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How fucking stupid I’d been.
A man appeared at my side, and I flinched before I realized who it was.
“How you doing, shorty?” Nash had a dishcloth wrapped around his fingers and his worried dad face on.
“Fine.”
“Bliss and I understand if you can’t come back yet. Now or…”
I glared at him. “Don’t you dare say ever.”
“No one would blame you.”
“I really love you, but if you say that to me again, I will take a pool cue and ram it in your poop hole. Capiche?”
Nash, well used to my mouth after years of being my boss, shrugged. “Right then. Now that that’s been settled, there’s a shipment of drinks to be put away, and it’s busy in here. Game’s on, and it’s a nail-biter. I’ll be in my office, keeping my poop hole intact if you need me.”
I fought not to smile at the man who’d become some sort of surrogate dad-big brother combo to me. “See that you do.”
Despite the threats of violence, the conversation had actually helped. It confirmed I could either work through the triggering feeling being back here brought on, or I could walk out the door and never come back.
This place was my home.
Caleb had already taken too much from me. I wasn’t letting him take this too. I had a family here. Giving up this job meant giving up on them. It wasn’t happening.
War watched me from the group of tables where his club always hung out. Fang wasn’t with them. He was still passed out in my bed when I’d left, which was a little worrying. War waved a hand in my direction, and I nodded back at him, but it didn’t relieve his concerned expression.
Bliss hurried out from behind the bar with a tray of drinks. She stopped when she saw me though. “Hey! You okay?”
I brushed her off. She didn’t need to be worrying about me when we had a bar full of patrons who needed food and drinks. I hurried to help, cranky at myself for sitting in the car so long, psyching myself up, when I could have been in here lending a hand.
From his usual spot, leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, Vincent watched me too.
“What?” I asked him in exasperation. “Why is everyone staring at me? I’m not going to have a complete breakdown in the middle of the bar.”
He raised one eyebrow slowly. “I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m just looking at the massive booger hanging out of your nose.”
I flipped him the bird, realizing with that one comment it wasn’t Vincent at all. “I’d say it’s nice to have you here tonight, Scythe. But feel free to let me know when Vincent is back. You know he’s my favorite.”
Vincent had a diagnosed case of dissociative identity disorder, and Scythe was his psychopathic alter ego. Pointing out nonexistent nose fruit was a clear sign Scythe was in the building. Vincent had manners.
Scythe was funny though. I enjoyed his sense of humor when it was him at the controls. Even if I did adore his much sweeter, somewhat less murderous side.
They were Bliss’s guys. But they’d always had my back, and I loved them for it.
Except when they were all hovering like mother hens. Bliss might have liked feeling smothered, but I did not. It just made me more determined to put my demons with this place to bed and get back to the way things were before.
I’d put away all the drinks, collapsed all the cardboard boxes they’d come in, and had moved onto washing glasses when, “Hey, Roach,” came from the end of the bar.
I glanced up sharply, heart pounding at Vaughn’s tousled hair and dark-eyed smolder. Lust roared through me, hot and uncontrollable, based on nothing other than the pure stupid attraction I felt for the man.
It died the second I noticed where he was sitting. “Get out of that seat.”
Vaughn frowned and stared down at the stool beneath his ass. “What? Why? Is there something wrong with it?”
I couldn’t handle seeing him sit there. I grabbed his arm and yanked it to the left. “Any seat but that one. I can’t look at it.”
“Is that…?”