Page 77 of Lucifer's Hounds

There are four customers at the bar, and they all seem to be enjoying their day. Their laughter echoes throughout the building, but my mind is not here. Wandering to Cass, as usual.

“You want something to drink, Lilly?” Morgan asks, sitting on the bar stool next to her.

“No, I’m good. I’ll be serving you here shortly,” I say, offering him a smile.

Morgan is my favorite customer here and he’s one of the only regulars that doesn’t get involved in the bar gossip. “Okay, but if you change your mind and want something, I got it,” he insists.

“She needs a damn shot!” Mindy says, setting a shot of Crown on the bar in front of me. I shake my head, picking up the shot glass and raising it for a toast. Morgan clinks his beer to my shot glass, and I toss it back, letting the familiar burn of the whiskey slide down my throat.

“Thank you, Mindy.” Morgan laughs. Mindy scoops his money off the bar. “You doing okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m great.” Mindy sets his change down on the bar.

“Look, if you need anything, you call me. You know you’re my middle daughter.” He puts one arm around my shoulders.

I rest my head on his arm. “Thank you.”

“I’m about to get back there and show y’all what a real bartender looks like.”

The bar erupts in laughter—everyone except Mindy who shoots me a ‘go to hell’ look.

“What?” I ask, amusement clearly written on my face.

“I’ll show you a real bartender, all right,” Mindy teases as she shakes a fist in my direction. “A real bartender shows up ten minutes late with food in hand.” Mindy continues.

“Hey! That’s me!” I raise my hand excitedly.

“Trust me, we all know that,” Mona, a regular at the corner of the bar, chimes in.

I dip into the office to grab the money bag, binder, and keys for the night shift. I’m in and out quickly, tired of looking at that room for the day. As I snatch the binder, I notice a piece of paper on the floor. One I hadn’t noticed all day. It’s similar to the one I saw in the hotel in California. A list of movies and cities. Some of them have connecting black lines and some are crossed out with a red marker. Next to each one that’s crossed out are initials.Some are CS and some are SG. CS is definitely Cass, those are his initials in his handwriting.

Why would they initial by a movie and city? That doesn’t make any sense. I set the paper aside, shoving it under a stack of papers in the corner of the desk until I have time to look over it and examine it further.

I return to the front and come to a screeching halt when I see Cass standing at the end of the bar. His eyes lock on mine and the air in the room crackles with the buzzing electricity flowing between us. I drink him in with a fresh haircut, a tight-fit black Lucifer’s Hounds shirt that I can’t read because it’s covered by his cut, a sharp, clean line around his goatee and a pump from just leaving the gym.

“Hi,” he says, breaking through the fantasy that I was just beginning to play out in my head.

“Hi,” I mouth, unable to fully vocalize anything now for fear that it would be my thoughts that come out instead.

Cass’s amusement is blatant. He knows what he does to me. My cheeks beam with red as I make a shallow attempt to gather myself and continue about my evening routine.

I drag my eyes away from him and approach the register when I notice that we have an audience. The bar is silent and every customer as well as Mindy are staring at us.

“What?” I ask, shuffling to put down the binder and close out the register.

“Nothing,” Morgan says, nonchalantly, taking a sip of beer and turning his attention to a conversation down the bar.

I look back to meet Cass’s eyes and see the same amusement making me feel like an ant under a microscope, everyone just watching me squirm. Ah hell.

I try to make an evil face, but I’m entirely too giddy and a smile quickly replaces it. Morgan pats Cass on the back and leans overto say something I can’t hear, though I can see the two of them in the mirror from where I stand.

Cass’s eyes alight with humor, he throws his head back laughing. I watch his reflection, unable to take my eyes off him.

Mindy steps beside me to start on her paperwork. “You two basically just had sex,” she whispers.

“What? No, that was a few hours ago,” I retort.

“That may be true, but I swear when you came around the corner and he spotted you, he undressed you, fucked you, and redressed you all before anyone saw. Love, y’all’s sexual chemistry is so good, everyone in this place could feel it. You won’t be hiding that from anyone if every time you look at each other, sparks fly.”

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