Page 11 of The Businesswoman and the Bartender

Once again, she slapped her hand over her mouth in embarrassment, but Nick was charmed at her eagerness, the smitten grin unmistakable. She smiled back timidly, under his spell completely by this point.

With a shaky hand, April reached for a cocktail napkin and pulled a pen out of her purse. She wrote her phone number down and pushed it toward him. “You can call me when you’re done. Or text. Whatever you prefer.”

He folded the napkin carefully, as if it was the most precious thing he’d ever held, and placed it in his back pocket. “I should only be twenty minutes, maybe a half hour at most.”

Nodding, she rummaged around in her purse for a tip. She placed the dollar bills down on the bar, and they locked eyes, an unspoken communication in the air. Whatever had formed between them was destined to progress beyond the confines of this venue. They would no longer be the businesswoman and the bartender.

She slid off the stool and slung her purse over one shoulder. “See you in a bit, then.”

Nick dipped his head in acknowledgment as she turned and left the lounge. The hotel’s small grab-and-go market was on the path back to the elevator bay. She’d made a habit of stopping there for coffee every morning, but tonight she had her eye on something a bit harder. There was white wine and beer tucked away in the cooler, so she picked up a four-pack of IPA from a local brewery. After paying the cashier, she took the elevator up to her floor and returned to her room.

Once the beer was situated in the mini fridge, she attempted to settle her racing heart, to no avail. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d experienced such a wide range of emotions, each more intense than the next. One second, she was nervous, and the next, she was aroused, then she was certain she was going to puke, and then her belly flipped with unfiltered happiness.

To distract herself, she tidied up the room. She lined up her shoes along one wall and retrieved the bra she’d tossed aside yesterday evening, placing it back in her luggage with the rest of her dirty laundry. The desk was a jumbled mess, littered with conference materials—her name badge, the printed program, and brochures and other handouts. She discarded the materials she knew she wasn’t going to keep and then straightened what was left.

Before she knew it, her phone rang. The sound was loud and shrill, and she jumped at the piercing noise. The caller ID listed an unknown number with a Washington area code. Her hands trembled as she answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey. It’s Nick.”

“Oh, hi,” she said breathlessly, as if she was surprised to hear from him. As if she hadn’t been quietly obsessing the past thirty minutes.

“I’m officially off the clock. If you’re still interested…?”

“I am! Yes, of course. Of course I am.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, lamenting at how she couldn’t play this cool for the life of her. Right as she opened her mouth to tell him what her room number was, she remembered that he couldn’t access the hotel floors without a keycard. “Give me a second. I’ll be right down.”

She shoved her feet back into her sneakers in an ungraceful hurry, grabbed her keycard, and headed downstairs. The elevator took an eternity to get to her floor, but the journey down to the lobby happened in the blink of an eye.

When the elevator doors opened, Nick stood on the other side. They stared at each other, the anticipation so palpable she could barely breathe. And it was impossible to ignore that the entire moment was an exact replica of her dream.

FOUR

In truth,it was not like her dream.

Because instead of Nick confidently striding into the elevator and cupping her between her legs, they were so caught up in staring at each other as if they were the main characters in a daytime soap opera that the elevator doors began to close. She yelped and kicked her leg out to catch the door, while he did the same with his left arm.

It was comical at best, embarrassing at worst.

The doors bounced back open, and Nick stepped into the lift. They laughed together, an acknowledgment of the absurdity of that slapstick routine. She scanned her keycard and pressed the button for the twenty-eighth floor. And then the doors closed, leaving them alone. It was the first time there wasn’t a bar between them, and something as simple as that felt shockingly intimate.

“Hi,” she finally choked out.

If she thought he looked good before, he was positively lethal now. He still wore his uniform of black dress pants and white button-down, but he’d loosened the top two buttons and had rolled the sleeves up to expose his corded forearms, one of which was covered in tattoos. Minor changes that made him look like a whole different person and drove her faint at the sight of him.

“Hey. Sorry I took a while. I waited until the rest of my coworkers left so they wouldn’t see me…you know…”

Panic flared to life. “Oh God. You’re not going to get in trouble for this, are you?”

He shook his head. “No. Or I don’t think so. At least as long as no one knows.” Catching her eye, he spoke plainly. “Honestly? I don’t even care.”

Guilt invaded her gut when she realized how she’d put him in a rotten position. The man was willing to risk his job to spend more time with her, and she hadn’t had the foresight to realize that fraternizing with a patron could land him in hot water.

But he was already in the lift, and they were already ascending, so she shook off the shame as best she could. “I’m not sure what you like to drink, but I got some beer from the minimarket downstairs.”

“Thanks,” he said with a grateful nod.

The elevator dinged as it reached her floor, and the doors opened with a whoosh. She led him down the hallway to her room with bated breath, and when she inserted her keycard, the sound of the lock clicking was like the roar of a cannon. The door opened, and she let him pass, watching as he took in the room.

---