Love, Exes, and Ohs (Cactus Creek #4)(5)

Xoey had heard the same thing. “Did you see the one of the dog park?”

He tilted his head over at her and nodded. “I did.”

“Did you see she painted us on this very bench?”

“I did see two people sitting down, yes. You think that was us?”

Frowning, and just a touch hurt, she asked. “You don’t?” Sure, the blurred figures made nondescript with muted colors and lots of brush strokes could have been another couple, but she’d been certain it was them.

“I wasn’t sure.” He slid a thumb over the corner of her mouth to brush away a stray doughnut crumb. “Which is why I bought it so we could examine it and know for sure.”

Her heart stopped in her chest, before picking up again at triple the speed. “You did?”

“Yeah. I thought it’d be nice to have a pretty painting in my gym to class the joint up a bit. You know, balance out all the fists-of-fury MMA photos and what are essentially man meat posters on all the walls by the ring.”

Chuckling, she wouldn’t put it past him to do just that to stick to this story.

“Buuut now I’m thinking the pastels aren’t really meshing with the color vibe of my gym.”

She giggled again.

“Sooo,” he shoulder-bumped her. “I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor and hold the painting for me in your office. Until I find someplace better to put it, that is.”

Adorable. Simply adorable. “I guess I could do that for you.”

“You’re the best, babe.” He patted her knee in thanks. “And you know what?”

She glanced up at him.

“I think that’s us in the painting, too.”





CHAPTER THREE


XOEY POURED A SET of four shots and slid it over to the handsome flirt who normally would’ve gotten a second glance from her by merit of his sexy, broad shoulders alone. Tonight, however, she just smiled politely and pocketed his extravagant tip without so much as a playful wink to ensure an even bigger tip on his return trip to the bar.

“You okay, Xo?” called out her assistant manager as he came over to change out the cash drawer. “You look a little down.”

“Just tired. It’s been a long week.”

That was mostly true. Ever since she’d taken over as co-owner and general manager of Ocotillos this past spring, she’d certainly been working a heck of a lot more. But her exhaustion lately seemed more of the life variety than the vocational one.

“I keep telling you, if you’d let go of your old bartending shifts, you wouldn’t be half as wiped out on the weekends,” scolded Sam. “True, the tip pool would see a drastic drop, but everyone would understand. Even Dani didn’t put in this many hours.”

“She did if you count her brewery hours,” Xoey reasoned as she filled a mug of their seasonal beer on tap and shook up a Mexican martini for a cute young couple that had the whole newlywed vibe going on.

Sam locked up the cash register drawer and gave her a look. “Is that why you’ve been working so much? Honey, you haven’t got a single thing to prove to us. We’ve been operating at max capacity ever since the Chocolate and Beer war. There’s no way Dani would’ve kept up the hours she did for all those years had we been this successful back then.”

True. Logically, Xoey knew that but it never stopped her from pounding her feet on the pavement, crushing all those scattered shards of the glass ceiling she’d burst through. She owed Dani infinite success on a silver platter for not just taking a chance on her, but for pushing her to get to where she was now. A decade ago, she would never have imagined she’d be running and owning the very brewpub she’d once waitressed in just to make ends meet.

When one of her ridiculously sexy regulars gave her a roguish pout of the made-for-TV variety that only he could pull off, Xoey blinked and wondered what that was about. Shrugging, she gave him his change and tapped her finger on the bar to call the attention of the next customer waiting.

Suddenly, Sam untied her bartending apron and gently, but firmly, pushed her out of her usual tending spot.

“What are you doing? I still have three more hours in my shift,” she protested, noticing that all the bartenders and barbacks she passed gave her nods and waves that were the equivalent of a friendly boot out the door.

“Not anymore. Rico Suave back there was flashing you his best telenovela grins and busting out his reserved-for-the-smart-coeds pick-up lines on you earlier and you didn’t notice a single one.”

She rolled her eyes. “I never fall for them and you know it.”

“But you usually flirt back to protect his fragile male model ego, and you always give him constructive criticism for his new material so he can get out there and grace our drunken female customers with the best game possible.”

Why yes, that was a free service she provided to her favorite bachelors.

She sighed. “New material—really? And it was good?”

“Would’ve worked on my wife for sure.”

“Dammit. I guess I am feeling a little off.” She glanced at the time. Ten p.m. What on earth was she going to do with her night now?

Her attempt to head up to her office was cut off at the pass by two of her senior waitresses.

“Nope. Honey, you need to take the night off. We’re just about ready to call an intervention—you’ve been working too hard these days, missy,” scolded Elle, the closest thing she had to a mother in Arizona.