Page 2 of Badd Baby

She sighed a laugh. "Oh, there is. It involves a very wet US senator and a tray full of Irish coffees."

My eyes widened. "Oh. Oh fuck."

She widened her eyes back. "Yeah. However bad you’re imagining it, it was way worse.” She bent at the knees and lifted the tray. “I gotta drop these to my bachelorette table."

"Oh god, a bachelorette party?" I winced in sympathy. "Go with god, my friend." I faked a pious expression and crossed myself, kissed my fingers, and did a stupid waving gesture that was meant to evoke the pope but was more like Miss America.

This got me a snicker from Smokeshow. "So fuck Piña Coladas, huh? And bachelorette parties."

I took an order from a walk-up and pulled his beer while I answered her. "I've told Dad and Delia a million times the frozen drinks need to get cut. They just take too much time. So yeah, fuck Piña Coladas and every other frozen slushie bullshit drink."

"Dad and Delia?"

I tapped the logo over my left pec. "Badd?"

She shrugged. "I'm not from around here."

I'm tempted to point out that we have over a million followers on IG and another million on TikTok, but I don't. "It's a family business. My grandfather established the first and original Badd's bar over forty years ago. My dad took over when my grandfather died, and now my older sister is about to take the reins."

"So the name Badd Kitty…?" she prompted.

"Was named, in a fit of rash but inspired creativity, by my Uncle Rome, for the woman who later became my aunt. Who is named…wait for it…Kitty."

"So, your uncle, who I assume possesses the last name Badd, named this bar after a girl? And then married her? Not, like, the other way around?”

"Yup."

"So her name is Kitty Badd."

"Yup."

"And this place is Badd Kitty."

"Yup."

"Weird."

"Well, Uncle Rome is…"I laughed. "He's just Uncle Rome. It’s the kind of thing he'd do. His identical triplet brothers weren't happy about it, I'm told. He didn't consult them, he just had the sign made and put it up without so much as a how-do-you-do to them.”

"So you're following in your family's footsteps as a bartender."

I nodded. "Yep. Well, I feel compelled to point out that I'm not just the bartender. I’m the GM."

She coughed in shock, spluttering. "Wait, what? You're the general manager? Of a whole bar? By yourself? You can't be any older than I am."

I snorted. "Not taking the bait on that one, Smokeshow. I'm twenty-three."

"Smokeshow?" she asked, with a cute-sexy frown.

How can a frown be cute and sexy at the same time? Sorcery, I tell you.

"You haven’t told me your name," I said.

"You first."

I extended my hand to hers. "Duncan Badd, at your service."

She took my hand, but instead of shaking it like a normal human being, some idiotic instinct made me bow over her hand and kiss the back of it as if I was in a fucking Shakespeare play or some shit.