Taboo Boss - Natasha L. Black Page 0,56

there was one old man who looked permanently glued to the barstool furthest from the door, his red trucker hat pulled down over his eyes as he stared forlornly into his beer.

A head popped up from below the bar and soured when the eyes settled on me. I walked up to the bar, very pointedly not sitting on a stool, but standing alone at an empty end. Danny walked up to me, a towel slung over his left shoulder as he sighed angrily.

“The fuck do you want?” he asked gruffly as he got close.

“A beer,” I said. “Something dark.”

“I don’t do fancy shit. I got one porter. Take it or leave it.”

“Fine,” I said, sitting at the stool. He brought it over, slamming it a little harder than he needed to, and foam fell over the side.

“Where are your troublemaking brothers?” he asked, looking around the bar. “You ain’t so intimidating by yourself.”

I laughed over the beer and took a deep sip. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t terrible, either.

“I just wanted a beer, Danny. And to ask you one question,” I said.

I took another long pull of the beer, draining the mug easily.

“What?” Danny asked.

“How much do you want?”

“For what?” Danny asked. “The beer?”

“For this shithole,” I said, putting the mug down. His face turned to stone, and he leaned on the bar with both hands.

“I’m not sellin’,” he said.

I pulled open my wallet, taking out a ten and one of my business cards. I sat the card down on top of the ten and looked him square in the eye.

“You might want to consider it,” I said and left.

24

Amanda

I might have been getting too accustomed to working at the hotel. So many of my strict routines had already gone by the wayside, and I was getting comfortable with a more relaxed approach to getting my work done during the day. I was still waking up far earlier than I needed to but gone were the days when I felt like I absolutely had to get up and get started the second my eyes snapped open.

Instead, I had learned the joy of wriggling down deeper into the covers, cuddling close to Tom, and drifting for a while. He seemed to not be able to get enough of getting up earlier than me. The whole time we worked together, he was used to me already having a good chunk of my day done with by the time he even got into the office. While he never got angry with me or said it aggravated him, now that he was the one getting an earlier start some days, I could see it made him happy.

I was more than willing to give him that little victory. If he enjoyed starting his day first and surprising me with coffee and chocolate croissants, who was I to deny him that joy?

That thought made me laugh to myself as I got ready to work for the day. Tom had just left to work out getting the down payment to the real estate agent for the new property, and I had a full slate of tasks on my to-do list. If we were back in California, that would mean I needed to put on business clothes, do my makeup, and make sure my hair was styled.

In Oregon that meant putting on my new favorite stretch pants and a lightweight sweater, foregoing heels for thick socks that warded off the perpetual chill of the hotel air conditioner, and curling up in the chair in front of the desk. It wasn’t something I would do if I was expected to be on video calls during the day, but when it was just phone calls and computer work, I felt like I could pull it off.

If someone told me I would be uprooting my life and going to Astoria for an indefinite stretch with Tom, I would have immediately felt on edge. I could only imagine the anxiety I would feel thinking about everything that would have to change and how much I would have to adapt in order to keep up with what I did on a day-to-day basis. Not only that, but everything I would miss and how disconnected I would feel from life.

It made sense. I was accustomed to my life. I liked my home and spent a lot of time with Emily. But now that I had been in Astoria for a while, I was realizing just how much I wasn’t fitting in with that