ARE my morals worth twenty dollars?
My fingers trace over the seam of the leather wallet again, counting each of the crumpled bills.
Twenty-three dollars, to be exact.
Ah fuck it, morals are for the weak.
There’s no doubt Mr. Penthouse-Apartment-but-Doesn’t-Tip-the- Bartender will notice if his lunch money disappears. He’s still fast asleep as I pluck the loose bills and shove them into the crook of my bra. I stumble out of the maze of oversized windows and hardwood floors and hail myself a cab.
It takes one drum of a heartbeat for a taxi to squall onto the curb. I slide in. “Mademoiselle on East Sixty-Eighth Street.”
“You got it.” My cabbie winks at me through the rearview.
Mr. Penthouse didn’t even offer to order me a car home, which is the
least he could’ve done after last night’s debacle.
A tremor rollercoasters up my spine. My date fainted while he was inside me.
Not from one too many drinks—although I’m sure the three negronis he knocked back didn’t help.
He fainted because of me.
One minute, he was clumsily thrusting into me as if trying to rear a prized horse, and the next, he was on the floor.
Presumably dead.
After getting all six feet of him into the recovery position, I spent the next five minutes debating how I’d plead in a court of law: Sorry, Your
Honor, my pussy is so good, it kills men. Or what exactly I’d tell the paramedics if I were to call an ambulance: One minute he was in, and the next, well, you see.
Mr. Penthouse woke eventually, peeling open his eyelids with the might of someone who’d taken the nap of the century. He brushed the whole thing off and fell asleep like it wasn’t the most mortifying thing I’d ever witnessed. His exact excuse was It’s no big deal; sometimes I pass out when I get too excited.
Maybe next time, consider listing such a riveting fact front and center on your dating profile.
The beginning of a headache attacks my temples. I glance at the clock on the dashboard.
11:02 am.
Fuck. Why’d I decide to spend the night?
Now I’m running a few minutes late to my bartending shift.
I pull out my phone and quickly shoot my boss, Evelyn, a text.
LILY
Hey I’ll be there in fifteen. Got trapped under some dead weight.
Scanning through an abundance of emails, my eyes finally land on the one I’ve been waiting for all week.
 |
Final Exam Grades have been posted.
I log into my school portal and smile at the two beautiful As beside my business finals.
Perfect.
I click into the creative writing class that I winged this semester.
A grotesquely bold letter D glares at me like the invasive shine of headlights.
My phone nearly drops out of my hand.
Definitely not the type of D I expected to receive today.
I scroll to find my final semester grade. For fuck’s sake—I failed the class. Maybe I wouldn’t be in this position if my professor had let me make up the midterm I missed when I had the flu.
Honestly, I’ve never felt this much concentrated aggression from a simple grade before. He could’ve nestled an F next to the letter U and the
message would have been the same.
My paper wasn’t that bad.
What went wrong?
I open Professor Miller’s commentary on my final: If you want to be taken seriously, don’t write romance…
I massage the crescendo of throbbing pain gathered at my forehead.
It probably wasn’t the brightest idea to submit a steamy novella as my final project, but I was too busy cramming for my other classes and picking up extra bartending shifts to write anything else. Plus, it technically fit the parameters for the creative writing assignment.
Obviously, the chapters detailing the many ways one can get frisky in a coastal beach house were not my professor’s cup of tea.
I’m sure my readers will enjoy my story more than the jerk teacher did. The cab halts at the Mademoiselle, and I hand over the cash from Mr.
Penthouse’s wallet. It’s enough to cover the fare plus tip.
When I go to unlock the door to the bar, it’s already open. It’s impossible to miss Evelyn’s hefty frame and hammerhead expression as she stands behind the mahogany bar, whispering something to herself. Evelyn’s silver hair is tied into a neat bun atop her head, and her signature pink lipstick smothers an unusually tight line across her mouth.
Odd.
“Eve, what are you doing here?”
She looks up at me from the stack of papers in her hands.
