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As Julia mixed a vodka tonic, she turned to her partner-in-crime Kim. The petite brunette behind the bar was pouring a raspberry ale from the tap, while absently ru
“You’re all set to run this place solo for the weekend?” Julia asked.
Kim rolled her eyes and shot her a look as if to say she were being ridiculous. “I run this place when you’re not here. I know what to do. Besides, Craig is going to help me out,” she said, as she handed the glass to a regular customer, a ski
“I know. I just wanted to make sure. What can I say? I’m looking out for you and the baby already,” Julia said, as she slid the vodka concoction to a customer.
“Yeah, protect us from all the unsavory types,” Kim joked, because Cubic Z was upscale, and didn’t attract that sort of clientele. “Like that guy,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper as she tipped her forehead to the door. A man stood with his back to them, talking to a friend, a shock of white in his dark hair. Tension knit itself tightly inside Julia, shooting cold through her bones. She didn’t want Skunk anywhere near her bar. He’d been here once and once was enough. He’d parked himself in a bar stool, ordered a drink, and said one thing and one thing only, as he nodded, surveying the joint, “Yeah, I like this place. I like it a lot. You give good pour.”
But when the man swiveled around, he wasn’t Skunk. He wasn’t anyone Julia knew. And there wasn’t a reason for her veins to feel like ice. She shrugged it off, the worry that tried to trip her up now and then, the fear that Charlie or Skunk would hurt her or someone she cared about. They hadn’t yet. But they could in a heartbeat.
Chapter Two
Clay finished off the rest of his scotch, then glanced at his watch.
“Got someplace to be?” Michele asked.
Damn. He was caught checking the time again, a bad habit he’d started since he invited Julia to join him in New York this weekend. It was nearing ten, and he should cut out of this bar and head home. She’d be arriving tomorrow, and tomorrow evening couldn’t come fast enough.
“Yeah. Bed,” he said dryly. Michele was his best friend Davis’s sister, and his friend too. The three of them had known each other since college. She was one year younger, but had followed in her brother’s footsteps, attending the same university.
“I remember when you used to be out til all hours,” Michele teased, shooting him a knowing smile, as she ran her fingers through her dark hair. Michele was a pretty woman, always had been, but there was nothing between them. Not since they’d shared a kiss one night at a drunken college party. A kiss that had never been repeated, and he’d chalked it up to her being sad that night over the a
“Hardly,” he said, because he wasn’t the party boy type, but then he wasn’t usually the first one to leave either. Tonight, however, needed to end early because tomorrow was the one he wanted to last all night long. He called for the check, fished some bills from his wallet, and paid for their drinks.
“Why are you leaving so soon?”
“Because the glass is empty. I’ll get you a cab,” he said, and walked out with her, the neon lights of the diner across the street flickering behind them. “Do you want to…” she said, but the rest of her words were swallowed by the sound of a siren a few blocks over.
“Want to what?” he asked when the noise faded.
She swallowed, then spoke quickly, faster than usual. “Do something this weekend? Have di
He shot her a look like she wasn’t making sense, as he hailed the first taxi he saw. “Davis is out of town,” he said. He and Michele didn’t have di
“Yeah. I know,” she said. “That’s sort of the point.”
“Point of what?”
She shook her head. Rolled her eyes. “Nothing. It was nothing,” she said, and something about her tone seemed clipped.
“You okay?”
She nodded quickly. Too quickly. “I’m great,” she said, as he held open the cab door for her. “Anyway, you probably have big plans this weekend.”
“I think it’s safe to say I’ll be tied up,” he said, though as her cab sped off, he realized it was more likely the other way around. That Julia would be.
He hoped she would be at least.
He’d woken up at four-thirty, worked out at five, and hit the office by six-thirty. He’d skipped lunch, ordered in a sandwich, and reviewed a contract for a new sci-fi flick a movie director he repped was working on. He sent in notes to the producers, a list of points and items that needed to be changed, and if they weren’t his client wouldn’t be happy, and Clay was all about having a hefty stable full of happy clients.
His junior partner at the firm, Fly
“We need to lock that up,” he said and he was sure the glint in his eyes matched his partner. Fly
A client they’d lost.
“No kidding,” Fly
“Perfect. The Pinkertons are huge golfers, so if you have to schedule a tee time, you should,” he said, and it wasn’t so much a suggestion, as it was an order. One he knew Fly
Fly
“All right, get out of here. I need to finish up so I can take the weekend off.”
“I’ll email you when I hear more.”
“I’m not answering email this weekend,” Clay said, making it clear in his tone that this was a do-not-disturb kind of weekend. “You can update me on Monday.”
“Fair enough.”
Fly
The sun was blaring, high in the sky in April, so he put on a pair of sunglasses. He loosened his tie; he couldn’t stand the way it constrained him. He glanced at his phone, hoping for a message from her. None was there, so he clicked on the app for his stocks, checking his portfolio, and looking up every few seconds to scan the crowds. He couldn’t focus on the market right now.