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Chapter Four

Aspen

All week, for every shift I have at The Syllabus, Zeland parks himself in the same booth. Normally, the women flock to him and it’s hilarious watching them try to get his attention. Up until tonight, Ridge hasn’t made another appearance. I’ve decided it’s easier to work when he is around, even if he calls me stray and complains about the slow service—sorry, my legs are short and can only move so fast, douche. Compared to the other nights, there is a lack of female presence at the table. Ridge’s “fuck off” vibe is strong and I don’t blame them for giving it a wide birth.

Tonight, there isn’t a spare seat in the building, and I haven’t seen so many people packed in here since I started working for Barbie. She hired a local band to play, and they have a decent following. It’s enough to keep us servers on our toes, though the tips tonight have been amazing.

“Hey, baby,” some drunk idiot says, grabbing my arm and almost making the empty glasses piled on my tray topple to the floor. “What time do you get off?”

“On the twelfth,” I throw back.

“The twelfth?” he asks, puzzled by my response, his drunken state not allowing him to catch the hint.

“Yeah, the twelfth of never.”

“You’ll change your mind—they always do.”

“Ew,” I say, moving away from him a little. “That didn’t sound rapey at all. Maybe you should call it a night, buddy.”

I don’t wait for his response, moving away before I tell the idiot what I really think of men like him. Does he not realize he is the problem? Or do men like him think that just because they find a woman attractive, she should automatically want him back? Yeah, hard pass buddy.

“Two more drinks for your rich friends,” Marybeth, the new girl behind the bar, says as she pushes a tray toward me.

I’m almost positive Zeland has made it clear to everyone that only I am to serve his table. Fucking rich boys have no idea. I’m sure at their fancy clubs it works that way, but here, we have to keep things moving. We don’t have time for me to be their only server .

I place the empty glasses down and take the new tray, making my way across the floor to their table.

“Hey, Pocket Rocket. I haven’t seen you in almost half an hour.”

Ridge scoffs. “That’s because she is working.”

“Thank you, I think that might be the nicest thing you have said to me. Now say it slower in your sexy voice, so I can bank it for later.”

Zeland laughs and Ridge just shakes his head, not even dignifying me with a response.

“I will record him for you later, when I’m sucking his cock and he’s telling me how well I do.”

Ridge snaps his gaze to Zeland, and I laugh. “I think he might punish you now.”

“He knows I like it rough. Spank me, daddy.”

Ridge gags.

“Oh my god. Bite me, daddy,” I say in a fake feminine voice, and he gags again.

“He hates the word daddy ,” Zeland says with a chuckle.

“I’m only a few months older than you, so the whole daddy thing doesn’t work. It makes me think of my dad and his whore of the month,” Ridge grits out.

“I will call you daddy,” some bimbo purrs, running her nails over Zeland’s shoulder. She appeared out of nowhere.

“Daddy, daddy, daddy,” I say, and both men look at me with a raised brow. “What? I thought if I said it three times another whore would appear.”

“Excuse me?!” the woman screeches .

“You’re excused,” Ridge says in his boss voice, the one he uses when he is on a phone call. It’s his “no room for argument” tone.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she snaps at him.

“Considering his cock will be in my ass later, you probably should be talking to him,” Zeland says.

I laugh at the way her face contorts. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, bitch.”

“I’m going to speak to your boss,” she whines and storms off.

“Oh no!” I say in mock horror. “Not my boss!”

“You’re not afraid to get fired?” Ridge asks me.

I shake my head. “Why, when daddy has promised to take good care of me?” I laugh harder when he gags again, and I walk off to serve more customers.

But Barbie corners me when I reach the bar. “I had another complaint about you, Aspen. You need to be on your best behavior because you know I only allow three and then I’ll have to fire you.”

I sigh and take a tray handed to me as Marybeth whispers it’s for table eleven. “Barbie, she was harassing customers.”

“If they have a problem, they can make a complaint. You can’t take everything into your own hands.”

