red bar rags. As predicted, her manicure was demolished.
Gathering up her purse from the break room, she looked around for the boss. Heaven forbid he get the wrong idea and think that she'd left a minute too early.
He wasn't behind the bar, around the tables, or in the side room that hadn't been opened that night. She finally found him in the office, behind the desk, his attention focused on a laptop computer placed on top.
Loud rock music was drifting in from the bar, so he could be excused for having missed her approach. Desiree leaned against the doorjamb and just looked at him again. Golden grit sanded the edges of his jaw, and his stubby lashes shielded the blue of his eyes. At this time of night he looked harder, tougher, than ever, and for the hundredth time she told herself it was simple biology that made her so susceptible to him.
He, on the other hand, would never be susceptible to anyone or anything.
"Troy?" she said. When he didn't answer, she raised her voice. "Troy?"
Still absorbed in what ever was on the screen, the man didn't move one hard, well-developed muscle. Desiree raised her fist. In the bar, someone turned the music up even louder, and she pounded on the door to get his attention. Once.
In a blink he fell to the ground behind his desk.
She gasped. Had she somehow killed him? Did heart attacks go that fast? Breathless, she leaped into the room to see him poke his head over the desk.
He was scowling at her as he rose to his feet and removed his earplugs again. "Christ Almighty. I thought a bomb had gone off in here."
She swallowed. The truth was, she hadn't banged on the door that hard. "I'm sorry." She didn't know what else to say. "I came in to tell you I'm leaving."
The expression on his face responded Good riddance, but then he sighed. "Wait a minute." He turned to a shelf, took down a jar and handed it across the desk to her. "Your tips."
"My tips?" She stared at the bills curled in the glass. Her job description had remained hazy and she'd never actually served any drinks.
"The waitresses share with those who bus the tables and pour the booze. That's your take."
Desiree dumped the money out into her hand. She fingered the bills, now hardly aware of her ruined manicure, and appreciated the crisp texture of paper money for the first time in her life. Folded in half, they made a thick bundle. Rolled, an even more gratifying wad.
Money. Money that she'd made. Gazing down at it, she decided that short of soaking in a hot bathtub, right now nothing could make her feel better.
"You did a good job to night."
Except that.
She managed to look up at him and hoped he didn't see the stars in her eyes. "I've never actually earned any money before."
"I doubt you'll develop a taste for it," Troy said, coming around from behind his desk. "Let's go. I'll walk you to your car."
She might too develop a taste for it, Desiree thought, glaring at his back, stars extinguished by his rough tone.
But as they walked out into the night, she wasn't so sure he wasn't right. Exhaustion seemed to swamp her all at once: the accumulation of an evening's worth of noise, activity, and the ever-present tension she felt around Troy. When they reached her car, she leaned back against it as she fished her keys out of her fist-sized purse.
"So what's that degree of yours in?" he asked.
Startled by the sudden question, she bobbled her purse. They both tried to save it from hitting the ground, and ended up gripping it together, their fingers entwined around the soft leather and around each other.
Desiree looked up at him. "Art history."
The rain was gone and the sky was scudded with moving clouds, just like the one in the Pirates of the Ca rib be an ride at Disneyland. Moonlight washed over his wide shoulders and limned the strong shape of his skull. Her jittery insides felt like they used to on Disney trips too. As if something wonderful and magical was about to happen.
"Meaning you're educated to do what, exactly?"
She couldn't tear her gaze away from him. It's Nature, she consoled herself.
"Well?"
She licked her lips. "I was taught how to recognize beautiful things." The next words flowed out of her mouth without a second of forethought. "Beautiful things like you."
His eyes widened. Then his hands squeezed hers and