King Asshole

“I don’t have a hard-on for her.”

“Then why were you looking toward her with that dreamy look on your face that just says you want to fuck her?”

“Screw you, Ryan. I’m doing you a favor. I could just dump your ass with your woman and make you go through girly stuff.”

“Whatever.” Ryan stayed silent. “You still want her though.”

“Your woman, not a chance.”

“I’m not talking about Lily, dickwad. I’m talking about Dani. She lives with you. She even took care of your sorry ass when you were sick. She’s put up with the bitches you bring back screaming at you every single day and night. She’s a keeper.”

“We’re not talking about this. Not now. Not ever.”

Ryan held his hands up. “Okay. Fine. Whatever.”

Tapping the bottle against his leg, Jax didn’t know what the fuck to do. Either go after her or pretend it didn’t happen.

“Fuck it. We’re going out,” he said.

“We are?”

“Yeah, and if I hear any bullshit from you, I’m calling Lily to tell her you’re cheating on her.”

“Asshole.”

“The biggest and the best.”

****

The night was busy, and Dani loved it when this happened. She hated being bored, and standing around waiting to serve or to do anything was a nightmare to her. She loved to get stuck in, to keep busy until her shift ended or until closing.

She went between serving customers to filling up stock, wiping down counters and tables. They were a couple of servers down, so she had to do the orders and carry them over to the tables.

This was part of the job she hated the most: Carrying a tray to the tables, purely because some of the guys or even the girls were not exactly nice.

Businessmen got a little grabby.

The girls got a little catty.

All in all, she wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t for the fact they were short-staffed.

After avoiding another grabby businessman, she rounded the bar to see Arnold there. “You really need to stop being cheap and hire more people to serve.”

“You’re doing great, Dani. Don’t worry about it.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. Another customer tries to grab my ass I may not be responsible for my own actions.”

“Think of the money.”

“I know for a fact they rarely tip,” she said. “I’ve heard one too many complaints in that department.”

Arnold chuckled. “There’s no getting anything over you, is there, Dani?”

“I see everything.” She winked at him.

She turned back to the bar and paused. Right there was Jax with a couple of his friends. They hadn’t looked toward her, and she got busy.

He said he was going to come, but she didn’t think he would. Crap. Why was he at her place of work?

Why did she care?

Serving another customer, she turned back to see that Jax was waiting for her. She couldn’t serve anyone else, so she stood in front of him, gripping the counter. “You’re here.”

“Yes.”

“Hey, Dani,” Ryan said, to which she smiled.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I wanted to see where you worked. It’s a pretty busy place.”

“Always. What can I get you all?” Wes, Riley, Sean, and Carl had found one of the available tables and were looking toward the dance floor.

“Just some beers.”

She went straight for his favorite, popping off the caps and putting all six bottles on a tray.

“She can bring that over to you if you’d like,” Arnold said.

She was going to kill him.

“We’ll have it delivered.”

“Certainly.”

Jax and Ryan left.

Turning to her boss, she raised a brow. “Seriously? What did I do to you?”

“That guy is into you.”

“That guy is my roommate.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? Stop trying to be a matchmaker, and no, he’s not into me.”

She grabbed the tray and carried it over. “Here are your drinks, gentlemen.”

“Should we try and grab your ass? Demand a tit shot or something?” Wes asked.

Jax stood up, his chair scraping along the floor.

“Kidding. Kidding. Wow, lighten up, man.”

She didn’t like this. Not one bit.

Putting down their beers, she gave them a smile and headed back to the bar. She kept on serving for the next hour and only took a break when Arnold asked her to grab some beers. One last look over at Jax’s table and she saw several women around the table.

That was good.

Whatever Arnold said was complete and total bull.

Taking a deep breath, she made her way toward the back room, grabbing the necessary bottles of water and beer. She carried them out and stopped as Jax was waiting for her.

“You shouldn’t be carrying that stuff.”

“It’s part of my job. What are you doing here?”

“I saw you disappearing. You took a long time so I wanted to check on you.” He grabbed the bottles from her.

“Jax, I can do that.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you do.” He put the bottles behind the counter. “She’s having a break.” Jax had her hand and was leading her onto the dance floor, which wasn’t what she wanted to do. He placed a hand on her waist, and it was hard not to follow his lead as he began to sway his hips. She did the same, following his dance moves.