receipts and counted out her cash, in between bites of rigatoni in a creamy tomato sauce.
By the time she double-checked her math, she had cleaned her plate.
All in all, it hadn’t been a bad night. Not as much as she used to spend on a pair of shoes, in her old life, but enough to make a start on paying rent to Sarah. Besides, Grace thought, she was embarrassed to admit, even to herself, that she’d ever spent three hundred dollars on a pair of shoes.
“Are you making out okay here? Cash-wise, I mean.”
She looked up to find Tyler standing over her. The bar was still noisy enough that she hadn’t heard him walk up.
“Pretty well, actually. Your friends are good tippers.”
“Yeah, well, they like you, too. Half the people who’ve been here tell me they’ll only come back as long as I manage to hang on to you.”
She didn’t want to meet his eyes, so she focused on gathering up her paperwork. Stuffing her checks and receipts on one side of her order book and the balance of her cash total on the other, she clapped the book closed and passed it to him over her shoulder.
When he bopped her on the head with it, she craned her neck to glare at him in irritation. Then she remembered what he’d told her earlier when he sent his sister home and immediately felt guilty.
“Do you need me to stock something for you?” she asked. She was, after all, getting paid to work this late. “That’s what I’m here for.”
She couldn’t tell if he was irritated or just tired when he spoke.
“Take a break, Grace. We can stock later. I was just checking to see if you wanted a drink. You get one on the house after each shift, and seeing how rough tonight was, I’ll even break out the champagne if you want.”
I am such a jerk. “Thanks, but I think I’ll stick with coffee.”
“Let me know if you change your mind.” He strolled back to the bar, a bar towel tucked in his back pocket and red wine staining his left sleeve. It had been a long night for both of them.
And it was just the two of them left working. Tyler had sent his sisters and his mother home shortly after the kitchen closed. When Grace had started to protest at being left by herself with him, he’d pulled her aside so that his family couldn’t hear him.
“I want them to go home, Grace. They’ve been spending too much time here. Addy’s got a two-year-old at home. Sarah’s working at the clinic before coming back here and—”
“Stop.” She surprised herself by putting a finger up to his lips. “Send them home. We’ll be fine.”
The look of relief on his face showed her how badly he felt about relying on his family to help him out. When he hugged her, it was as a friend, and she squeezed him back without reservation.
“Thank you.” He held her at arm’s length and seemed to struggle to look solemn. “I promise I won’t flirt with you. Not even a little bit.”
“Yeah, right.” She’d scoffed automatically.
“Okay, maybe just a little bit. I’m only human, darlin’.”
But she trusted him not to make things difficult for her. Something about a man growing up with so many women in his family, particularly such strong-minded, outspoken women, made her comfortable with working with him until the small hours of the morning.
Then there was that part of her that wanted him to make things difficult for her.
Her mind kept on straying back to that one kiss in his office and the way her stomach had clenched behind the bar when he’d pulled her close again. She’d caught herself mindlessly staring into space more than once since then, unable to recall what she was doing and far too conscious of the heat pooling deliciously in her belly, remembering his kiss.
If only he didn’t have such a mouth on him. Every time she looked at him she imagined it pressed fiercely against her own. She could feel the way the corner of the door frame would have edged sharply into her back if he’d continued to kiss her in the office, backing her up
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