“Ah, I know a woman with man troubles when I see one,” the woman said, bringing my attention back to her.
Looking up at her as I put the glass in front of her, I noted she was probably fifteen years older than my twenty-three, but she’d had some work done to try to disguise the fact. Her long, curly, dark hair was beautiful, but she kept pushing it away from her face like she wasn’t used to the length. Her eyes were heavily made up in a way that looked good on her but also made her seem slightly out of place in Rebels.
Her comment was strange and out of place, considering I didn’t have man troubles, and I’d only been wondering what the two men were discussing.
“No, no man troubles. I was just wondering what my family was talking about over there.”
Looking straight at the table, even though I hadn’t pointed or gestured to it at all, she frowned and turned her back on them quickly.
“They’re all your family?”
“Pretty much.”
Her eyes narrowed at my response. “Including the man in the dark blue t-shirt?”
Looking to see which one she was talking about, I noticed that Noah, Parker, and Elijah were all wearing one. “Uh, two out of three of them are.”
“And the third?” she asked so quickly I almost couldn’t make it out.
Not wanting to reveal anything else to this woman, the vibes coming off her setting off alarm bells now, I just shrugged and smiled. “Do you want to start a tab for your drinks, or do you just want to pay now?”
Grabbing a twenty out of her pocket, she threw it across the bar at me. “Keep the change,” she snapped and promptly stormed away, disappearing into a group of people standing talking.
Shrugging, I processed the sale through the till and then put the change in the bar's communal pot. Beau, Sadie and I had decided we’d pool our tips and split them equally between us at the end of our shifts. We all earned almost equal amounts, so it was easier to keep track of this way.
“I wish I had your boobs,” Sadie huffed as she leaned against the back counter. “I’d have these chopped off if I could.”
Glancing at them, I snickered. “Mine were an A cup, so I had them inflated. When I went for the consultation, I got to try different implants in the cups of my bra. So as a joke I put double D ones in and jumped up and down.” I laughed at the memory. “Those boys weighed a freaking ton.”
What I’d said after the first sentence was lost on her because Sadie was staring at my chest wide-eyed. “Your boobies aren’t real?”
“Yeah, I had my nose done, too.”
Sadie’s eyes lifted from her contemplation of them and focused on my nose, squinting like she was trying to see where they’d operated.
“You’re shitting me. Seriously, you’ve got to be yanking my tit.”
“No, I’m not yanking your tit. I had it all done four years ago.”
Grabbing my wrist, Sadie pulled me toward the panel that lifted up so we could get out from behind the bar.
“Beau, can you cover for us for a minute?” she yelled over her shoulder as she dragged me away.
She was freakishly strong for someone her size because she pulled me into the office and shut the door behind us without even breaking a sweat. Then she put her hands on her hips and looked from my nose to my chest and back again.
Sighing, I gestured at her to get on with it, knowing exactly what she wanted to do.
“Go ahead.”
Her hand came straight up and squeezed my nose, and then pushed on the tip. “I don’t feel anything. Do they put a prosthetic inside or something?”
“No, they removed some from here, shaved this bit down a little,” I pointed at the bridge of my nose, “then they narrowed it here,” I pointed either side of the tip of my nose. “They also removed a tiny bit of the septum. Basically, they took some of the girth, got rid of a bump, then made the tip point up slightly so it looked cute.”
Turning my head to see my side profile, she moved in closer and studied it. “Did they have to break it?”
Nodding, I winced at the reminder of the pain of it. “Yeah. They take a special hammer and chisel thing and then tap away until they break the bones they want to move into a certain position.”
A slight gagging noise came from her. “Christ, that must have hurt.”
“I woke up with a cast on it, swollen black eyes, and two plastic tampon things up my nostrils that I had to keep in for a week.”
Shuddering, she groaned. “I can’t even imagine. I’ve always wanted mine done, but I watched a program about it on television and changed my mind when I saw them breaking the bones.”