Page 3 of Cherry Beats

“This isn’tguyanything. It’s, I don’t know. Gender neutral? Unisex? My personality. None of your business. What the fuck is wrong with what I wear?”

“Nothing, dolly.” He laughed again and dropped his hand to my shoulder. “You wouldn’t be you if you were any other way. No one else could match the colour of their hair to the colour of their boots.”

I beamed, flicking him with my cloth again. “Get outta here. Go home. Search for a life on the journey. Find the end of a rainbow. Capture the leprechauns. Control the genies. Make three wishes and fly. Live, boss,live.”

Bourbon twisted his body and reached down for his keys beneath the cash register. “Make sure rock star and his groupie have left before twelve thirty.”

“Always do.”

“And be safe.”

“Always try.”

Bourbon threw his keys in the air and immediately caught them before he pressed a chaste kiss to the back of my head and turned to leave. To people who didn’t know us, that kiss might have looked like he was stepping out of line, but they didn’t know our friendship. They didn’t understand how much I adored my boss, and that was one of the reasons I was willing to cover for him so much, work my fingers to grimy little stubs, and clean glasses until they exploded. They didn’t know that Bourbon may have only been thirty-four, but he’d had one hell of a horrible, difficult life, and if he chose to gift me with a friendly kiss on the back of the head as a way of telling me how much he appreciated me, I was going to take it. His quiet love comforted me. Lines we’d never had to speak were drawn the minute I’d started working for him. He knew if he ever tried anything, I’d get a chokehold on his balls and twist them until they popped like an exploding balloon.

Ours was a platonic, potentially ball-busting love.

I began to wipe down the bar surface, a soft smile gracing my face when I glanced up to stare at Presley. Was it weird to say he had a beautiful back? He did, and it was covered in a well-worn leather jacket, with his too-long, wavy blonde hair curling over the back of the collar. His shoulders always looked so strong and… assured.

“You’ve got twenty minutes, DiCaprio,” I called out to him.

I could practically feel his smirk power punching me in the ovaries from all the way across the room. He didn’t have to turn around for me to see it. Presley slowly, ever so confidently, raised his arm in the air and flipped me the backward bird.

Anyone would have thought he’d just fingered me, my cheeks blushed, and my legs closed quickly.

“Arsehole,” I muttered under my breath.

Even the insult was a lie, but it felt good to at least pretend I hadn’t been in love with Presley Aron West for the last eight years. It felt good, at this life-altering age of nineteen, to fool myself into thinking I’d gotten control of the way I felt about the blue-eyed, blonde-haired drummer god who had somehow managed to acquire bad boy looks with a good boy attitude.

“Tess?” he called out at once.

“Yeah,” I croaked back, ducking my head under the bar to shuffle a load of empty glasses around, just so I sounded busier and more carefree than I actually was.

Get your hot little booty over here, sit on my lap, and let me hold you while I kiss your neck.

That’s what I hoped he was about to demand of me. Either that orMarry me, baby. I’ve always been in love with your green eyes and your bottle-red flaming hair.

“Serve up another round of drinks, will you?”

What a way to pour ice-cold water over a flaming hot imagination.

“No can do, Paw. Bar closed ten minutes ago… and you know that, too.”

I stood tall again and glanced over the counter through hooded eyes, keeping my hands busy as I waited for him to react. He’d always hated his nickname, taken from his initials, and very few were allowed to call him that and get away with it. But I was the kind of woman whose mouth only knew how to get her in trouble, and he looked like a guy that could shoulder the grief. Damn, those shoulders.

They sagged on cue as if they knew I was thinking about them, imagining running my tongue along the tight, salty skin that no doubt hugged his ridiculous muscles. Presley’s head sank, and for one second, I thought he was going to lose his shit with me in front of Gertrude.

She actually suited that name.

Especially when she curled her nose up in the air like she’d just sniffed a bad fart.

Instead of chastising me, Presley’s shoulders began to shake ever so gently. He was laughing. Thank Lucifer. I immediately exhaled with relief and went back to fantasising about him again.

Me straddling his thighs, completely naked except for his leather jacket, which he’d asked me to wear.

Me bending over so he could play the drums on my butt before sticking his…

“Paw?” Gertrude screeched, her voice like nails on a chalkboard. I hoped for Presley’s sake that he would shove his dick in her mouth quickly that night, just so he didn’t have to listen to her grating cries. “Why she call you Paw?”

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