“Fine,” I huff, grabbing my tray and walking away before my mouth gets me fired for arguing back.

After an hour, Marybeth calls me over and tells me that the kitchen staff need me to take an order out. Connor, who works in the kitchen, smiles as I approach. “ Order for your rich friends,” he says, sliding it toward me.

“Thanks, Con. Can you give me some cutlery? Something tells me one of them will need it.”

He raises a brow. “To eat a burger?”

I nod, since I have a feeling that Ridge doesn’t eat with his hands, no matter the food. Once I have their cutlery, I head toward their table. They are talking animatedly, and I see Ridge smile—damn, that man would be dangerous if he did that all the time.

“What’s wrong with your face?” I ask as I get closer.

“Nothing is wrong with my face,” he says, and I place their tray on the table.

“Are you sure? Your lips are doing something weird.”

Zeland laughs, and Ridge’s usual scowl comes back.

“That’s better—you fixed it. One day the wind will change, and you’ll be stuck like that. You’re lucky I came past when I did.”

“Stray, you’re lucky Zee likes you so much. With the press of a button, I could ruin your life.”

I chuckle at his empty threat. “Why waste your time? I do just fine ruining my own life, thank you very much.”

“You’re impossible,” he mumbles, picking up the cutlery, which makes me smile.

“When do you get a break?” Zeland asks, and I shrug.

“When these two rich pricks stop throwing money at my boss to get me to wait on their table. They’re so needy.”

Zeland takes my arm and pulls me into his lap. “I guess they just really enjoy your company. ”

“Zeland, you just want to get in my pants. If I let you in, you would lose interest and shit would get weird.”

“Maybe you would move out,” Ridge grumbles.

I turn to face Ridge. “Don’t lie, you would miss me. And would it kill you to pick your burger up with your hands? The kitchen staff were bamboozled when I asked for cutlery.”

His eyes widen. “You asked for cutlery for me?”

I nod and Zeland wraps his arms around my waist. “I did. I figured a man as sophisticated as yourself wouldn’t eat with his hands like a commoner. You would want to distinguish your class somehow.”

Zeland snorts from behind me and whispers, “You realize the suit I’m wearing costs more than you would earn in a year?”

“About that—who wears a suit to a college bar? Unless the guy wants a hookup with some scrappy college girl who he can throw away the next day.”

“Why would I come to a place like this to find a scrappy college girl when one lives in my multi-million-dollar house free of charge?”

“I’m a resourceful kinda girl—I had it all planned out. Getting in that car, having a panic attack, then vomiting everywhere. It was all part of my master plan to bag a millionaire like you. Is it working?”

Ridge smiles, like an actual full, white-toothed smile, and as I smile back, I realize what I’m doing. Is the grump actually warming up to me?

“Told you he likes you,” Zeland whispers in my ear.

“Alright, boys, I better get back to work. You really should let some of the other girls serve you—they could use the tips.”

“Why would we do that?” Ridge asks. “We only come here because Zeland insists on seeing you, and the more money I give you in tips, the quicker you can move out. He says you won’t take charity, so I can’t just buy you a place. Tipping you well is the next best thing.”

“Thank you, I think. I’m really not sure if you’re being nice or mean, but I will take it as nice.”

Zeland chuckles beneath me, and I stand, straightening my work shirt. As I walk away, I look back over my shoulder and both men are watching me. I sigh and roll out my shoulders—leaving them will be bloody hard. Since leaving Gran’s, I have not lived anywhere I actually liked. They’ve only been places to sleep, and I liked the people even less. Yet I actually enjoy Zeland’s company, and Ridge is growing on me. Under his grumpy exterior, there is something softer, and I want to dig deeper and find out more. And the house, well, who wouldn’t love living in a mansion they didn’t have to clean?

Oh, I’m fucked, royally fucking fucked.

