1
HALEY
Mitchell Vikson is a fucking dick.
No, seriously. He isthedickhead to rival all fucking dickheads—and here in Eastpoint, there are a lot of them. I’ve met my share of assholes, but there’s just something about this one that rises above the rest. Maybe it’s the massive, planet-sized ego he carts around. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s got connections in low as well as high places, and he knows exactly how to use them. Whatever the case, he—above the rest of these assholes—is the one who really grates on my nerves.
“Table seventy-five, Hales,” Veronica, Club Outsider’s main bartender, says as she passes me on her way to make yet another load of drinks for the already obnoxiously drunk rich kids piled around her bar top. “He’s asking for you again.”
Of course he is.I curse my fucking luck.Because he knows just how much I can’t fucking stand him.I grind my teeth as I reach across the bar and snag a new tray and round the edge of the counter, heading for the back hall leading up to the second and third floors.
Halfway through the room, I feel someone bump against my back and a hand grabs my ass. I stiffen, biting down on my lower lip hard enough that I taste blood, but there’s no use. The hand leaves just as quickly as it landed. It might have been easier if Viks was like that—a drunken groper. At least, then I could brush him off as a spoiled, entitled rich kid like the rest of the regulars. Even if Viks was the typical sexual harasser, I wouldn’t even be able to report him. Because of all the people in this place to hate, I hate the worst of them all. The boss’s right-hand man.
I take the stairs up to the next floor two at a time, hoping that the sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can just clock out and be done with this place for the night. I pause just before I round the second-floor lounge, and suck in a breath. I paste on an entirely false smile—the kind I’ve spent time in front of the mirror perfecting—and straighten my back.
Table seventy-five—Viks’ preferred throne—isn’t really a table at all, but a long lounge couch with small round stands on either side for drinks to be set. It rests up against the railing that looks out into the rest of the club and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he chooses this place each time because it’s the best spot in the club to look down on everyone else. He’s like a hawk sitting up in his nest watching the peons below.
When I enter, his attention shifts, and my fake smile grows tighter. There’s only so much in my reserves for the customer service facade and he burns through it all in seconds. Electricity races through me. I ignore it.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” I say, laying out napkins on each surface where a man rests around the lounge. “What can I get everyone to drink tonight?”
“Are you on the menu?” one man asks with a grin.
Mentally, I make a tally—I think it’s the … third time someone’s asked me that exact question tonight. No? Maybe the fourth. I scribble through the imaginary wall in my mind and make another mark. I doubt it’ll be the last time.
“We’ve got several domestics on tap tonight,” I say instead of answering the annoying question. “Cocktails as per usual and the specials.”
“Captain.” Viks’ deep, rumbling voice slides over my nerves, reigniting that electricity I thought I’d shut down. I shoot a look his way and lose all hint of a smile when I catch him eyeing me up and down with a smirk.Prick.
“Bud.”
“Whiskey on the rocks.”
“Water.”
I jot down the rest of the orders and nod before turning tail and heading back to the first floor. The entire way, the heat of his gunmetal gray eyes sears my ass. It’s just not fucking fair, this attraction I have to the man. Something in my stupid, girly lizard brain just sees him and immediately knows … he would absolutely wreck us. Sexually, that’s hot.
Otherwise, however … I’ve got better things to do than get involved with legal gangsters. And regardless of his suits and job, that’s exactly what he is. A modern-day gangster with everything seemingly aboveboard. I have no doubt, though, that just a little bit of digging and someone would be able to unearth a whole hell of a lot of dirt in his past and businesses.
I storm down the stairs and head back to the bar, punching in the order before I bustle around the counter and start putting it together myself when I spot Veronica down at the opposite end filling what has to be yet another long shot order from the sorority girls giggling in front of the taps. I roll my eyes as I tip up the bottle of whiskey and pour it into a glass of ice as I let my mind wander.
He’s never outright said it, but Viks loves to fucking torture me. He has to know just how much I don’t like him. It’s not like I hide it well. I should probably chalk up my extreme aversion to him to the attraction I don’t want to feel. He’s just like every single one of the assholes here tonight—rich, entitled, and power hungry. He irritates me, and he’s well aware of the fact, enough that he always asks for me as his waitress.
Maybe if Mitchell Vikson was anyone else, I’d give in one of these days. One good fuck would get him out of my system. Right? It would have to. Hot guys always lose a little bit of their shine when you fuck them. They’re either so fucking good in bed that they know it and they let you know in no uncertain terms that all they’re looking for is a warm body to share it with, or they’re shitty and well … that speaks for itself.
Something tells me Viks would not be a shitty lay. In fact, if I had to hazard a guess, he’d probably rock my world. That, too, is dangerous and something I should not try to figure out for myself.
Despite his cut jaw and the expensive clothes, he looks more like he belongs in a Motorcycle Club than working for a notorious billionaire.
I finish filling the order, stack the drinks onto my tray, and head up to the second floor. Masculine voices dwindle into silence as I round the corner. My lips press together. I’m not curious about what they were talking about. In fact, it should say something that they recognize me as an actual human with eyes and ears rather than a wall ornament—enough that they shut their mouths when I enter. Still, it’s unnerving to deliver drinks in near deafening silence with nothing more than the deep bass of the music on the first floor to fill the space.
“Thank you, Haley.” A shiver skates down my spine as Viks says my name. I lift my gaze and meet his head on.
The years of serving, thankfully, don’t fail me. “Is there anything else I can get you?” I say as if on autopilot.
The corner of his mouth tips up into a half smile and he shakes his head. “Unless you’re offering yourself tonight, darling,” he says, “that’ll be all.”
Dick sucking motherfucker!Heat blossoms over my cheeks as the other men laugh at Viks’ comment.You can’t hit him, Haley,I remind myself.You need this fucking job. The scholarship only covers so much.