A block away from AJ’s, my vamp radar was up and running at full force. Unlikely though it was, I was hoping to run into Rans skulking around the restaurant. Of course, he wasn’t there. That would have been way too easy, and my luck didn’t seem to be running that way these days.
After changing into my uniform, I walked out of the women’s restroom—only to be cornered near the bar by Jake, a new bartender who’d started working at the restaurant a couple of weeks ago. My jaw tightened. Christ, the front doors weren’t even open yet, and we were going to do this? This day was shaping up to be a real bitch.
“So, Zorah.” Jake stood way too close, physically cornering me next to the drinks station. “When are you gonna let me take you out?”
From a purely aesthetic standpoint, Jake was a good-looking guy. Sandy brown hair, blue eyes. Every girl’s dream of the wholesome boy next door, if the wholesome boy next door happened to be a pushy, entitled asshole. He’d been pretty relentless about his intentions toward me from the day he got out of training.
“I’m not interested, Jake.” I pushed myself back into the corner, trying to gain space to duck around him, but he only pressed forward to follow. He was so close, it half-looked like he was going to try and kiss me, right there in the open.
“Aw, don’t be that way, beautiful. What about this weekend?” He waggled his eyebrows.
Seriously... who did that?
“Working, sorry.” My voice was flat. It didn’t faze him.
He shook his head. “Nah... you’re not on the schedule for Saturday,” he said. “I checked.”
“This isn’t the only place I work, Jake.” I narrowed my eyes.
“You can’t work every day.” He tilted his head, trying to call my bluff.
“Pretty much, every day,” I said. “A girl’s gotta eat.”
Taking half a step back, Jake shook his head. He was still smiling, and I was caught between relief that things weren’t about to turn ugly—this time, at least—and a sort of dull rage at myself for feeling relieved when I wasn’t the one in the wrong.
Even now, he wouldn’t let up. “Okay, well maybe one night after work? I could take you out for drinks, then drop you off at home. Since you don’t have a car.”
My jaw was starting to ache with the effort of holding a neutral expression on my face. “I have a car. It’s just in the shop right now.” Waiting for twenty-five hundred dollars to miraculously materialize.
I might as well have been talking to a wall. “Cool, well you know you want to, so... soon. ’Kay?”
“I’m not interested, Jake. I have to get to work now. Can you... I don’t know, maybe let me out of this corner?” I widened my eyes, waiting for him to get the message.
“Oh yeah, sure.” He grinned wide, showing off his straight, white teeth. “Sorry, babe.”
He shifted a couple of inches to the left, leaving just enough space that if I tried to squeeze past, I’d be brushing up against him.
“Dude.” I stared him in the eyes. “You are seriously toeing the line with me right now, and I’m not in the mood for it.”
The boy next door’s face hardened, and I braced for whatever might come next. The dull rage from earlier was still churning in my gut, growing hot, wanting an outlet even though any outlet I could give it right now would probably end up being a clusterfuck. The kind of clusterfuck that ended up with me either unemployed, or sexually assaulted, or both.
Len—one of the line cooks—walked past on his way to the kitchen and halted abruptly, his eyes taking in the scene.
“Don’t be a douche, Jake. What the hell are you doing? Back the fuck off of the poor woman.”
When Jake didn’t move immediately, Len narrowed his eyes and strode closer. He was taller than Jake, though not as broad through the chest and shoulders. That said, he also had an air of the bad boy about him that was reinforced by a purple fauxhawk, two full sleeves of tattoos, and an over-abundance of facial piercings—nose, eyebrow, and lip. He usually hid out in the kitchen, but he obviously wasn’t one to let a woman be bullied on his watch.
He also made the best steaks.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle guys like Jake, but right now, I wasn’t going to lie—I was relieved Len was there. Especially when a flash of real anger passed over Jake’s expression, bouncing between Len and me.
“Yeah, okay.” Jake pursed his lips and raked his gaze down my body. He backed up a couple of steps then gestured to the side, ushering me to move. “Your loss, girl.”
Averting my eyes from his irritated glare, I stepped past him and mouthed a thank you to Len as I walked over to my station and waited for customers entering the lobby to be seated.
Len shot me a tight smile and disappeared into the kitchen, while Jake went to stand behind the bar. I cursed the way my heart was pounding with adrenaline and tried to put on my game face for the customers. I didn’t know what it said about me that I was more freaked out over the past five minutes than I had been by the revelation that vampires existed.
The hostesses were seating patrons out front, so I went out and did my job. By the time the lunch rush came and went, I’d made a good amount in tips, but my whole body was in pain. For whatever reason, there were a ton of lunch meetings today, and holding trays with lots of heavy plates on them had begun to take its toll. Stupid joints and muscles. Why couldn’t they just work the way they were supposed to?
Some days, I really
