“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because a couple of our regulars look like they want to see how well their fists will fit in your face.” And it really would have been a shame to ruin such a perfect face.
He didn’t bother to look around that time, he simply picked up the plastic cup and drank most of the beer in it in two big gulps. “They can try if they want. They won’t have much luck, though.”
There was something in the way he said it, in the blitheness of his tone, that made me think he wasn’t just blowing smoke or trying to make himself seem like more of a badass than he was. Something told me this man could hold his own in a fight, and, given his dark mood, might actually welcome one. I let my gaze linger over his broad, rounded shoulders and the thickness of his biceps beneath his expensive shirt. From what I could tell, his chest was defined and wide, his whole physique giving the impression of strength and making me think he was more than capable of holding his own in a fight, even with these wastes of humanity.
“Well, all right then. It’s your funeral,” I said, biting back a smile as I pointed at the now empty cup. “Another?”
“Please.”
I moved back to the tap and pulled another, depositing it in front of the sexy stranger. “If you don’t mind me asking, what brings a guy like you to a place you absolutely don’t belong, drinking beer only a step or two up from piss water?”
He’d been in the process of taking another drink during my question and proceeded to choke on said piss water. Once he was able to breathe again, he took the time to look me over the same way I’d done to him just seconds ago, only he was blatantly unrepentant in his obviousness. For some reason that made my skin heat pleasantly. This man knew who he was, what he liked, and didn’t seem to care about showing that. I had to admit, I’d never met a man so sure of himself before, and I was drawn to him, almost intoxicatingly so.
His lips hooked up into a smirk. “You sure do hold your place of employment in high regard.”
I gave my shoulders a small shrug, pulling the white hand towel from where I’d tucked it into the string of the apron tied around my waist and began giving the bar top a scrub, not that it would do much good. I was starting to think the whole building was made entirely of grime and bodily fluids I didn’t want to think about. “It is what it is. I mean, you can look around and see for yourself this place isn’t exactly boasting five stars on Yelp, so what’s the point in lying, right?”
“Can’t polish a turd and call it a diamond.”
I let out a surprised laugh at the guy’s unexpected statement. “Exactly.” Resting my forearms onto the part of the bar I’d just cleaned, I leaned in close to the stranger who had me all kinds of enthralled. “You haven’t answered my question,” I said in a teasing, somewhat flirty tone.
He arched a single brow as he brought the cheap beer to his lips and drank, his throat working on a deep swallow. Damn, who knew a throat could be sexy? “Remind me what that question was.”
“Why’d you pick this hell mouth, of all places, to grab a drink?”
He blew out a breath before reaching up and rubbing at the tension in the back of his neck. “Seemed as good a place as any to get shitfaced.” At my arched look, he let out a chuckle that sounded like velvet over jagged rocks and amended. “Okay, I needed a drink, and this was the first place I passed.”
“Bad day?”
He sucked back more beer. “You could say that.”
Having been there myself—more than a few times recently—I felt for the man. Heading back over to the tap, I poured him another drink. “Then this one’s on me,” I said as I sat it in front of him.
Having finished off beer number two, he lifted the third and shot me a wink that made my insides flutter. “Thanks for this. Fuck bad days, right?”
Truer words had never been spoken.