“Oh dear, hello.” Evelyn’s stern expression melts away, but it’s not enough to calm my budding worry.
“Everything okay?”
“Nice to see you too, Lily.” She sets the collection of papers on the bar top. “Why do you always have to assume something’s wrong?”
I brush off the teasing sarcasm in her voice. “Because you’re only here when you need something.”
Evelyn rolls her eyes. “Someone’s in a bad mood.”
I drop my bag on the bar top and slide into a seat. “I failed one of my classes. The professor was an ass.”
More like Professor Miller needs to get some ass, preferably smack-dab on his face.
“Well, dear, I know I don’t have to tell you, but being disappointed by men, especially ones who believe they’re smarter than you, is the
unfortunate part of being a woman.” Evelyn sets her palms on the bar and leans forward. “I mean, look at me. I’ve been stuck managing Bob’s bar for ten years. Bastard had the nerve to leave me alone on this earth with this shack and an empty bank account.”
The Mademoiselle is hardly a shack. But it’s not as frequented as it was three years ago, or even two.
“What are you talking about? You love this bar.” I readjust the skirt riding up my thighs.
“I loved Bob, not this bar. But I’m ready to let him go and live for myself. Starting by closing up the Mademoiselle.” There’s a trace of melancholy in her voice.
“You don’t have to do that, Eve. I can extend my shift and lock up tonight.”
Evelyn’s pungent perfume wafts into my nostrils, filling my lungs with the tangy smell of irises. “No, Lily, the Mademoiselle is going out of business.”
I stare at her in disbelief.
Her lips clap back into the thin line she greeted me with earlier. I blink once. Twice. Three times.
“Why?” I manage to break the uncomfortable silence between us.
“Well, besides the fact that we haven’t had customers in months? It’s time to stop spending another second living in Bob’s shadow.”
“But what about—”
“Look, let’s not make this harder than it needs to be, Lily. I hand in the keys next week.” She smiles with half her mouth. I’m sure the other half is weighed down by the gray storm cloud erupting above me.
“Next week?” My nails carve half moons in my palm. “You thought telling me this now was an appropriate amount of notice?”
“Oh, Lily, one day you’ll learn the heart wants what it wants.” Evelyn reaches her hand to my heated cheek, pinching the skin roughly until it prickles with stinging pain. “Bob’s voice dictated my life for many years, and I’m tired of living with regret. I’m putting myself first.”
“Okay.” I sigh with resignation. There’s no use arguing with Evelyn if she’s made up her mind. I do my best to shuffle through the fog of panic coursing through my body.
I’ll have to find a new job this summer, and that’s the last thing I want to spend my time doing.
How can someone abandon their life to play pretend in some fantasy world?
“I know it’s a lot to put on you all at once, and I’m sorry, I really am,” Evelyn says. “But if I can give you one piece of advice—if you ever settle down, find someone who puts you first. Or, at the very least, supports your dreams as much as their own.”
“Yeah, Eve, not going to happen.”
“You never know.” A jovial singsong returns to her voice. “Oh, I know.”
The last thing I need is the same old lecture on my love life. The idea of being responsible for someone, or worse, being taken advantage of again, is enough to rocket launch the nausea brewing in my gut.
Evelyn walks over to my place on the stools, grabs my hand, and wraps me in what must be our first-ever hug. I settle into her embrace, melting into the comforting feel of her limbs swaddling me.
She unhooks herself from me and sighs. “I’m not going to leave you hanging. I’ll pay you for two weeks of work and give you a stellar recommendation. Just as long as you extend your day shift into tonight.”
“This sucks, you know.”
Evelyn looks at me, curves her lips into another lopsided smile, and silently makes her way to her dust-ridden office in the back of the bar.
 |
“THERE YOU ARE,” a familiar voice calls from the entrance to the Mademoiselle. I glance at the clock hanging above the entryway. It’s been eight hours since I started my shift, and I haven’t had a single customer today.
