Page 3 of Crimson Desires

Unfortunately, this guy was attractive. His deep-cut tank top offered me a peek at his chiseled body. His face looked like something straight out of a magazine advertisement. He was covered in tattoos from his hands to his neck. The combination of his clear blue eyes and devilish smile conjured up images of heat, sweat, and twisted bedsheets in my mind.

He stared at me, gaze unwavering, as I took everyone else’s drink orders.

“And how many checks will this be on?” I asked.

The handsome guy grinned. “Just one, sweetheart. Can your boyfriend do that?”

“He, um, he works in finance,” I said lamely.

The guy just laughed. “Sure, he does.”

It was clear that this guy wasn’t buying the fake-boyfriend thing. Not one bit.

Swallowing thickly, I nodded and hurried back to the bar to make everyone’s drinks. I was no mixologist, but I’d spent enough time with the bartenders to pick up a few things. Usually, we’d have a bartender on staff tonight, but he’d called in sick.

And instead of calling in a replacement, Greg had assigned me to tend to the bar.

After I’d made and delivered the drinks, I took everyone’s orders.

I was hoping that they’d just want appetizers or something. A few baskets of fries. Maybe some wings. Stuff that Kevin and Dean could whip up in a huge batch and have out in less than twenty minutes.

But it seemed that the divine power in charge of my life enjoyed watching me struggle because every single person ordered a different entrée.

I took the blond guy’s order last.

“What can I get for you?” I asked.

“Your number, for starters.”

Christ, he’s persistent.

Honestly, if he hadn’t come barging into the bar with a party of fifteen an hour and a half before closing, I might’ve flirted back with him. But he had come barging into the bar with a party of fifteen an hour and a half before closing, and so I refused to throw him a line.

I tapped the menu in front of him.

“From the menu, please.”

The guy rolled his beautiful blue eyes. “Fine. I’ll take a classic burger. No onions.”

One of the other performers at the table, a broad-shouldered man with short brown hair and a slightly crooked nose, cackled. “Lady, you better run. Jack’s only asking you to hold the onions because he doesn’t want to have onion breath when he tries to kiss you.”

The handsome guy—Jack—flipped the bird at the brown-haired guy. “Fuck off, Zephyr!”

I smiled tightly. “Well, if that’s the only reason you don’t want onions, I’ll tell the guys in the kitchen to pile them on. Because there’s no way in hell that I’m kissing you.”

As I turned to deliver the orders to the kitchen, the table erupted into jeers and jokes at Jack’s expense. Jack brushed off the teasing with a good-natured laugh and a handful of “fuck you”s.

When I delivered the orders to Kevin and Dean, they looked about ready to kill me. All I could do was shrug apologetically.

Kevin and Dean begrudgingly got to work on the orders, and I returned to the dining area to continue tending to the table. One of the guys—a skinny man with a New York Yankees baseball cap—was ordering an impressive amount of vodka sodas.

If there was a silver lining to any of this, it was the fact that the tip I’d be receiving tonight was going to be legendary. This bill was going to be at least five hundred dollars. And at the rate that drinks were being ordered, it was probably going to shoot up to six hundred dollars by the end of the night. At 20% gratuity, I’d be walking out of here with my tips for the night doubled.

That is if these guys were decent tippers.

After five years of being a waitress, I’d learned that betting on human decency was about as lucrative as betting on the Mega Millions.

Jack continued to shoot wry looks in my direction throughout the night. There were several times that I caught him where he’d just wink at me before turning back to the conversation that he was having with the people around him.

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