Page 31 of Melting the Ice

I couldn’t sleep on Micah’s couch forever, no matter how much I enjoyed staying with him.

I glanced over at the door to see if any of the guys had walked in yet before I moved down the bar to take my first order.

Chapter 7

MICAH

“There’s a very familiar purple head working the bar right now,” Dom said as we made our way through the crowd at Tipsy Steer.

Everyone was in a good mood because we’d pulled out a win tonight—by the skin of our teeth, but a win, regardless. Fuck, it’d been tense.

“Great game, Micah, Dom,” voices called out, but I could only focus on Dom’s words.

“What?”

“Your roommate is behind the bar right now.”

I scanned the long bar, and there she was, filling drinks from the taps and smiling at some guy in front of her. When the hell had she gotten this job?

“Oh, look, a new hot bartender to flirt with.” Sin looped his arm over my shoulder.

“Fuck off,” I muttered, dipping away from him.

“Did you know she was working here?” Dom asked.

“Nope. But she has a lot of random jobs I don’t know about.” Like drawing hot-as-fuck illustrations that should not get me as hard as they do. Dammit all to hell. I needed to stop thinking about that image. It’d been so vivid.

Fucking hell.

I sucked in a breath, shoved that drawing out of my damn brain, and focused on Josie in front of me.

“There you are,” she said, her smile beaming. “Want a drink? One extra hoppy IPA coming right up.”

Her laugh sparked every nerve ending in my body as I made a face at her.

“Kidding. Pale ale coming right up. What about the rest of you?”

Dom and Sin gave her their orders, as did a few of my other teammates who had trickled in after us.

“What are you doing back there?” I asked after everyone had their drinks.

“Oh my goodness. I was buried, and Josie said she had experience behind a bar. She’s a lifesaver,” Simone said, flashing me a smile when she crossed behind Josie after she’d filled drinks for other patrons.

“Figured I’m here enough since this is your official team hangout. Might as well help out when I can,” Josie said. “Don’t move.”

Then she was flitting down the bar to grab orders from other thirsty patrons.

“How am I supposed to get any more embarrassing stories out of her if she’s going to be busy slinging drinks?” Sin pretended to pout.

“There are no more stories to tell.” I took a sip of my beer.

“Please. I’m still waiting for a follow-up on Bessie,” he said.

I hid my smirk behind the lip of my glass. It amused me that she messed with Sin a bit on that.

“I’m back.” Josie’s words pulled my attention toward her. Her cheeks were flushed, most likely from running around because the bar was packed.

“You seriously just jumped behind the bar to help tonight? Without doing any official paperwork or getting hired?” Obviously, I already knew the answer.

---