“Nico?” I ask, unsure if this horrid day is causing hallucinations.
Why else would my best friend’s soon-to-be brother-in-law show up at my bar?
At seven o’clock on a Wednesday night?
“The one and only.” Nico’s boyish grin beams beneath the bar’s dim light as he saunters over to me.
He looks as he did when I saw him five months ago: a clean, sharp jawline with dimpled cheeks and the familiar round, almost liquid-brown
eyes lined with thick, dark lashes.
Women frequently describe him as dreamy, drop-dead gorgeous, and irresistible. I’d be a fool to disagree.
The Navarro brothers share the same straight nose, full, bottom-heavy lips, and curly, chestnut-colored hair. Where Nico’s older brother, Luca, is the reincarnation of a Roman warrior with a stern stare only my best friend, Avery, can melt off his face, Nico doesn’t have a trace of grouchiness in his features. Instead, his mouth sits in a permanent toothy smile.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Oh, hello, Nico. It’s so nice to see you after all this time. I’ve missed you tremendously. Give me a kiss.” His grin accompanies his teasing tone.
The words playful and nonchalant must’ve been assigned to him at birth for I’ve never heard a trace of seriousness in his voice in the time I’ve known him.
“You’ve been gone? I guess I hadn’t noticed.”
“My heart.” Nico stretches his palm over his chest and feigns a collapsing spell. “It hurts.”
“I’m sure.” I raise my brows at him as he settles onto a stool.
He’s wearing an oversized black T-shirt, revealing the random collection of tattoos on his arms, and a pair of dark-gray jeans on his muscular six-foot frame. He has the kind of coveted appearance that makes it hard to tell whether he just rolled out of bed or if he spent hours fussing in the mirror.
We’ve spent enough time together for me to know it’s the former. He’s generously handsome.
“How have you been, princesa?” He tips his head forward, and a loose curl tumbles onto his forehead.
The nickname ripples the nerves up my neck.
Princesa.
I earned that one during the first weekend we spent at Luca and Avery’s beach house in Montauk. Despite the teasing insinuation that I’m high- maintenance, I kind of like it.
There’s nothing wrong with having standards.
There’s also absolutely nothing wrong with packing two overnight bags filled with skincare for a weekend-long getaway.
A girl’s gotta have supplies for every hour of the day.
“All good.” I do my best to ignore the nagging reminder that tonight will be one of my final nights working at the Mademoiselle. “So, what’s up? Last time we saw each other was on New Year’s, right? You had your tongue down some professional bull rider’s throat.”
“Oh yeah, Katy.” Nico runs his fingers through his hair, brushing back the strands that seem to prefer their unruly place on his forehead. “She was a wild ride.”
“Let me guess, her favorite position was reverse cowgirl?”
He lets out an exaggerated gasp. “Who do you take me for? A gentleman never tells.” Nico chuckles, and the sound reverberates off the glistening chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. “I’ll just say she can hang on much longer than eight seconds.”
“Oh my, what a gentleman you are.” I lean over the bar. “But the real question is, can you hang on for long enough?”
“Eight seconds, eight minutes, eight hours. I’m in no rush.” He gives me one of his signature winks, and I roll my eyes.
“Shut up,” I scold, trying to conceal my laughter.
I mechanically wipe down the bar, hoping to shake off the simmering embers landing in my stomach from his mere presence.
I’m still a woman with eyes, and it’s as plain as day that there’s undeniable chemistry crackling around us like a hair dryer tossed in a full bath. Dangerous, maybe even deadly.
“If I remember New Year’s correctly, you had the DJ and a finance bro fighting over you the entire night. Didn’t one of them throw a punch?”
“A lady never tells.”
Nico leans his elbows on the bar and inches his face closer to mine. “At least tell me who you picked?”
My eyes widen with mischief. “What makes you think I had to pick?” “You are something else.”
“I know.” I throw the dirty rag over his face and lean back on the sink beneath the rows of liquor on the wall. “So, are you going to tell me why you’re here, or is it some big secret?”