I should leave. I spend the next half an hour of my shift filling orders, while coming up with reasons I need to leave, and yet I don’t want to go through with it. So my inner musing turns into a pep talk about it being okay to be happy. Not everything needs to be so deep, and Zeland and Ridge are fine with me staying at their house. Sure, I know Ridge is put out by it, but Zeland assures me if he didn’t want me there, he would have thrown me out by now. I can tell he isn’t one to do anything he doesn’t want to, and the fact remains that he is home almost every night, which is something Zeland says he hasn’t done in months. I also love gaming with DarkSoul. It’s one of the highlights of my day, when I get to sit down and relax. Some people play sports, some like to read, but me, I love to blow shit up and shoot shit. The highlight is making people feel inferior because they got beat by a woman, one that likes to talk shit and gives back as good as she gets.

By the time my shift winds down, I have decided I will stay as long as they will have me. But I need to start paying rent or at least contributing somehow. Maybe they will let me buy groceries.

“Heyyy, beautiful,” some random drunk douche slurs as I walk past.

“Not interested,” I mumble. I’m tired, not in the mood, and my shift ends in a few minutes. I just want to go home and fall face-first on my bed, which I appreciate feels like I’m sleeping on a soft cloud.

“Hey, why the rush?” he says, coming around in front of me, and I cross my arms over my chest with a sigh.

“I want to go home. They called last drinks. Finish yours and be on your way.”

“You’re going home? Maybe you want company,” he says, stumbling into me and grabbing my pussy.

With a gasp of shock, I push him back, and he laughs. He isn’t as drunk as he is making out, and as I step closer to him, he perks up.

“Maybe I do want some company,” I purr, making him smile in a way that gives me the creeps. I grab his cock lightly. “But you would be the last man on the planet I would take home.”

“You whor?—”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence before I twist his cock so hard he will feel it for days, and he drops to the ground like a sack of shit.

“Fuck, stray, are you okay?” Ridge asks, looking me over.

I nod as my hands shake. Fuck, my anxiety is going to make me vomit.

“Aspen!”

Shit, double fucking shit!

Barbie races over and takes one look at the man lying on the floor. “You know what this means?”

I nod. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fired.”

“Fired? On what grounds,” Ridge demands. “Aspen works harder than anyone else and you are going to fire her after a drunk patron sexually assaults her?”

“Who was sexually assaulted?” Zeland asks, having missed everything that happened.

“Aspen,” Ridge spits. “I’m getting my lawyers on this first thing tomorrow. Good luck running your business by the time I’m done with you.”

Barbie laughs. “I would like to see you try, boy.”

“Don’t waste your breath—it’s not worth it. I can easily find another job,” I say, trying to defuse the situation. “Can we just go, please?”

I’m still shaking as Zeland takes my hand in his, and as Ridge goes to step over the man on the ground, he bends down and snaps a picture of him .

“You’re going to regret touching what’s not yours,” he seethes, and returns to his full height before kicking the man right in his stomach, causing him to groan in pain.

Zeland pulls me away and I follow behind him, his large strides hard to keep up with. When we push through the front doors, I gasp for air. Ridge stands in front of me and places a hand on either side of my face.

“Breathe, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Slowly... that’s a good girl.” Ridge keeps talking until the panic releases me from its grip.

“I knew you liked me.”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “I just don’t want you to die on my watch, stray. Zeland, you drive her back to the house. I’ll be home shortly.”

“Was already planning on it,” Zeland says as Ridge turns to leave. “Ridge...”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t do anything stupid, just come home.”

They stare at each other for a few moments and then Ridge turns and leaves. I don’t ask what that was about; it’s none of my business. Now that I’m no longer in a panicked state, anger is flaring through my bones.

Zeland drives us home in silence. When we get back, he tells me he is going to shower, and I let him know I’m going to game for a while. Tonight was a shitshow, and I shouldn’t have been surprised something happened. It’s not the first time I’ve been fired for reacting badly to being treated like a piece of meat.