One Night Charmer. Maisey Yates

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      Elyssa frowned. “But...at the bar?”

      “All the glamorous positions at high rises were filled. Also, in another town. I had to take what I could get.”

      Elyssa scoffed. “Come on. Couldn’t your brother help you? This is...beneath you, honestly.”

      Sierra bristled. “Why? It’s fine for you to come drink here but it’s not good for me to work here? Leslie can sit over there flirting her tits off with the man who owns the place but this is beneath me?”

      “That’s different,” Chad said. “I’d do a waitress, but I wouldn’t wait a table.”

      Sierra felt like she was having an out of body experience. Like she was witnessing this exchange from high above the bar. And with that distance came clarity. These people were terrible. They had also been her friends for a long time. And she couldn’t say she wouldn’t have felt the same way a few months ago if one of them had gotten a job here.

      She wasn’t even hurt. Or embarrassed. She was mad. Not even at them, but at herself. For all the coasting she’d done for so many years. For doing the schooling her father had wanted her to do, taking the job he’d created for her, having the friends that were convenient for her to have.

      Suddenly, she didn’t feel tired anymore. She felt energized. Empowered. Standing there in front of her former friends she felt separate and different. And like she might be more herself than she’d ever been before.

      “You’re an asshole, Chad,” she said, her tone crisp. “I mean, do you hear yourself? Do you ever stop and listen to the words that come out of your mouth?” She knew he didn’t. Because she never had, either. “You think you’re above any of this? Trust me, you’re one parental crisis away from being here. Except I don’t think you have it in you to work this hard. You think you’re too good for a job like this? You aren’t good enough.”

      She continued on past them toward the kitchen.

      “Wow, Sierra.” Elyssa’s voice stopped Sierra in her tracks. “Just wait till the town sees you like this.”

      Sierra shot her former friend one last furious glance. “I’m not worried about that. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.”

      She glanced over at Ace, who was still flirting with Leslie, and then barged into the kitchen, angrily depositing the bin of dirty dishes by the sink. She wasn’t going to let them make her feel ashamed. She hadn’t sunk to anything.

      She was rising to the occasion.

      She’d be damned if she felt embarrassed about that.

      She spent the rest of the shift working as hard and furiously as possible. As if she could prove the world wrong right here in this bar, as long as she was the best waitress she could be.

      Anger fueled her for a while, but that ran out quickly enough, leaving her drained and a bit less full of purpose than she’d been a few hours earlier.

      She looked up at the clock on the wall and everything inside of her sagged. It was just after two thirty in the morning. She stayed out late often enough, but not usually this late. And definitely not usually schlepping drinks and hamburgers.

      She wrinkled her nose. That was what she smelled like. Beef, bacon, french fries and exhaustion. It was in her skin.

      Suddenly, she felt very small, and very persecuted.

      She dragged herself back into the kitchen, setting the dishes on the edge of the sink. At least she didn’t have to wash those. That made her feel slightly less persecuted.

      She walked back out into the dining area, untying her apron and setting it on top of the bar.

      “That isn’t where that goes,” Ace said, suddenly appearing out of his office like a flannel, bearded vapor.

      “You certainly have a lot of systems,” she told him, rubbing her temples before snatching the apron back up. “Where exactly do I put it?”

      “I’ll take it,” he said, reaching his hand out.

      His shirtsleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing those muscular forearms that her body seemed to be kind of obsessed with.

      She tried to think back to her last boyfriend. Had she ever noticed Mark’s forearms? What had they looked like? Had they been hairy? They must not have been, because she hadn’t really noticed. Anyway, he had lighter hair. She made a mental note to go look at a picture of Mark and see if his forearms were spectacular, and if she was suddenly just now into forearms, and hadn’t been back then.

      “Why don’t you let me take it,” she said, snatching the apron back. “I’m going to need to know where it goes.”

      “You’re stubborn,” he said. “You know that?”

      “Thanks to you, I do.” She smiled so wide it made her cheeks ache.

      “Come back here with me.” He opened the door into the kitchen, which was empty now. “Didn’t you get your own apron when you came this afternoon?”

      “No, I traded with one of the other girls.”

      “Okay,” he said, gesturing to a back wall. “You hang them up here.”

      She followed his directions, hanging the little black apron on the hook and turning back to face him. “Don’t you have a manager who normally trains new staff?” It occurred to her then that it was kind of funny that the guy who owned the place was taking so much time to show her what to do. Of course, she was asking a lot of questions. But still, he never referred her to anyone else.

      “No. Not really. This is my place. My name is on the sign, as you mentioned earlier.”

      “Sure. But when you open the new place you’re not going to be able to be tending bar at both. You’re going to have to delegate.”

      “Did you say you have a business degree?”

      She nodded. “Yes.”

      “Yeah, that kind of thing sounds about like something someone who has taken a class might say.”

      Heat fired through her veins, blood boiling into her cheeks. “Right, let me guess, you went to the school of hard knocks. You’re all street smart instead of actual smart.”

      “I can’t imagine why no one else wanted to give you a job.” He turned away from her, walking out of the kitchen, and she scurried after him.

      “What do you mean? I did great work tonight.”

      “You were rude to the customers.”

      She burst out of the kitchen, breathing hard. “To who? The jackasses who accosted me? They’re my...well, they were my friends. And they were being horrible. How did you see that anyway? You were busy staring down Leslie’s shirt.”

      “No,” he corrected her. “I made Leslie feel like I wanted to look down her shirt since that was how she wanted to feel. She went through a breakup. She needed a boost. I gave it.”

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