Nico yanks the rag off his face. “My brother flew me out from California so he could hand deliver me to a tailor and make sure my tux is fitted for the wedding next week. Can you believe it?”
I shrug. “I’m with Luca on this one. You’re the best man with the worst track record.”
“How are you still not over that yet? It was one picnic, one time, a year ago,” Nico says plainly. “It’s not my fault none of you liked the lunch I packed.”
“Lunch usually consists of something other than two cases of beer and a bag of salt and vinegar chips.”
That was the last time we gave Nico responsibility over anything during our occasional group weekends at the beach.
“For me, it was the perfect picnic.” “Not everything is about you.”
The corner of his lip curls toward the ceiling. “In my world it is.”
“Oh, I know. But you still haven’t explained why you’re here, in my bar?” I fold my arms and settle them on my chest.
I suppose it’s not my bar for much longer.
Nico is no stranger to the Mademoiselle’s trivia nights from the times he visited his brother in the city, but he’s never come to the bar alone.
Come to think of it, we haven’t been alone in each other’s company before.
“I have a date around the corner soon,” he says. “Had some time to kill. Ave said you were working tonight, so I thought I’d drop by and say hi to an old friend.”
“You’re in town for the first time in months, and you’re already going on a date?”
Nico drapes himself against the back of the stool. “Jealous?” “Impressed.”
“Well, good thing I showed up.” He peers around the bar and returns the doe-eyed gaze to me. “Why’s it dead in here?”
“It’s been like this all year, which is probably why I just got fired.”
Nico laughs for a moment. The concern in his eyes appears when he pieces together the frown on my face isn’t painted on for exaggeration. “What?”
“The owner is shutting down the bar to go on adventures around the world.”
“Kinda cool.”
“Of course you’re impressed.” I hike up an eyebrow. “But I’m going to need to find a new job. Life isn’t all fun and games, y’know?”
“And why not?” Nico lifts from his seat, walking around the mahogany bar to join me near the sink. “Look, if the bar’s closing, all this alcohol isn’t
going to drink itself.”
“Wait, no, you can’t—”
“What’s the worst that could happen, Lily? You’re gonna get fired?” His voice is a weighted challenge. “Let’s do some shots.”
Practically Nico’s catchphrase.
In some alternate universe, I’m certain he moonlights as a s*xy superhero who appears with a bottle of booze to save the day.
“Famous last words.”
“Live a little.” He regards the wall of alcohol and grabs two clean shot glasses off the counter, setting them beside me. “C’mon, don’t spin the gears in that pretty head of yours too hard.”
I shouldn’t entertain this. At all. “I thought you had a date.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she won’t mind waiting while I help a friend.”
Hmm. After having a guy faint inside of me, failing one of my classes, and getting fired, maybe I could use a little something to take the edge off.
It’s what friends are for, right?
My hesitation beats away in a breath.
“Don’t use that one.” I bend toward the fridge beneath the counter to fetch one of the perfectly chilled top-shelf vodkas.
When I hand the bottle over to Nico, my gaze snags on his deep-brown eyes trailing over my body with the speed of honey gliding down a liquor bottle. His attention finally settles on my face, and I swallow hard.
“I knew you were hiding the good stuff.” He grabs the bottle out of my hand, the lingering stare snuffed out of his eyes as if it were never there. “Now, how long have you worked here?”
“Three years.”
“One for each year then.” Nico pours the first round. “To unemployment,” I say.
We clink our glasses and knock them back quickly. The vodka shoots down my throat with a burn. I grimace, plant my palms on the bar, and hike myself up to sit on the wood.
“Are you actually sad about not working here anymore?” Nico leans beside my dangling legs.
“I guess. I got to work nights and have classes during the day. I’m not exactly a fan of my routine getting a shake-up.”
He pours us another round. “That’s neither a yes nor a no.”
