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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Skylar

“You look like you have to pee.”

Bouncing on my toes, I huff. I feel some type of way, but it’s not that. Well, maybe I do have to pee. I did drink a lot of water. Like, a concerning amount of water. Is it possible to have too much water in your system? Like, will I blow up or just pop or?—

“Sunshine. You still with us?”

I snap my head toward Cassius. He has a shit-eating grin on his face, making him look far too sexy and wolfish for his own good. Licking his lips, he eyes me up and down as he pets his lap. “Come.”

And like a good little puppy, I sit.

“So, do you have to pee?” Max asks again, leaning back into the booth. “Because, like, I held it once for, like, twelve hours, little dude. Nearly had to go to the hospital.”

In one rare occurrence, the entire crew is here. We had a meeting earlier, before the start of the night, for all staff members. So, Rhys, Elton, Knox, Butch, Cassius, and I give our newest employee the most bewildered looks.

Max blinks like an adorably lost deer and cocks his head. “No?”

“I think he’s nervous.” Shoving his hand under my shirt, Cassius rubs my stomach soothingly. “I know what’s got you all wound up.”

“I think we all know,” Rhys drones, unable to take his eyes off his phone. “He needs to talk to Davis.”

“No, I don’t.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I pout. “Well, I mean, yes . I do have to talk to him, but I’m not nervous.”

I’m totally not. I swear. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die’ kind of shit. I mean, I’m asking Davis if he’d maybe— potentially —be willing to consider funding the shelter’s prom. I already feel like shit for not visiting these last few weeks. The least I can do now is not chicken out of asking the only rich person I know for support.

Okay, that’s a lie. Somehow, I know a lot of rich people, but I’m not asking the Hill brothers for money. I’m sure they’d give it to me, seeing as their dad is apparently the king of the filthy rich, but it’s a matter of pride. Davis, on the other hand, is a businessman. I’ve come up with a whole speech for him about how donating time and resources to the shelter could boost the club’s image. I even had Elton help.

Okay, maybe Max was right, I do have to pee.

“This happened last time,” Knox points out, throwing his husband an evil glare as he colors in his tattoos with a pink sharpie. “I thought he had an entire energy drink with how he was bouncing off the walls.”

“I’m not bouncing off the walls ,” I growl. Ironically, it’s the moment Cassius has to settle a hand on my shaking knee. I groan and smack my hands against my face. “He’s probably busy, right? I should come back later?”

“He’s not busy,” Max says, chewing loudly on a bag of chips, spilling them everywhere and causing Butch to throw him a scathing look. “He was upstairs playing Sudoku the last I checked. He didn’t want any pie.”

Butch narrows his eyes at him. “What are you doing checking on him?”

To this, Max flushes and, in a moment of sheer panic, starts choking on his chips. It takes both Rhys and Knox almost a minute of smacking his back to get the chips dislodged and they land in a soggy mess on Elton’s pants. “This is Armani !”

“Don’t worry,” Knox tells Max when his face starts to heat. “I’ll fuck the snob out of him later.”

“Rhys, do you think I should talk to him?” I ask. When he continues to stare at his phone, I frown. “Rhys!”

He lifts his head in a daze, but there’s a sly smirk on his lips. “Sorry, Everest is on his way.”

“Does nobody care that Everest isn’t twenty-one? You know that’s weird, right?” Max asks, looking around at all of us. “I mean, technically , isn’t it illegal to?—”

“I’ll stop you right there, Bambi,” Butch growls, staring him down. “You’ll want to watch what you say next.”

Cassius rolls his eyes and tips my chin toward him, which gathers my full attention, even though I’m curious as hell if Butch is about to fight Max. “Do you need me to come with you?”

I chew on my bottom lip, mesmerized by the sheer devotion in his eyes. I know he means it. He’ll join me without a second thought if I ask him too, but I feel bad. He’s already so tired from his late night at the gym. I told him he should have stayed home and rested, that I’d fill him in on the meeting, but he insisted on coming with me. What he needs is to chill, not shit himself in front of Davis.

Well, I think I might be the only one who might do that. Elton is too chill to get nervous, Rhys and Knox don’t give a damn, Butch is his bodyguard, and even Max doesn’t seem terrified of our boss.

Okay, if Max can talk to him, so can I.

I hop off Cassius’s lap and square my shoulders. Holding my chin up high, I declare to the room loudly that I’ll be right back. Just like the loving family they are, they all erupt into cheers, and I pretend that I can’t hear the sarcasm in it as I go up the stairs. I march straight to Davis’s office and, for some wild reason, don’t even knock as I walk inside.

I haven’t been in his office very often, since he’ll normally come down to the bar to speak to Rhys and me. It’s…nice? Cozy, I suppose. If you’re a robot, that is. A soulless robot with a distaste for color schemes. Everything is sleek and black and cold . The only signs of life in this office come from the glass window that faces the center of the club. I look back quickly to see everyone is going about their business. Rhys is making out with Everest by the door, Butch, for some reason, is holding Max by the collar of his shirt, Knox is helping Elton clean his suit, and Cassius is staring up like he can see me too.

“Why are you back?” Davis groans, his back hunched over and his face down as he fills in his Sudoku. “I told you already. I don’t want fucking pie.”

