Betty grabbed her bag. “I’m leaving.”
“Don’t be mad at me Bets, I was just teasing.”
“I’m not mad,” Betty said as she slung her bag over her shoulder. “I have to work.”
Except work was no better.
Betty arrived early for her shift and had just stepped behind the bar when two men sharing a plate of wings and a jug of beer, called her over. One of them sported the shiniest bald head she’d ever seen, while the other had inky black hair several inches past his shoulders.
“What can I get you boys?” she asked, eyeing their nearly full jug. She didn’t recognize them, so she was pretty sure they weren’t locals, and if they weren’t locals…
Long-haired guy took his time, wiping his hands on a wet nap and when he finally met her gaze, she knew she was in for it.
“How about a comment on you and Beau Simon?”
Betty cleared her throat and tossed the rag she’d picked up back onto the bar. She strolled over to them, aware that they’d drawn Duke’s gaze. Her boss’s long, handlebar mustache quivered something fierce as he poured out a jug of draft for a ball team gathered at one of the tables.
He shook his head, a quick, precise movement, but Betty ignored him. She had this. She was in control.
“What do you boys want to know?” she asked, licking her lips as she leaned forward, her elbows on the bar. She smiled, a soft, sensual smile—one she’d perfected over the years—and pause
d, for just a second. “How many times we did it or what positions we used?”
Bald head guy couldn’t meet her gaze, while Long-haired guy’s eyes moved to her cleavage and then back to her wet mouth. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down nervously. She knew the effect she had on men and these two were rookies. They didn’t stand a chance.
“Ah…” He glanced at his buddy and cleared his throat.
She didn’t give him a chance to finish.
“What’s wrong, sweetie? You feeling a little hot under the collar? Do these questions about my sex life get you all…excited?”
He ran nervous hands into his hair and kept glancing at his friend. “We just…we’d like to ask you a few questions if that’s okay.”
“Huh,” Betty said, a slow grin curving her mouth. “And who exactly to you work for?”
“Hollywood Rag.”
“Hollywood Rag.”
Wow. Anger lit Betty’s fuse and she motioned Long-haired guy closer. His friend was reaching for his camera.
“Hollywood Rag, as in the magazine that ran all those nasty stories about me after my rocker friend died?”
Long-haired guy didn’t know what to say to that so he remained quiet, though his eyes were no longer on her chest. His watery brown gaze was on Betty. He knew something was up.
“Hollywood Rag, as in the piece of crap magazine that said I was a”—she made quotation marks with her fingers—“coked out has-been and would end up dead before I was thirty? Is that the magazine you work for?”
The anger that simmered beneath her skin flashed hot and she leaned in so close she could count the pimples on his chin.
“Do I look like a cokehead to you?”
Baldheaded guy had the cap off his camera and she turned to him. “If you take my picture I will shove that camera so far up your ass you won’t find it until next week. Understand?”
“Look, Betty,” long-hair guy sputtered.
“It’s Miss Barker,” she spat. “We’re not friends. We’re not on a first name basis.”
“Miss Barker. We just want to ask you some questions. That’s it. Nothing heavy.”