Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 147136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 736(@200wpm)___ 589(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 736(@200wpm)___ 589(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
The man was edge and hard looks. Anything but sweet.
Shay looked between the three of us as if we’d all lost our minds in thinking Stitch was anything but sweet.
“He is. You talk to him enough, you’ll get it. His eyes are the warmest shade of copper I’ve ever seen.”
Kali looked at Tori. Tori looked at me. I looked from Tori to Shay to Kali, watching the lip curls on everyone minus Shay.
Oh, we all got it all right. Stitch could have the hardest looks and the most edge of any man living and breathing and Shay would’ve still had that opinion.
She liked him. She might not admit it right now, but it was clear.
“Well, in that case,” Kali chuckled. “I mean, copper eyes on a man who looks like he’s done time is seriously sweet. I guess I just don’t get to look at him close enough to see it. You’re always hogging that damn window and blocking the view.”
Shay crumpled up her cocktail napkin and chucked it at Kali’s face. They both giggled.
“You find another job yet, Sydney?”
I looked at Kali after her question, doing this shaking my head.
“There’s nothing available right now. I’ve only applied for one and never heard back. I’m thinking they found someone to fill it already.”
“Well,” Kali started, then pressed her lips together while looking at the other two girls and told me on a rushed breath, “I really don’t hope you find anything. Sorry. I know that’s awful but I’d hate to see you go. I love working with you.”
“Me, too,” Shay echoed with a warm smile on her crimson-painted lips.
I smiled at both of them, hoping to convey how much I enjoyed working with them as well, because I definitely enjoyed it, then I looked at Tori, who was remaining silent and had her head turned.
“Is that Nate?” she asked.
The three of us followed Tori’s gaze across the bar.
Dancers had wandered and were no longer obstructing our view of everything on the far side of the room, which was where Nate sat on a stool with a glass in front of him, his head lowered and his eyes either focused hard on something behind the bar or unfocused on anything.
He looked deep in thought, either way.
“Why does he always look so sad?”
I threw out my question to the girls not only because Nate currently did look sad in the middle of a kick-ass bar with great tunes, Beastie Boys currently playing overhead, which I was tapping my foot along to against the leg of my stool, but because he always looked sad every time I saw him, and even though that wasn’t a lot since he stayed shut up in his office more than he wandered the floor, his sadness wasn’t lost on me.
I knew he was looking sad behind that door, too. I knew it in my bones.
Tori looked down at her drink. Kali took a sip of hers, but her eyes were lowered to the table.
They were avoiding.
I looked across the table at Shay with expectant eyes and she read them, sighed, then gave me a look I knew meant I wasn’t going to love what I was about to hear.
But I still wanted to hear it. I was curious.
“I really don’t want to ruin this fantastic evening with a sad story, but I have a feeling you’re just going to keep asking me,” she said, dipping her head.
She was right.
I nodded.
“It’s really sad, hon,” Tori threw out. “Are you sure? I almost cried after I heard it the first time.”
Hearing that warning, again, I nodded.
“I want to know.”
Shay prepared herself to deliver this sad story, and she did that by finishing off the last bit of her lemon drop, then grabbing the attention of the nearest waitress and pointing at her empty glass.
Tori did the same and lifted hers, silently requesting another.
Shay then gave me her full attention again and did it most likely feeling the rush of the alcohol she’d just consumed.
I guessed it was going to help.
“Nate didn’t always used to be like he is now. Up until about a year ago he was really present around the restaurant and rarely ever spent time in his office. His wife was really present, too. Sadie. She was always stopping in and chatting up the staff even though she worked a lot herself. It didn’t matter; she made time. Then she got pregnant and was still coming around a lot, but we knew it was because she was so excited about being pregnant and wanted to show off her baby bump every second she got. Nate ate that up. He was crazy about her and even more crazy about her carrying his kid. It was really cute to see.”
I smiled but I did it cautiously because I didn’t want to get too comfortable with the idea of Nate being happy. This was a sad story, and when a pregnant wife is involved, I could only imagine how sad it was about to get.