I quirk an eyebrow in confusion and clear my throat. “Um, hi, boss.”

His head snaps up comedically and oh my fucking God . Is Davis…blushing? I don’t have time to confirm my suspicions before he’s schooling his features to his natural ‘it smells like shit’ expression. “Skylar. What do you want?”

He’s never rude, per se, just blunt. Straightforward. It intimidates the fuck out of me. Knox can be that way, Cassius to a certain extent, but there’s something about Davis’s demeanor that makes me think he’s secretly some sort of highly-trained government assassin posing as a club owner to take down the Irish mafia.

Maybe I’ve been watching too much television.

“Skylar, I really am very busy,” he drones, and how is it possible to both quirk an eyebrow but stay motionless at the same time? “What is it?”

“Oh, so, yeah…” I say lamely, tip-toeing my way into the office. “So, you’re going to find this hilarious.”

He cocks his head. “Hilarious.”

“Okay, maybe not hilarious.” I start picking at my cuticles. “Well, it’s actually not funny at all. See, Cass and I volunteer at this shelter for at-risk youths. It’s a cool spot. Poor, though. Not like poor quality, but, like, they have no money because people don’t care about runaway kids. Which is a total problem, by the way. Personally, I believe?—”

“ Skylar . Your point?”

“Right.” I gulp and chuckle awkwardly. “Anyway, Sadie—you don’t know her, but she’s really cool—wants to throw the kids a prom. You know, prom is?—”

“I know what prom is,” he says, growing impatient. “This is what’s keeping me from my work?”

You mean your Sudoku?

“Give me money,” I blurt out, my jaw dropping immediately after. If I ever thought Davis was a robot, the look of surprise on his face could prove me wrong. I refuse to backtrack, though. It took me a bit to get here, and there aren’t any take-backs. I clear my throat and take a step forward. “I mean, could you please consider funding the prom?”

“Okay.”

My eyes widen. “What?”

“Sure,” he says with an easy shrug. Reaching into his desk drawer, he tosses something onto his desk before continuing with his Sudoku. “Just write a number, and I’ll sign it.”

“A-Are you serious?” I stutter, shaking my head in disbelief. I walk up to his desk and realize that it’s his checkbook he threw out so willy-nilly. Suddenly, there are tears welling in my eyes. “Davis, thank you so much.”

He raises an absentminded hand and sighs. “Believe it or not, some people do care about runaway kids. Go ahead. Write a number.”

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I scramble to fill in the check. Deciding that—fuck it—I might as well round up, I hand it to him with my bottom lip trapped between my teeth. I think that maybe the number is too high, but he signs it without even batting an eye. With the check in my trembling hand, I try my best not to cry. “The kids are gonna be really happy.”

“Sure,” he mutters, brow furrowing as he erases a number from his Sudoku. When he realizes I’m still here, he cocks his head. “Anything else?”

“Nope,” I say happily, then spin on my heels. “Thank you! You’re the best boss ever!”

“Actually, Skylar. Hold on for a minute.”

I turn and raise an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“I know about your little”—he waves his hands, as if to come up with the term—“list. Something about building a perfect boyfriend?”

My cheeks flush. “How did you hear about that?”

“It’s my club. You think I don’t know everything that goes on here?” He snorts and shakes his head. “Let’s start with the fact that my employees seem to think it’s a free fuck-fest around here.”

“I’ve never had sex here, boss,” I state with some jealousy. Huh? Maybe I’ll need to talk to Cassius about that.

“Don’t get any ideas, Skylar.”

Or maybe not.

“You told Max, who told Rhys, who told Everest, who told his brother, who told his husband, who told Butch, who then told me.”

“Huh?”

“Are you surprised?” he asks, almost as if he’s covering up a chuckle.

I guess I’m not? We’re a family, after all, and families gossip. Plus, I had a feeling Max couldn’t keep a secret for shit, so it’s really on me for all this getting out. Not that I care. But I also don’t understand why Davis does. “Um, am I not allowed to…?”

“Add this to your list: Must hold a candle to the darkest flame.”

Must what?

Not wanting to argue with him, or ask what the ever-living fuck that means, I nod rapidly. “Will do, boss. Anything else?”

He shakes his head and returns to his game, but just before I leave, I hear him clear his throat rather sheepishly. “Tell our newest bartender, who can’t actually bartend that, yes, I’d like some pie now.”

“ Okaaayyyyy ,” I drawl, literally scratching my head. Why is it that every time I talk to Davis, I wind up more confused than anything else? Regardless, I skip my way out of his office happily. I head down the stairs, but before I can go find Max and tell him about Davis’s pie, Cassius is on me.

“How’d it go?” he asks, a bit of nervous tension in his shoulders as he flicks his eyes to the glass window upstairs. “Everything alright?”

I can barely contain my grin as I show him the check. “More than alright. We have our funding!”

“That’s amazing. I knew you could do it, sunshine.” Beaming, he looks far too handsome for his own good. “Sadie is going to freak.”

“I know, right?” I laugh as I drop my head onto his shoulder, then I suddenly remember. “Wait, where’s Max? Davis wants pie.”

“He wants what?”