Her Dirty Bartenders (Men at Work #5) - Mika Lane Page 0,23

Every chance I could get.

Dammit.

I had to hand it to her. Barback was a shit job, but she mastered it like a champ. At first, she was a handful with a shitty attitude, but she quickly hit her stride. Now she stayed in perpetual motion, always finding one thing or the other to clean, restock, or organize. She could fetch a full keg from the cooler in about a minute flat, and have it perfectly hooked up in another minute.

Male barbacks who’d worked here for ages couldn’t do anything that fast.

And she was cute as shit when testing the first pour of a new keg, pulling the tap all the way forward, tilting her glass at a perfect angle. She even bit her bottom lip while she did it, assessing the ratio of bubbles to beer to make sure the level of gas going into the keg was just right.

She looked like a damn scientist running an experiment.

Like the scumbag that I was, I moved from the tables where I was pretending to look for something, to a seat at the end of the bar. It was still just late afternoon, and we had just a few patrons trickling in. I sat and scrolled through my phone.

And of course, watched the lovely Stell.

As the dishwasher finished its latest cycle, Stell pulled it open and let the steam waft away before she dove in. Then, she picked up the rack of glasses and set them on top of the shelf behind the bar to start polishing.

But before she started that, she took a rag and actually wiped out the dishwasher.

Who did that?

I mean, we were supposed to do that to keep the thing working in top condition. But nobody ever did.

Jesus. She was meticulous.

And when she bent over to wipe the last of the water, a lacy black thong revealed itself as her jeans slipped down on her ass.

Her lovely ass.

She self-consciously pulled her work T-shirt down and tucked it into the back of her jeans, and as she stood, she turned and caught me staring.

Busted.

She waved, oblivious to my shameless staring. “Hey, Maze. Didn’t know you were sticking around.”

I stretched and looked at my watch as if I had somewhere important to go. “Yeah. I gotta hit the road in a bit.”

She walked over and leaned on the bar in front of me. I had to force myself not to look at the tiny swath of black lace bra peeking out of her shirt.

I wanted to know more about her.

“Hey, Stell. Why are you working as a barback anyway?”

I had to ask. For one, I felt like a shit for making it hard for her in the beginning, having assumed she’d naturally bail on the backbreaking work. But not only did she not run away screaming, she took the work up a notch, completing everything she had to do and then some.

She pressed her lips together as resignation flashed across her face. “You really want to know?”

“Only if it’s a seriously juicy story,” I laughed.

She raised her eyebrows. “Some might say so. That’s for sure.”

I looked at her, and waited. Was she going to tell me? I knew she had a story. Girls like her did not take shit jobs like this. There was definitely something up.

“I was supposed to get married,” she paused to look at her watch, “exactly two weeks ago today.”

She pressed her lips together.

“Damn. Did he leave you at the altar?”

Her head snapped back and she frowned. I got the express impression I’d just put my foot in my mouth.

She pulled her shoulders back and raised her chin. “No. I left him.”

Oh, damn. The volcano was about to erupt. And I was right in its path.

She slammed a heavy rocks glass down on the bar. The thud it made was so loud that several people turned in our direction.

She pointed a finger at me. “Why is it that people assume it’s the woman who gets left by the man? Do they think we have no agency at all? No brains?”

To emphasize the fact, she pointed at her head. “Well, you know what? Women walk away, too. All the time,” she spat, getting right in my face.

“Jesus,” she hissed, walking away with big, stomping steps.

Guess I blew that one.

Okay. So she bailed on her wedding. That takes balls, for sure. And I respected that, even though I wasn’t any closer to an explanation of how she came to take the job at Tableau. But at least I