Page 3 of The Lair

“How can I fix it?” I insist, a sudden lump of guilt and embarrassment clogging my throat.

His face remains stoic. If I didn’t know him, I’d fear he’d turned into stone right in front of my eyes. But because I do, I only wait in agony for the two-word answer I already suspect he’s going to give me.

“You can’t.”

I hate how I want to fix it, but he won’t let me. How I’m the only employee who’s messed up two stock orders in less than three months.

And I hate that it makes me think that my mother was right. That I’m not good at anything but being a bother.

“Go home, Allie,” Travis orders in that authoritative voice that usually makes my skin tingle.

“But—”

“Be here at four tomorrow.”

I blink. “I’m not fired?”

I expected this to be the last straw. It’s not like I’m the most qualified waitress in the history of customer service even though I take my job very seriously. He could get a replacement within twenty-four hours if he tried.

But he won’t because I’ll still have a job tomorrow. Figure that one out.

“Go home,” he repeats.

“All right. See you tomorrow,” I mutter.

My shoulder brushes his arm as I walk past him, heading to the changing room. He doesn’t add anything else. And when I reach the threshold and glance over my shoulder, he is nowhere to be seen.

I wish I’d imagined that whole exchange, but I’m not that lucky. I’ve never been.

It all started thirteen months ago.

Well, technically, it started sixteen years ago, but I like to pretend it didn’t.

Either way, thirteen months ago, I found myself in the small town of Bannport, Maine. It wasn’t my original destination, given how I didn’t know this place existed until a sign on the road told me so. But something happened that day—something that made me stop.

My car broke down.

Also, my hair needed a desperate round of dye.

By some miracle, I managed to pull into a car repair shop and was told it wouldn’t take them long to take a look. Since I had errands to run, I ventured into town with nothing but my purse and a hungry stomach.

Two bottles of brown hair dye later, I saw it.

The Lair.

A typical small-town sports bar, by the looks of it. The sign above the door was well-kept. Clean too. I could read the white, Western-style letters just fine, which meant dust hadn’t collected. The red bricks of the building gave it a cozy feeling, so at odds with the sports bars I’d been to so far.

As a young woman traveling alone, maybe I should’ve thought twice about stepping into a possibly all-male place called The Lair. But then someone exited the bar, and the mouthwatering smell of grilled meat drifted to my about-to-pass-out-from-hunger self, and I was sold.

Pushing past the Staff Needed sign on the door, I kept one eye on the four occupied tables while I took a seat in a secluded corner, near the pool table at the back and as far away from the TV as I could, since that’s where everyone’s attention was. Nobody glanced my way, which allowed me to relax just enough to scan the menu for that grilled burger I’d smelled earlier.

The smell of food in the air mixed with the pine-clean scent coming from my table, which meant someone had wiped it just moments before. If that hadn’t given it away, the lack of grease on the surface would have.

I glanced around me—dozens of bottles of liquor behind the bar, neon signs on the brick wall, not many tables.

And then him.

“What can I get you?”

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