Page 22 of Jilted

I nodded.

“Would you have said yes to my dinner invitation if you didn’t have to work?”

“Probably not.” I grinned. “You’re handsome, I’ll give you that. But you’re also kind of a jerk, and overall you seem like a bad idea. Plus, I’m on a man moratorium.”

“Didn’t seem like it in the coat closet.”

I sighed. “That was a mistake.”

Wilder clutched his chest. “Ouch.”

I laughed and shoved the rest of what I needed into my bag.“I’m sure you can bat those thick eyelashes and get any woman you want.”

His eyes sparkled. “Apparently not. But I don’t give up easily.”

I hoisted my bag to my shoulder and walked out the door, leaving him standing just outside my office. Halfway down the hall, I felt eyes on my back. “Stop checking out my ass!”

“Only if you stop walking away from me, Cupcake.”

Forty minutes later, I flew through the front door of the brownstone. My niece, Olivia, was sitting on the stairs talking on her cell.

“Why are you talking on the phone in the hall? Your dad’s not even home yet.”

She shrugged. “I like it out here.”

“Whatever.” I walked halfway up the flight of stairs to where she sat and kissed the top of her head. “Freaking subway got stuck, so I’m late. I have to be at Carrick’s in fifteen minutes. Gotta go change.”

Olivia went back to talking on the phone while I climbed the rest of the stairs. At the top, I turned the corner for the next flight… and then the next. I reached the fourth-floor landing huffing and puffing and very much missing the old, slow-as-shit elevator I’d taken for granted when I lived uptown. Though the climb was forgotten by the time I caught my breath and opened the door to mywalk-in closet—something I would never be able to afford if I didn’t live here.

My brother Will had bought this brownstone with the life-insurance money he got after his wife died. It had been converted into four separate apartments a half century ago. When one of the tenants moved out a few months after he moved in with Olivia, he’d asked me to live in one of the units in exchange for keeping an eye on his daughter. Will worked twenty-four-hour shifts at the FDNY. I would’ve moved to help out even without this amazing place, but being in the same building did make it easier when he worked overnights. A year after I’d moved in, Dad had been diagnosed with advanced Parkinson’s, so when another unit came up for renewal,Will opted not to keep the tenant. Instead, Dad sold his apartment and moved into the ground-floor unit here. So I lived with my family. But it was the best of both worlds. We all had our privacy, yet we could chip in and help each other.

I changed from my work clothes—a pencil skirt and silk blouse—into a pair of jeans and a Carrick’s T-shirt, tied my hair into a messy bun on the top of my head, and ran back out the door. A flight and a half down, I thought I might’ve forgotten the keys to the bar, so I stopped midstep to dig in my purse. While I did, I accidentally eavesdropped on Olivia’s conversation.

“Eww. It was gross,” she said. “You know how boxer dogs sometimes have weird, big tongues? That’s what it felt like was in his mouth. Except his tongue was dry, like his lips. Seriously, there wasnospit in there. He might be cute, but I’m never kissing him again.”

Oh shit. Liv is kissing boys? Can’t that wait until she’s at least… I don’t know… thirty?

I located the keys at the bottom of my purse. My niece definitely hadn’t heard me coming, or she wouldn’t have been talking so loud. So I stomped my feet down the rest of the flight to let her know I was on my way. I didn’t have time to address kissing boys with her now, but we would have a discussion about it the next time I watched her.

I passed her the same way I’d entered. In a rush, I stopped at the step she was parked on and kissed the top of her head.

“Have a good night, Liv. Text me the recipe card for what you want for dinner this weekend so I can pick up ingredients for us to cook together.”

“Whatever.” She shrugged. It was a typical teenage answer, but I knew she looked forward to our cooking on the nights her dad worked. Her mom had been a chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant here in the city, and we’d been making our way through her recipes for the last six months.

Outside, a cab was coming down the block. I hailed it, rather than chance waiting for the subway. It was five after six when I walked into Carrick’s—not too bad. I tossed my purse under thebar, grabbed an apron, and tied it around my waist as I walked toward my father.

“Hey, Dad.” I kissed his cheek and looked over at the guy sitting on a stool on the other side of the bar. Frank had been Dad’s partner at the NYPD for thirty years. He spent more hours in this place than my father did. “Hey, Frank. How’s it going?”

“I brought my own cushion to sit on because my hemorrhoids are so bad. You guys should really get these old stools repadded before someone like me files an Americans with Disabilities Act complaint.”

I smiled, shaking my head. “I don’t think your hemorrhoids are covered. But just in case, I’m going to have to start charging you for all the beer you drink to cover the cost of replacing all the cushions.”

He waved me off. “Let’s not go crazy, little miss.”

The bar was a little fuller than usual for a weeknight—even had a few faces I’d never seen before. I generally knew most of the patrons since I’d grown up in this place. Almost all of them were either NYPD or FDNY. Most of the ones that weren’t didn’t last too long with the regular crowd.

I helped a few people, keeping my eye on Dad as he walked over to see what two guys I didn’t know wanted. They ordered, and Dad walked over to the row of taps and pulled the lever for Guinness. As usual, he filled it three quarters of the way, and his hand shook as he set it on the counter. I saw the guy eye the beer and make a face, so I walked over.

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