Page 25 of A Quick Stop in Paradise

“I’m mad at you,” Greer said.

“What’d I do this time?”

“What happened with Miss Ryan Bell?”

I shot her a look. “What, did you hear about that? Don’t tell me Allison came around running her mouth.”

“Allison’s roped in too?” She shook her head with a sigh. “No, not her. Mrs. Helena Saxton, who was very upset with how you treated Miss Ryan Bell and her boyfriend whose name… escapes me.”

“Shane Austen, also known as the biggest dickwad here. Although if Ryan’s aunt is harassing the bar staff about it, she’s shooting for the title too. Why, what’d she say?”

She sighed, going back to her tablet, tapping away. “She didn’t say a lot directly. Just wanted to know where you were because she has some complaints to raise with you. I told her I could pass along a message, but she tutted and seemed to think that wasn’t good enough, so… do you want to fill me in on what you did, if I’m going to be on damage control for you? Which one did you sleep with?”

“Neither, thank you very much. Well, almost slept with the boyfriend,” I said, wiping the bar down one more time before I spun around and leaned back against it, one foot kicked up over the other looking at her. Not a lot of activity at the bar right now aside from where Ramón was working the wines for a group of white ladies and a man who I’d have bet a million dollars was their gay best friend. Ramón was a little clueless and probably had no idea the GBF in question was flirting with him. With Ramón accidentally leading on the poor man in front of an audience, it was quiet enough on my end for Greer to confront me. “I backed out when I realized he had a girlfriend, and I told the girlfriend, Miss Ryan Bell. And this is apparently blowing up the family. Ryan stayed at my place last night because of how badly it went for her here.”

Greer sighed, shoulders slumping. “Why do problems follow you like an evil little black cloud?”

“Hey, don’t blame me. I did the right thing.”

“You never even have the decency to look sheepish when I’m mad at you,” she said, but she didn’t sound that mad at me. Hard to be when I was her best bartender. “What am I even supposed to say the next time she comes around looking for you?”

“Send me a text. I want to show up and pick a fight with her if she’s being unreasonable towards Ryan.”

“I’m not letting you fight the guests.” She scrunched up her face, looking at her tablet. “I really don’t want this escalating right now… I don’t suppose I can convince you to stay out of things.”

“You can if you give me a day off,” I said with a wink, and she let out a deep, spiritual sigh, not giving me the dignity of a response, focusing on her tablet. I turned back to the bar when a guest stepped up to it, ordering a margarita, and when I had it down for her and she counted out coins to give exact change and not one cent of tip, Greer finally responded as she was leaving.

“It’s a deal,” she said, and I shot her a look.

“For a day off?”

“If it gets you not to start things with guests. I can work a little more tomorrow and fill the gap and we can run a two-floor for a while, or… I’ll see if I can get Shauna to take your spot.”

“Oh. Sweet. I need to start things more often.”

“What am I going to do with you?” she said, putting her tablet away. “Can you leave at six today instead? Laura is coming in at five-thirty and you can hand it over to her.”

“Am I that bad? I’m not used to you trying to get me to work less.”

“You worked extra yesterday. And I want you to not start any fights with guests.”

“Well, have it your way. I’ll be out at six, then.” Laura could probably handle the late shift by herself, as long as Greer didn’t mind some broken glasses and bottles. The woman moved like she’d done enough cocaine to kill an elephant. She said it was because she was Italian, but I think she just had unmedicated anxiety.

Still, even with Greer’s intervention, I guess I couldn’t help my penchant for trouble, because she’d barely left me at the bar by myself for five minutes before a shadow moved in front of me and I looked up with an ugly knot pulling taut in my stomach at where the familiar face of Jack Daniel’s slid into the seat across from me—ratty-ass cheater Shane Austen. Now that I knew he was an asshole, he was about as attractive as a sewer drain.

“Tell me you’re just trying to order something,” I said, leaning against the bar with the most neutral expression I could pull. He frowned, folding his arms on the bar.

“Where’s Ryan?”

“Dunno. I’m not her keeper.”

“You werekeepingher last night, in your house, without anybody knowing about where she was going or what she was doing. And now nobody can get in contact with her. Where is she?”

“Genuinely, I don’t know,” I said. Didn’t sound like things had gone well with confronting her family…nobodycould get in contact with her implied Shane was collaborating with her family to track her down, which implied some things about who’d ended up on what side.

He pushed out a short sigh. “This is going to be a lot easier for everybody if you’re honest about it. We’re all worried about her, and if we can’t find her, it’s going to get very ugly searching for her.”

“Don’t know what you want me to tell you, buddy. I literally do not know where she is. Maybe if you hadn’t cheated on her, she’d be willing to talk to you. In lieu of that—”

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