Page 13 of Until the Storm Breaks (The Midnight Men #1)

MAREN

The dinner rush is just starting to pick up when Lark pushes through the back door of The Black Lantern. It’s barely six o’clock and I can already see the signs of a busy night. Nearly every table is filled and the local band is setting up in the corner for Saturday live music night.

Lark looks like she’s determined to prove she doesn’t need help, crutches catching on the doorframe, face set in grim determination, ankle wrapped in enough athletic tape to mummify a small cat.

“Before you say anything,” she announces, dropping her bag with a thud, “I’m fine.”

“You’re on crutches.”

“They’re preventative crutches.”

“That’s not a thing.” I abandon the garnish prep to get a better look at her.

“I had a tiny accident at Midnight Training.” She attempts a casual lean against the bar, nearly loses a crutch, recovers with the kind of dignity that only comes from extensive practice at pretending everything’s fine. “Who knew?”

“Lark, you have to go home.” I steady her with one hand. “You can’t work like this.”

“I can hop! Watch.” She demonstrates, nearly taking out a bar stool. “See? Mobile.”

“That was terrifying.”

“Listen,” she says, “I couldn’t find anyone to cover tonight.

The doctor said it wasn’t bad but that I needed to rest for a few days.

Everyone’s either out of town or suddenly has plans.

” She adjusts her grip on the crutches, wincing.

“You’ll be completely alone out here. And there’s that bachelorette party.

Anywhere from ten to fifteen girls. Plus it’s live music night. ”

The concern in her voice makes me soften slightly.

Lark’s worked enough Saturday nights with me to know how intense it gets.

A bachelorette party on top of the usual Saturday crowd and the band?

That’s a nightmare scenario for solo bartending.

But looking at her and the way she’s favoring that ankle, there’s no way.

“I’ll manage,” I say, though I’m already mentally adjusting for working solo. “I always do.”

“Mare—”

“You can barely stand, let alone carry a tray through a packed bar. Someone bumps into you and you’ll end up in the ER.”

She knows I’m right, but I can see it killing her to admit it. “Fine. But if you need me—”

“I’ll be fine. Go home, ice that ankle.”

She hobbles toward the door, pausing to call back, “Try not to burn the place down without me.”

Once she’s gone, I turn back to the bar.

The dinner crowd’s in full swing, and the band’s nearly finished their sound check in the corner.

I just need to stay ahead of the orders.

Hopefully it’s a wine and beer kind of night, not a complicated cocktail night where everyone wants something that takes five minutes to make.

Who am I kidding? It’s Saturday. Someone’s definitely going to order a Ramos Gin Fizz just to watch me suffer.

Three hours later, at nine o’clock sharp, I’m remembering why Saturday live music nights are both a blessing and a curse.

The band—three guys from Port Angeles who call themselves “The Sound”—are actually decent, which means people are staying longer, drinking more.

The threatened bachelorette party has materialized in full force: twelve women in matching shirts that say “Sarah’s Last Sail” with little nautical anchors.

They’ve pushed three tables together near the stage and are working through our cocktail menu with determination.

“Can we get another round of those pink things?” one of them shouts over the music.

“The cosmopolitans?”

“No, the OTHER pink things!”

We have four drinks that could be classified as pink. I make an executive decision and start pouring rosé sangria when I look up and see Calvin Midnight walking through the door.

He’d been working on the house each day since he got back, and I’d catch glimpses of him on my way to work.

Now he’s showered and changed. Gone is the tool belt and sawdust, replaced by dark jeans and a black button-down, sleeves rolled to his forearms, looking like a sexy professor from one of those dark academia TikToks Lark keeps sending me.

His hair’s still damp enough to curl at the edges.

Of course he shows up looking put-together while I’m pretty sure my ponytail has migrated completely to the left, there’s definitely cranberry juice splattered on my shirt, and I can feel mascara smudging under my eyes from the sweat.

