Her Dirty Bartenders (Men at Work #5) - Mika Lane Page 0,10

you’re lucky we like you. And that you own the gym we go to. We’d never jeopardize our memberships.” I’d said that as a joke, but there was a lot of truth to it.

A membership at Altitude was worth its weight in gold.

She took a seat on a barstool, laughing. “Thank god I can hang Altitude over your head. At least I have something going for myself. Well that, and the fact that my brother works here.”

I wiped the bar in front of her and laid out a coaster. “Can I get you anything?”

She shook her head, her hair swinging around her face. She had an interesting look for someone who ran a gym. She was more rock ‘n roll than jock. But that was one of the things I admired about her. And because she was sister to one of my business partners, she was like a sister to me. I’d briefly considered trying to get romantic with her, but I knew her brother wouldn’t be able to deal.

Just as well.

She put her hands up. I had a feeling she’d be off alcohol for a while. “No thanks. I’m just stopping by. I’ll take some water, though.”

“Coming right up.”

She looked around the club. “I love this place when it’s quiet. Reminds me of a monster that’s yet to come alive.”

I had to laugh at that one. I’d not heard Tableau described that way, but it wasn’t far off the mark.

“Hey, speaking of the gym, why haven’t I seen you there in a while?” she asked.

I sighed. My life had been a shit show of epic proportion of late. “Jax’s baby momma is not making my life easy. In fact, she’s hell-bent on making it as shitty as she can. Never mind how it might affect the baby.”

My son Jax. The most amazing thing to ever happen to me. Knocking up his psycho mother on our second date? Not so much.

“How is the little guy?” she asked.

It was incredible how turning my thoughts to him made any other issue in my life melt away.

“He’s wonderful. Trying to crawl. Half the time looks like a turtle stuck on his stomach.”

Marni laughed. “I need to see him soon. We’ll put together some sort of get-together when everyone is free.”

Which meant we’d never have a get-together. With our schedules at Tableau, and Marni’s at Altitude, the chances of our times off coinciding were almost zero. But that was okay. Our paths continued to cross all the time.

“So, Robbie, I came by to talk to you about something,” she said.

I stopped cleaning and gave her my attention. “What’s up?”

“I have a friend who’s in town on a short-term basis and she needs some work. Do you guys have anything for her?”

Hmmm. The timing on this might be just right. Maze had been bitching about people not showing up for their shifts. We had to cut the no-shows loose.

Cold? Yeah. But we were trying to run a business and one or two people flaking threw everything else out of whack.

“Is she reliable?” I asked.

Marni shook her head enthusiastically.

She’d better not be bullshitting me. I know what it was like to want to help a friend. You’ll do anything for them. Including telling white lies.

“We need a new barback.”

She frowned momentarily, then went back to smiling. “Oh. That would be great. She’d love it.”

Yeah. Not so fast.

“Is she strong? She’d have to lift twenty pounds or so several times a night.”

She nodded again. “Oh yes. She’s very strong. Works out all the time.”

Okay. Marni had no idea what a barback was. No one would ever sign their friend up for such a shit job, basically being a busboy to whomever was tending bar. There was a reason we went through them so fast, and that they so often didn’t show. There was nothing about it that was fun.

They were more or less bar gophers and they had to moving fucking fast when we were busy.

I shrugged. “Okay. Tell her to come in tomorrow at five. I’ll train her and we’ll see how she does.”

Marni popped off her barstool and jumped up and down, clapping her hands.

Jesus, this friend must really need the work.

“Thank you so much Robbie! You won’t regret this.” She glanced at her watch. “Gotta get back to Altitude. I have some new yoga teachers coming in.”

Damn. I had a thing for yoga teachers. They were always so fit, and wore the skimpiest clothes. And then there were all the ways they could bend…

“See