Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain #2)(17)

Because of this, I was pretty pleased with myself and my efforts for the day even though they came on a day I had to share with Tate.

“Babe,” Tate called, taking me from my end of shift pleasant thoughts.

“Yeah?” I answered, pulling a pencil from behind my ear to make my additions to my pad.

“Ace,” he called.

“Yeah?” I answered again, scratching on my pad.

“For f**k’s sake, Lauren, look at me,” Tate demanded and my head came up because he used my name for the first time ever and also because he sounded slightly angry.

“Yes?” I asked.

He was leaning into the bar with both fists on the top but out to his sides. This could be a casual stance for some but for him it seemed both aggressive and dominant.

“What’s your game here?” he asked.

“Sorry?” I asked back, confused at his question and his apparent irritation.

“Your game,” he repeated then went on, shaking his head. “Fuck it, I don’t care. Just stop playin’ it.”

My head tipped a bit to the side when I asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t be stupid,” he answered and at his words, I edged closer to the bar as I felt my temper snag.

“Stupid?” I whispered.

“Gettin’ friendly with those guys to make your point.” He jerked his head to the pool tables to his right where my most generous customers, and my new best buds, the bikers from one thirty had been camped out.

“What point?” I asked.

“And don’t think I’m stupid,” he told me.

Now I was really confused.

“I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“You do if you think I don’t get your game.”

I changed tactics. “Why’s it stupid to be friendly? I thought it was my job.”

“Your job is to turn drinks, not flirt and get yourself into trouble.”

Now I wasn’t confused and my temper wasn’t snagged, it was frayed.

I leaned into the bar too, put a hand on it and my voice got quiet as I hissed, “I’m not flirting!”

“Babe, shit, seriously? Do I look dumb?”

“No, but you are if you think I’m flirting,” I replied and I watched his face grow hard.

Then he leaned in further too, taking his fists from the bar and leaning onto both of his forearms, one resting on either side of my hand so he was in my face.

“Knock it off,” he ordered and the way he said those three words, I knew he wasn’t irritated, he was, for some reason, angry.

“I’m not going to knock it off,” I said. “My tips are awesome!”

“You think we had problems before, you keep playin’ those boys, you’ll see what a problem with me means.”

I stared at him.

How could he have problem? He said half his waitresses were terrible, one would think he’d leap for joy to get a friendly one who sold a lot of booze.

“Have you been sampling your wares?” I asked only half sarcastically, the other half was seriously but he didn’t take this very well for he leaned in even further so he wasn’t only in my face, he was an inch away from it.

“Don’t try me,” he bit out.

“Don’t threaten me,” I shot back.

“Hey! Cool!” We heard shouted, Tate’s eyes went over my shoulder and I twisted to see a very petite woman running at me. She had dark hair cut in a short pixie that looked great on her, a friendly open face with big, doe eyes, she was wearing a t-shirt that said “McLeod’s Gym, Burn It!”, a pair of jeans and flip-flops and her face was devoid of makeup.

And she was also cut, as in, cut. So in shape I could see all the muscles in her arms.

She skidded to a halt in front of me, this perfect stranger, and then she wrapped her toned arms around me and gave me a hug. Stiff in her arms, because of my nature, I still couldn’t stop myself hugging her back.

“Hey!” she shouted, head tipped back to look at me when she let me go and backed up a half a step. “I’m Wendy. You’re Lauren! So cool!”

“Hey,” I replied, deciding automatically that I liked Wendy. Back in the day, with my family especially and early on with Brad, I was a cuddler. I liked to touch. I liked to hug. I liked to snuggle and hold hands. With my Mom, my Dad, Caroline, Brad – anyone really, if we were close.

Those days were gone, I hadn’t had a hug in a long time and it didn’t matter that it came from a perfect stranger who, even petite, looked like she could snap me like a twig. I still liked it and I liked her.

“I heard about you. Jim-Billy and Nadine said you were neat and I can’t wait to work with you! Won’t that be fun?”

She was rolling up and down on her toes, filled with such energy and enthusiasm it was unnatural. It felt like she needed so much she was sucking it from the very atmosphere, including me.

“Yeah, fun,” I said on a smile.

She leaned to the side and waved. “Hey Tate.”

“Wendy,” Tate returned.

“I’m gonna go dump my purse. Why don’t you hang out during my shift so we can chat?” she asked.

“Um…” I said, preparing to answer (and that answer, due to Tate’s presence and weird behavior, would sadly be no) but before I could speak, she rounded on a foot and dashed around the bar.