Page 40 of The Barkeep and the Bro

“We’re talking about hanging out after this. He’s a grown man.”

Was that true? Had my jealousy blinded me to what was going on here?

A hand climbed onto my shoulder—familiar hot skin.

“Actually, Kirk, I can’t hang with you. I’m taken.” Charlie slid his hand down my arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake and a boner in my pants.

“Fucking the boss? I knew it. Real classy,” the creep tossed off. His squinty eyes resembled a rodent the more I looked at him.

I picked up on Charlie’s plan. I’d pretended to be the boyfriend of lady friends in public to scare men off.

“Don’t fuck with my employee or my boyfriend.” I put a protective arm around Charlie. A small round of fireworks went off in my head.

“Jesus, can’t a guy have a conversation with his bartender? I was just having some fun.”

“Go home, Kirk. This is the last time I’m going to tell you.” I was two seconds from throwing him in the dumpster. Only the insane amount of joy bursting through my insides kept me from choosing violence.

He cocked his head. “Are you guys really together?”

I looked down at Charlie, who fit so perfectly in my arm, for our next move. He got on his toes and put his lips to mine. They were warm, slightly chapped, and flat-out perfection. I turned his body to face me for a better angle. His mouth opened, and I snuck my tongue in there because I lost all sense of reality.

His eyes were glassy and dazed before opening wide. With panic?

The creep glared at us in full stinkface mode. “I think it’s very unprofessional for you to fuck your employees.”

I stomped up to his face, and he turned so white he was about to wet himself. “Go.”

He practically ran to his car, slipping on the ice but not letting that stop him. I couldn’t enjoy the scene, not with the sinking feeling pooling in my gut that I’d just crossed a line I swore I wouldn’t.

“Let’s get back to work. You need to finish cleaning up,” I muttered and walked past Charlie into the bar.

13

CHARLIE

“Charlie fucking Porterfield. What the fuck did you do?” I asked myself in the mirror when I got home from the first Musical Monday. I couldn’t revel in the success of tonight because…

I made out with my boss.

Under false pretenses.

But with very real lips.

Yeah, I wanted to scare off that creep. But I could’ve found a way out of his clutches. Looking at myself in the harsh light of the bathroom, I knew the truth: I really wanted to kiss my boss.

It had become this craving that kept building and building. And all that shameless flirting I did with him behind the bar...the touching and whispering and big smiling. It was one long row of green lights straight into my pants.

Fuck, Charlie, why don’t you just get on your knees and suck his fucking dick?

Ooh, that would be nice.

Stop that!

I had never sucked a dick, but I’ve had mine sucked so I could figure it out.

Mitch could help me.

I banged my head against the mirror lightly so as not to damage Amos’s bathroom but hard enough to try and knock some sense into me.

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