Challenging the Center (Santa Fe Bobcats #6)(37)
Kat watched as she tossed the tip in the locked box they would split at the end of the night. “I’m not all that good at advertising the wares, if you will. Plus I’m not exactly the curvy girl you are.”
“You’ve got some men who admire you. Those long legs of yours are a hit. And your ass makes me jealous.” She reached around and gave Kat a playful slap on the aforementioned ass before laughing and walking away. “Oh, and you have at least one hardcore admirer.” Pointing to the other side of the bar, Diane disappeared behind the double doors that led to the storage and inventory and back rooms.
Kat turned to find Michael watching her with a scowl. The same scowl he’d worn all night as he drank his water—no alcohol the night before a game—and kept such a close eye on her, she’d think he was afraid of her running away.
“Michael,” she said as she approached. “It’s going to be a really long night if you sit in this corner and stare at me like you’re waiting for trouble.”
“Maybe I am,” he countered, taking another drink of water. “This place is crawling with guys waiting to ‘walk you to your car.’”
She rolled her eyes and patted his cheek. “Go home. Get some sleep. I promise to be a good girl and let one of the bouncers walk me to a cab.”
He started to say something else, then stopped when a woman sat beside him. His scowl turned into a smile, and Kat felt her own jealous juices start to flow before she turned and found Aileen sitting beside her man.
No, not her man. Manny. Mentor. Michael. Not her man. Way too presumptuous to call him that.
“Hey, handsome.” Aileen accepted a kiss on the cheek and turned to Kat. “And hey, girl. A little birdie told me you were working here.”
“What little birdie?”
“Kristen. She knows everything. It’s magic. Anyway, I was coming by to see how you were… and check this place out.” Aileen looked around to the high exposed wood beams and then around a little more. “It’s not quite what I expected. Just looks like a normal country-style bar. Everyone I asked made it sound more like a den of sin…” She trailed off and laughed. “Oh, right. And there’s the name.”
“Just wait a bit.” Kat grinned and leaned her elbows on the bar. “They’re doing a chocolate pudding scavenger hunt in the back in around twenty minutes. They toss a few items in a baby pool, then pour a few gallons of pudding on top, and you have to stick your arms—or whatever—in to find the items. From what I hear, it gets… pretty messy.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” When Kat just smiled, Aileen’s eyes widened. “Yeah, I think I’ll skip that.”
“Killian would kill you,” Michael said in a sing-song voice.
“Killian is not my boss.” Aileen rolled her eyes. “Men. They think because they have to be all alpha tough on the field that they need to be the same way everywhere in life.”
Kat just gave Michael a pointed look. He pretended to be interested in something across the bar.
“So anyway, I was curious if you minded me doing a little story on you.”
Kat’s eyes snapped back to Aileen. “What? Why?”
“Just doing a little something about the plight of the professional athlete at the start of a career. You know, how everyone hears ‘pro athlete’ and thinks you make millions, when clearly that’s not the case for 99 percent of them.” Aileen gestured around the bar, as if to add case in point.
It was true. Kat wouldn’t work at a bar if she didn’t need the cash. But… “I’m not supposed to do any media stuff without Sawyer’s go-ahead.”
“Sawyer…”
“My agent. Our agent,” Kat corrected, motioning to Michael. “I’m not sure he’d totally love the idea.”
“Well, think about it. When you decide, this big lug knows how to get ahold of me. Actually, here.” She pulled a pen and a tiny notepad out of her purse—probably a hazard of the trade, always having something to write with on you—and jotted down her phone number.
“Now this is a number I don’t mind getting while I’m at work,” Kat joked, slipping the folded slip of paper in her back pocket.
Aileen slid off the barstool. “I’ll leave this open for someone who’s going to pay for more than I can drink in an hour and make it home safely.”
Kat waved to the other woman, conflicted on the idea. Aileen seemed like a wonderful person, and if so many Bobcats trusted her with sports stories, then it didn’t seem like the worst idea in the world. Maybe the publicity would work.
God knew she needed something positive out there to counteract the bad.
Or it could totally backfire and she’d be seen as a whiny little princess who didn’t have the chops to make it with the big kids and was now complaining about it.
“You’re thinking so hard I can see smoke coming out your ears.”
She flipped Michael off and started collecting empties from seats that had been abandoned.
Two hours later, Michael was silently debating other jobs Kat could get that paid decently, wouldn’t keep her out at all hours of the night, and would be less likely to get her hit on every ten minutes.
“Michael, hey. Didn’t think you came out to places like this anymore.”