Page 11 of Beauty and Kaos

He raises an eyebrow. “Business or pleasure?”

“Definitely business.”

“Oh, you’re here about the job,” he assumes, tucking the clean glass into a line with the others beneath the liquor bottles. He reaches beneath the register and pulls out a piece of paper, sliding it toward me. An application for employment. I pick it up, scanning over the lines of information.

“Um, yeah. Sure. The job. Is Evan around?” I question.

The bartender shakes his head. “Nah, he’s already over at the Aurora. He’ll be back tomorrow morning to check in the truck, though. Come in around eight or so, and you’ll hit him.”

I nod, folding the application and sliding it into my back pocket. I glance over at the kitchen window, where plates offood sit in a line beneath a heat lamp, waiting to be trayed. I’m suddenly very aware that I haven’t eaten all day. I look back at the bartender.

“I may have changed my mind about the eating part.”

The bartender smiles and slides me a laminated menu. Seafood baskets and burgers, steaks and pasta, salads with lots of fruit. I choose a grilled chicken sandwich with pepper jack, lettuce, and tomatoes, then slide the menu back. The bartender taps the screen on the register and pours me a water.

“Nick, shots,” a woman shouts, striding up to the bar. She has a slender frame, with bleach blonde hair falling to her shoulders, aged maybe in her mid-fifties. Her mid-length dress is starched and has entirely too much pink in it. The authority in her voice says she’s in management, but her choice of footwear says she doesn’t go anywhere near the kitchen.

“What are you thinking?” Nick asks, lining up an impossibly long line of shot glasses. She taps a finger against her pink-painted lips.

“Lemon Drops,” she answers thoughtfully. She scans over the dining room before her gaze finally falls on me. “Welcome! It’s a beautiful day for a beach vacation, right?”

I shrug, forcing a smile I don’t feel.

“Oh, she’s not on vacation. She’s here about the job,” Nick supplies.

The woman looks back at Nick. “I didn’t know Evan had started advertising the job yet.” She waves her hand dismissively. “He handles all that, I don’t keep up.” She turns to me again, assessing me carefully for a long moment before finally nodding in approval. “Pour her up one too, Evan will hire her.”

Nick laughs, and the woman walks away from the bar, herheels clicking on the wooden floor. “That’s Carolyn, one of the owners.”

“Evan’s Mom,” I say, watching the woman disappear into the back office.

“Yeah, Pelican Beach royalty. I think she likes you, whatever that’s worth.”

“Fantastic,” I comment dryly. “For a minute there, I thought she was going to stuff me and hang me between the Marlin and the Mahi.”

He grins. “Evan has a type, and you fit it. No offense.”

I nod, leveling him with a look. “I’m a lot of people’s type.”

“I’ll bet.” He smiles that beautiful smile again, nodding to one of the passing servers. She pauses in her trek across the room and steps up to the bar. “Giana, round everyone up, tell them to come grab a shot. Carolyn wants Lemon Drops.”

Giana rolls her eyes, running a hand through her pixie-cut dark hair. “Fuck man, that’s like our sixth shot in the last two hours. I feel great, but I nearly tripped twice with that last tray of drinks.” She laughs.

“Round them up!” Nick tells her, motioning with his hand like she’s a sheepdog collecting his stray cattle. She shakes her head and disappears around the corner into the kitchen. Several servers file back out of the door, followed by some of the cooks. They’re laughing, carrying stacks of credit card books to drop at their tables. They crowd around the bar, grabbing from the line of shot glasses Nick prepared.

“Cheers to it being six o’clock on a Monday, because why not,” Nick says, clinking his shot against several others before tossing back the pale yellow liquid. His coworkers follow suit, setting their glasses back on the bar before disbanding to returnto their tables. Nick slides one of the shots down to me, and I pick it up.

The kitchen doors swing open again, and a guy walks out with a white styrofoam to-go container. I hear rock music blaring from the open doorway, with heavy bass and quick guitars. He pulls off a black apron, shaking his dark hair free of the strings, and tosses it into a laundry bin behind the server station before striding over to me. His black Sandbar shirt is tight around his biceps, falling to a tapered waist, and black jeans held with a thick studded belt not unlike my own. Tattoos wind up his arms, with another barely visible near the collar of his shirt. The heavy tread on his black boots definitely isn’t regulation, which he knows and doesn’t care about. He rubs a hand over the dark stubble on his face, his ice-blue eyes locking with mine.

Nick nods at me as the guy walks up, mumbling something under his breath as he cashes out my ticket. The guy sidesteps Nick, and slides the to-go container down the bar toward me, picking up one of the remaining shots. He leans in and clinks his shot against mine. In one swift movement, I toss it back and set the glass back down.

“You don’t want to work here,” he says, placing his glass beside mine. “This place is a shit show.”

“Maybe shit show is my speed.” I toss a few dollars on the bar for a tip and grab my sandwich. As I stand, I watch his gaze slide down my body. It’s only a second, but it’s long enough to feel my skin heat.

“I’m Zaden,” he says, sliding me a second shot from the line of unclaimed Lemon Drops.

I pick it up and toss it back in a practiced motion that’s easier than I care to admit. “Good for you.”

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