“Enough about me. What are your plans for this summer?” I reach for the tablet hooked up to the bar speakers and put on one of my favorite playlists to help fill the silence between us.
“I have a three-month sabbatical to develop a new app for Viggle’s roster. Obviously, I’m hopping on a flight the day after the wedding. Works every time.”
I shift beside him. The smell of his skin travels over me in a slow journey. Hints of smoke and sweetness. I brush away the image of how that scent would translate on my tongue.
“For someone who’s all over the place, you sure are predictable.” I give his side a soft prod with my finger.
“You can’t tell me you have a better way of coming up with incredible ideas than traveling all summer.”
Little does Nico know, many of my novella plots come from some very creative and enjoyable methods, but that’s my own secret to keep.
“I can’t believe your job pays you to go on a three-month vacation for
inspiration.”
“Don’t forget the fact that I can work remotely from anywhere in the world.” He grins proudly. “I’ll be honest. Sometimes, I don’t believe it either.”
With each passing moment, Nico seems to further disregard the distance between our bodies. I can’t help but watch the way his hand edges closer to mine as he slightly sways to the music.
A shiver rushes up the backs of my knees.
His hand is veiny and long-fingered. He could probably fist my hair and neck only with his palm.
Fucking hell.
“Where are you traveling to this summer?” I say, keeping our exchange on neutral topics.
What would it feel like to have his muscular arms pin me against the mahogany bar top?
Nico shows no acknowledgment of the filthy turn of my thoughts, and I silently applaud myself for not being obvious. Seducing someone I want is second nature, but resisting them is absolute torture.
“I signed up for a month-long intensive surfing class in Brazil. I’ll figure it out after that. Maybe I’ll go to Japan or Uruguay, who knows.”
I slump with a heavy sigh. “I wish I could travel like you.”
“Well, it’s your lucky day. I have an extra ticket to Brazil. One of my friends who was meant to come dropped out. You’re welcome to join me.”
“Running away from my problems isn’t going to magically resolve them.”
“Maybe not, but a little breathing room never hurt anyone. Think about it.” Nico refills the shot glass, pushing it toward me before we down the alcohol in one fell swoop.
Each drink spins us into random conversations, our laughter bouncing together like Ping-Pong balls. Time slips away, and the quiet streets outside are an obvious sign we’ve been here for hours.
“I think you missed your date,” I say, warm from the liquor in my bloodstream.
I sit on the bar top in front of Nico. His arms are closed around me. His abs press against my bare knees.
“It’s fine. I’ll call her later.” He smiles nonchalantly, and I mirror his expression, enjoying the relief cloaking my limbs.
Droplets of time collapse around us like the dusting of spring rain.
We watch each other, peering through a silent stretch as if we’re both looking for something.
Something we can’t have.
“Well, I better close up for the night and head home. Gotta figure out my life and all.” I use my palms to press off the bar, and just as my feet hit the ground, I stumble into Nico’s firm frame. “Oh.”
One of his tattooed arms wraps around my waist, steadying me. “I got you.”
My face unglues from his chest, and I look up into his darkened gaze, thoughts racing between Get away from him and Why the fuck is there a storm of butterflies in my chest?
“I slipped,” I choke out through a small, drunken giggle.
“Gotta be honest, I’ve missed that little laugh of yours.” Nico’s grip on me doesn’t loosen, and we stand pressed together for the longest time we have ever touched each other.
At six feet, he’s a few inches taller than me, and even from this awkward angle, I can see how undeniably attractive he is. The knot of nerves between my legs begs me to find out what he tastes like.
Probably like the perfect makings for ignition. Smoke, liquor, and gasoline.
I scream internally, trying to ignore my feeble body.
Nico grins down at me as though he can transcribe each of my thoughts.
Is his mind racing the way mine is? Is he aware that a brief tip of his head forward or a slight rise on my tiptoes would cause our lips to touch?
“We already agreed that we shouldn’t.”
His eyes track from my mouth to my gaze and back. “I know.” But as we break away, it’s hard to remember why.
