“Hey! Can we get some service?” A rude college punk snapped his fingers at me. I instantly wanted to break them off.
“Do it,” a voice inside my chest urged.
Um… I lo
oked around and shook it off, reined in my anger, and walked over to the sad preppy kid with his UW hoody on. “What can I get you?”
“You on the menu?” He high fived his buddy in an identical sweatshirt. Ah great, it was asshole day, lucky me.
“Sorry, I’m married with ten kids. But if you want to be my new baby daddy I’ll just need you to pee in a cup and we can go out on our first date with all ten of them. I mean when you marry the mom you marry the kids, am I right?” I fake laughed.
He gave me a horrified look and then grumbled, “Er, yeah, just two Coronas.”
I flashed him a purposefully ditzy smile. “Thought so.”
The rest of my day was almost identical to that: get hit on, make up a story about kids, and watch the college students rush off toward the other women in the bar who were only too happy to let them make out for hours on end.
Who did that in public?
“Human men,” came the answer behind me scaring the crap out of me again as Tarek flashed me a grin. “And some people just like stupid easy prey. Not me though,” He leaned in until I could smell his spicy scent. “I like the hunt, live for it, actually.”
There was something magnetic about him. I couldn’t help but sniff the air—he felt so safe.
The minute I thought it, his face fell. “I ugh, should get back to work.”
And then he was gone, leaving me more confused than ever.
“You hurt the pup’s feelings.” Timber was lurking in the shadows.
“How long have you been standing there?” I crossed my arms, my simple black tank suddenly felt too tight, my jean skirt indecently short as he eyed me up and down slowly only to settle his gaze on my mouth.
He pushed away from the wall and in one graceful stride was right in front of me. “Long enough to know that you have ten kids… or is it seven? You really like to sell numbers to certain guys whereas others you know will give up easy if you just act stupid which you aren’t for the record. What I don’t understand is why don’t you just make up a fake boyfriend? Husband? Why the kids?”
My throat swelled up a bit as I looked down and shrugged. “Kids seem to be the thing that people are too selfish to have. People rarely sacrifice their lives, their love, for someone else and even if they say they will—most wouldn’t do it for a complete stranger who works part time at a bar.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s quite a heavy answer. I was expecting you to say something more along the lines of ‘because it works.’”
I smiled at that, “Yeah well, it’s been a long day.”
“That it has.” He suddenly looked exhausted as he reached for my hand. “Shall we?”
“Ah so proper, you taking me into your office to fire me?”
“You should be so lucky to stay away from me, should have run when you had the chance, right out that door, screaming about myths and monsters.” His voice lowered and almost snapped as he said it.
I jumped a bit when he opened the door to his office and ushered me inside only to close it with finality and lean against it, once again watching me.
“You smell like sunshine.” He said it again like it was irritating him.
I sniffed the air. Smelling nothing but the smell of wood burning and those damn lotus flowers. “Do you need me to change perfumes? Am I getting written up?”
His smile had my knees buckling. “No. And it’s not your perfume, it’s you.”
“Oh awesome, my natural musk smells like sunshine, lucky me!”
“Not so lucky.” He said it under his breath as he shrugged out of a black leather jacket revealing a short sleeved black shirt and a tattoo that took over his entire arm.
“Did you just get a sleeve?”