

“Yeah. I’m a good cook. Anthony can clean and… and do laundry and stuff. When was the last time you let someone take care of you?”

“Oh.” Mortification wins. He was offering to help me do laundry and here I was thinking about licking his cum off his abs. My face heats, and I clear my throat and glance away. “That’s actually pretty sweet. Inappropriate, but sweet. I can’t take you up on your offer, Jamie. You’re my employee. I’m your boss. That wouldn’t be right.”

Because when the full force of my heat hits me, I won’t have the forethought to stick hard and fast to my no-employees rule. Especially not with Jamie. I’ve had a crush on him for years. I’d end up begging for his knot, and then how would I ever stare him in the eye again after it was over?

I sigh. “It’s a nice gesture, but I can’t.”

“Okay,” he says. “Then I quit.”

“What?!” I screech and push away from the desk so fast my heel skitters between two tiles. My ankle rolls and I nearly fall over. Jamie’s hand engulfs my thighs to keep me from breaking my face on the ceramic. “You can’t quit! Darren’s your alternate, and he’s out because of his broken clavicle. No one else has learned the king of the jungle role. We haven’t practiced it with anyone else.”

“I’m sorry!” He holds his hands up again. “I don’t really want to quit. I thought that might… I don’t know, make things easier? When I can’t decide what I want, sometimes I flip a coin and then I know how I feel. If I’m happy or sad. I’m sorry, Miss Vee. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

His hands massage my thighs and liquid heat pools in my belly. I sag against my desk as relief washes through me. It’s okay. He’s not leaving me.

It feels like I’ve aged ten years in two minutes. My hand snags on a snarl as I run it through my hair until it puffs around my shoulders. “Okay. You’re not quitting. You’ll dance in the show tonight. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”

He grabs my hand before I can make my hair even bigger. “It’s all good. We all want Rut to do well. We love it here. There’s a lot of workplaces that say they’re like a family but that’s not really true, you know? But for Rut, it is. When we get sick, you still pay us. When Patrick wanted to go back to school, you helped him with his paper.

“You help so many omegas. My sister’s an omega. If she needed it, I’d want someone like you around to help her. You close the club on Christmas so we can be with our families when you could make a lot of money instead. You care about this club, and us, and we care about you. We want to help. Please let us help you. Anthony says you shouldn’t have to suffer through your heat alone.”

My eyes grow hot and scratchy with unshed tears. When was the last time anyone ever said such nice things about me? “I really do appreciate it, but I can’t. It’s not appropriate. I would ask you to do things that a boss shouldn’t ask their employee to do. I would never let that happen.”

Jamie gives me those sad puppy eyes, but nods. His chair scrapes against the floor as he stands. “I understand.” He opens his mouth to say something, but the abrupt change in the club’s music makes him pause. He hooks a thumb toward the stairs. “I should get changed into my waiter’s uniform. Sorry I harshed the vibes.”

“It’s fine. I… appreciate your offer. It was sweet.”

He leaves without another word. I move to the window and track his progress, watching him take the stairs two at a time until he hits the floor and bypasses the first rush of omega guests, chatting with them briefly before heading to the back and into the dressing room.

Anthony’s stare from his place at the bar is hot along my skin. My hands press hard into the glass as I wonder what else my bartender has been saying behind my back.

Not your business. Get back to work.

And I do. At some point, Brendan comes back and sits at Nate’s desk. We ignore each other as we work in a comfortable silence. I’ve finished printing out the last of the bi-weekly paychecks when Anthony interrupts me to set down a plate of food. I can’t bring myself to peek at him as I murmur my thanks and ignore his hovering until he leaves.

It’s the crowd’s eruption of cheers that finally pulls me from my work. The familiar beat of the Tarzan set’s music pulses through the room. NowthisI have to see. I push away from my desk and roll my chair over to the window.

The first night that a new act unveils is special. The crowd’s reaction will tell me if this is one we should keep in the rotation or let go after a few weeks.

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