“Not that I have to get your permission for anything I do, but I wanted her back there with Kerry because she needs to get up to speed. Why do you care anyway? Mika’s just as good.”
Now I definitely knew he was up to something with that bitch. Turning my back to her so she couldn’t hear me, I leaned in toward him and said, “No, she isn’t. She also doesn’t get along with anyone, especially Lola and me. You just made my night ten times harder, Stefan.”
“Well, then I guess you better get figuring out how to make Mika like you,” he said in that snide voice that made me want to push his face in.
With a sneer, I turned away and mumbled, “Maybe if I fucked her and played favorites with her she’d like me better.”
Rounding the corner of the front bar, I felt Stefan behind me. I spun around and backed up, unnerved by his angry look. Leaning down, he said in my ear, “Shay, you’d do much better here if you were more like Mika.”
“And I let you sexually harass me so I could steal a position that should be someone else’s because she’s better? No, thanks. But at least I know you aren’t all about your libido. You put me as first bartender up here, and I haven’t slept with you yet.”
That last word slipped out and I watched Stefan’s eyes lit up. Fuck! I tried to brush it off, but it was too late. He’d heard it, and I knew all he saw now were green lights where I was concerned. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing. My plan to outplay him didn’t revolve around playing hard to get. No, it revolved around what would happen after I got him just where I wanted him.
“Yet? Shay Callahan, I think you’re warming up to me. Not that I ever doubted you would.”
I couldn’t help my natural reaction to his exhibition of swagger. My eyebrows shot up and I snapped back, “Only in your fantasies, Stefan. I’ll be the one who forever got away.”
He flashed me that sexy grin I had to admit made him look incredibly hot and leaned down close to my face. “Just so you know, I’m even better than I am when you fantasize about me.”
My mind went blank as the sight of him so close to me made my head get fuzzy. Maybe it was his gorgeous brown eyes staring directly into mine, or maybe it was that delicious smelling cologne lightly winding around me as I stood there in front of him, but at that moment I had no witty comeback, no snappy barb to counter his cockiness.
He didn’t miss a beat, though. “And I’ve succeeded in making you speechless, Shay. I even impress myself.”
With that, he backed away, still grinning the smile of a victor, and headed into his office. I wanted to march right in there after him and read him the riot act of every feminist writing I’d ever read, but my feet remained planted in their spot and my head felt like some kind of haze had washed over my brain.
Mika’s ordering the front bar’s wait staff around behind me like some Gestapo brought me back to reality, and I busied myself with getting our area ready for when the party began in less than an hour. Unfortunately, Stefan’s belief in Mika’s abilities didn’t mean she could actually do the job as well as Lola, and it didn’t take long for things to fall apart at the front bar. Spilled drinks, mixed up orders, and rudeness to the members seemed to be all she was capable of. For hours, I struggled to clean up her messes only to have more piled on.
As Stefan had ordered, I made sure to climb on the lifts behind the bar to show off my assets to the members a few times. The same bottles that sat perched at the top of the wall actually could be found under the bar, but as he knew, the members loved to see us ride up and down in our sexy little skirts and shorts. Nothing like having men and women clap because you can stand in three inch heels on a tiny platform moving toward the ceiling.
As if that was some skill I should be proud of.
Mika seemed to enjoy balancing precariously on the lifts and used them whenever possible, but each time she jumped on them, she was as clumsy as she was nasty and when she wasn’t dripping liquor onto me, she was dropping entire bottles on the floor. It didn’t take long before the area behind the bar felt like a war zone.
Looking up after she let a hundred dollar bottle of scotch sail past me and shatter into a million pieces at my feet, I barked, “Watch yourself, Mika! We sell alcohol here, not wear it.”
She whipped me the finger and snapped, “Fuck you!”
She was all class. As I dried the scotch from my legs, a member leaned over the bar and said, “She’s all thumbs back there, Shay. Be careful. I think she’s trying to kill you.”
Finally, just before midnight, I couldn’t take any more of Mika or her shit. Pushing her out of the way as she screwed up yet another mixed drink order, I snapped, “Why don’t you find some ice or something and I’ll take care of these people.”
“Fuck you, Shay! I don’t have to take your shit any more than I have to take Lola’s. Stefan will hear about this.”
I stared her down for a moment as I threw out the mess she’d made of a Malibu Bay Breeze. “Well, when you’re mouth isn’t full, be sure to tell him I said you suck at this job. I hope you’re better at what you do for him.”
She stormed away as the members huddled around the bar clapped and laughed, and for the first time that night, I felt like I didn’t hate working at Club X. Handing the man his drink who’d ordered the Breeze for his girlfriend, I smiled. “It’s an incredibly complicated drink, you know.”
As he leaned toward me, he laughed and stuffed money in my tip jar. “You’re the best, Shay. Love your style!”
He may have loved my style, but by night’s end I knew Stefan didn’t. Mika never returned to the front bar, leaving me alone to handle things, which I did, but as the crowds began to thin, Stefan stormed up to me with a look in his eyes that told me the time for playful banter was long gone.
“My office. Now!” he ordered as Mika stood a few feet behind him smiling like she’d won some contest of wills.
“Stefan, I have no one to man the bar,” I answered as I poured a glass of scotch on the rocks for the man who stood right in front of me.
“Lola’s coming up to take your place. My office. Now!” he barked.
I saw her as she walked behind the bar, her face ashen. “I’m here, Shay. Don’t worry.”
Turning away from Stefan, I quietly said to her, “Are you okay? You look white as a ghost. Did he yell at you too?”
She took my hands in hers and squeezed them. “No, no. I’m just worried about you. Kerry told me that Mika has been filling Stefan’s head with lies all night. I don’t want to see you get fired.”