realized I’d worked right through dinner. I checked the time and saw it was after nine. I decided to call it a night. I needed a drink and hopefully a little conversation.
The bar would be closing soon. It wasn’t a typical bar that catered to the late crowd. Davin would hopefully be able to hang out for a bit after closing. I didn’t want to think about what it meant that I basically paid him to be my friend. I knew it wasn’t necessarily that, but it was certainly a strange arrangement.
I was happy to see the bar was essentially empty. There were a few stragglers but the chairs up on the tables were the cue that it was time to wrap things up. As the owner of the bar, I should have been bothered by the fact there were exactly three guys in the bar on a Friday night. I wasn’t the least bit worried. I was making plenty of money and a slow night wasn’t going to kill me.
“I thought you would be out with some hot model,” Davin said when I sat down at the bar.
“Not tonight.”
“What’s up? You look like you’ve been up for days.”
I shook my head. “I assure you I haven’t. It’s been a long day and I need a drink.”
He smirked as he grabbed a glass. “You say that every day.”
“Every day feels long,” I commented. “Are you closing up?”
“In five minutes.”
“Stay and have a drink with me, on me,” I added.
He grinned. “Only if you say I’m your best friend in the whole wide world.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be an idiot.”
He pulled back the drink he poured for me. “Do you want to know what I do to the drinks of assholes?” He held my glass to his face and pretended to be spitting in it.
“Very funny. Give me my drink.”
He laughed and slid the glass across the bar. “I’m going to grab a beer. These guys can finish up. My feet are killing me. Let’s sit at a table.”
I slid off the stool and moved to a corner in the far back. I pulled the chairs off and sat down in one. Davin joined me a minute later with a bottle of Coors Light.
“I hope I’m not paying you to drink with me,” I said dryly.
He winked. “Of course not.” He took another long drink from the beer. “How was the new business?”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. Not great but not a pile of shit. I’ll have it whipped into shape in no time. It will be one of the top tax firms in the country. I’m already looking into buying more space in the building. I’ll need to hire more people as well.”
“Look at you, always improving the economy one job at a time,” he teased.
“I do what I can.”
I could feel him watching me. “Why don’t you look happy about this new business? Whenever you snatch up a company, you are usually giddy. I’m not getting that vibe this time.”
“Because this one comes with added complications,” I told him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have a past with the manager of the place,” I said.
His blue eyes flashed, and his grin exploded over his face. The guy was a couple of years younger than I was, but he looked like he was twenty-one without a care in the world, especially when he smiled like that. “A past?” he teased. “Does that mean she was one of the many ladies left in your wake?”
“Not really.”
“Please, do tell,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for a juicy story all night.”
“It isn’t so juicy,” I lied. I wasn’t going to get into the details of that little tryst. “She was someone who did my taxes for me back at the beginning of my career. Back then, she was a CPA at the firm. I had no idea she was still there or running the place.”
“And is that a bad thing?” he asked. “Like she’s not good at the tax thing?”
“No, she’s very good. A little bossy but she saved my ass back then and kept me from paying through the nose in taxes. She was smart and knew a lot about all of the little loopholes and how to keep me from being audited.”
“Then what’s the problem?” he asked.
“There isn’t one.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve known you five years now and this is clearly a problem for you.”
“It just brings back some old memories,” I told him.