Rascal (Rascals Book 1)(10)

“I guess so.” I shrugged. “She just wanted to complain about the noise.”

“Yeah, I got that much.” Chase laced his fingers over his chest and gave me a look. “What did you say?”

“That we were finishing construction soon, but we would be open late, so she might have to get used to a different kind of noise,” I told him.

Her face had definitely fallen when I had given her that information, which had given me a twinge of guilt. I felt bad that we might contribute to an unpleasant living situation, but there wasn’t much that I could do about it. The bar was our dream and I couldn’t let guilty feelings for a girl I barely knew get in the way of that.

She hadn’t stuck around long after I’d told her that. Not that I could blame her. The whole thing was a little awkward. Incredibly hot, but definitely awkward. It had been especially hard—hard being the word—to stand that close to her and not be able to touch her. Everything about her had been touchable.

Unlike the night in the vestibule, when she had been the literal definition of buttoned up, yesterday, she had been in jeans and a sweater, her gorgeous blonde hair down and silky around her shoulders. I remembered how it had felt in my hands, and my fingers itched to touch her again.

“You like her!” Chase’s proclamation startled me out of my daydream.

I blinked at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He scoffed. “Please. I had my suspicions, but the dopey dreamy look on your face right now totally gave it away.”

“You had your suspicions yesterday?” I demanded. “You weren’t even in the same room as us!”

“I was watching from the backroom,” Chase told me, looking entirely too pleased for someone who had basically just admitted to spying. “The tension was so thick that I was practically choking on it.”

“I barely know her,” I objected.

“But you know her enough,” Chase confirmed.

It annoyed me that he could see through me so quickly. But the boy knew two things: women and beer. And he was basically an expert in both.

“For the record, I totally approve.” Chase stood and clapped me on the shoulder. “She’s got some fire to her. I like fire.”

“So you go after her,” I snapped, not meaning it at all.

Chase laughed. “Yeah, no thanks. I don’t have a suicide wish.” He grinned at me. “Besides, you know our rules. We don’t go after each other’s girls.”

Thank God for the bro code.

“She’s not my girl,” I insisted.

“Not yet,” Chase teased and left the room.

I thought for a moment about following him and arguing my case—that Alex and I didn’t know each other, that I didn’t have time for romance, of any kind, and that getting involved with someone who lived in the same building where our bar was could not have been a more terrible idea—but instead, I just retreated to my office to deal with the paperwork that Sawyer had left me. Alex was a distraction that I needed to be distracted from, not the other way around.



I managed to lose myself in work for a good hour. It was exactly the kind of reminder I needed about what was important right now. This bar had been a dream for so long and now it was a reality. Well, almost a reality.

As I was going over Liam’s projections for the first month, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Pulling it out, I checked the incoming number.

It was my parents. I stared at the screen for a moment and then sent the call straight to voicemail. That was another distraction I didn’t have time for. Especially now.

My phone buzzed again, indicating that they had left a voicemail. I ignored it. At least, I tried to. When I found that I was reading over the same five lines without retaining any of it, I decided I needed a break.

I left my phone in the office—that little red light indicating that I had a message seemed to taunt me—and went searching for Chase and some of his amazing drinks. Instead, I found a familiar dark blonde figure seated at the bar, surrounded by a pile of paperwork not unlike the pile I had left behind in my office.

“What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” I asked Alex as I slid onto the stool next to her.

She glanced up at me, and even though she frowned, I was pleased to see that there was a slight flush in her cheeks.

“If the noise bothers you in your apartment, I imagine its ten times worse here,” I observed.

I had gotten used to the chaos that was construction. Even though we were almost ready to open, there were still a million tiny things that the contractors needed to do before the doors could be opened. So there were still hammers going, still power saws going. It was a noisy mess, but it was our noisy mess.

“I’ve decided that it’s easier to ignore the noise when you’re right in the middle of it,” Alex told me.

I then noticed that she had a pint in front of her.

“I’m guessing the beer helps too,” I observed.

“You’d be right about that.” She raised her glass. “Your not-employee gave it to me. Said he made it.”

“He did.” I was pleased that she didn’t seemed to know Chase’s name yet.

“Well, make sure to give him my compliments.” She took a long drink.

As she did, I noticed that although she was undeniably gorgeous, it was pretty clear that she was exhausted as well—there were circles under her eyes and a deep crease between her brows.