He navigates through the crowd, dodging dancers and drunk tourists and claims the last open barstool while I pass off the sangrias, then grab the muddler for two mojitos someone just ordered. The band launches into a cover of “Closing Time” at least two hours too early.

When I finally look up from muddling mint, Calvin’s watching me with something between concern and assessment, like he’s calculating exactly how underwater I am.

“You looking for food or just a drink?” I ask.

“Just here for a beer. I didn’t realize it was Saturday music night.” He watches me work, not pushing for service, just observing. “You’re bartending solo?”

“Lark’s out. Sprained her ankle at your brother’s gym this morning.”

“Oh right, I saw that happen.” He shifts to let someone else order, then leans back in. “Need a hand?”

The offer catches me mid-muddle. “What?”

“Help. You need help.”

“I’ve got it handled. Besides, you’re a literature professor, not a bartender.”

“Are you kidding?” He actually laughs. “I grew up working this bar. My mom had me washing glasses at twelve, pouring beers by fifteen—highly illegal, but hey, family business, right?”

“That was years ago.” But even as I argue, I can feel my resolve weakening.

“Like riding a bike.” He’s already moving toward the gap in the bar. “Plus, I spent three years in grad school. You think I didn’t work bars to pay rent?” He pauses, glancing over his shoulder. “Oh, and the bachelorette party just got reinforcements.”

I look over. Shit, he’s right. Five more women in matching shirts are pushing through the crowd, already chanting about shots.

“You’re about to get destroyed,” he says, not quite hiding his smirk.

He’s standing at the bar entrance now, clearly waiting for permission but knowing he’s already won. The bastard’s actually enjoying this.

“Fine,” I cave, defeated. “But if you—”

He’s already ducking under, washing his hands, grabbing an apron with the efficiency of someone who’s done this a thousand times. “Where do you need me?”

It turns out Calvin wasn’t lying about his bartending skills.

Within minutes, we fall into a rhythm that feels practiced.

When I’m shaking Cosmos, he’s already refilling my cranberry juice.

When he’s building a complicated Old Fashioned, I slide him the orange peel without him asking.

It’s seamless in a way that shouldn’t be possible with someone I’ve never worked with.

“Behind,” he murmurs, squeezing past as he reaches for the vodka.

“Reaching,” I warn, stretching past him for more lime juice.

We’re a dance neither of us rehearsed, and it works. The orders that were piling up start clearing. The crowd stops looking impatient. We’re actually keeping up.

“You’re the hot professor!” one of the bachelorettes squeals when she recognizes him. “Sarah’s obsessed with your writing!”

Sarah, wearing a crown that says “Bride to Bay” and a veil decorated with tiny ships, turns bright red. “I appreciate good writing!”

“She appreciates your author photo at 2 AM,” her friend cackles.

Calvin handles it gracefully, skillfully redirecting while building their drinks with professional focus. They eat it up, and soon half the bachelorette party is clustered at his end of the bar, which gives me breathing room to catch up on other orders.

“Smooth,” I tell him when we cross paths.

“I teach twenty-year-olds. Drunk bachelorettes are less scary.”

The rush keeps coming, but we handle it. He takes the complicated cocktail orders without blinking. I handle the high-volume stuff and the regulars who want their drinks just so.

The band announces their last set. I’m reaching for clean glasses when Calvin’s hand touches my back as he moves behind me, just guiding us past each other in the tight space, but my skin burns through my shirt where he touched.

I watch him at the other end of the bar pouring drinks, and my tired brain fixates on his hands.

How does someone who boxes have such elegant hands?

Long fingers moving with precision as he makes drinks.

My mind unhelpfully supplies an image of what it might feel like to have those skilled fingers working between my legs with the same focused precision—

Jayson calls out an order, breaking the spell. I grab the ticket with shaking hands and steal one more glance at Calvin.

I’m completely screwed.

By midnight, the bar is empty. Jayson and the dishwasher left twenty minutes ago after finishing kitchen cleanup, and now it’s just us. I’m finishing the till count while Calvin mops, the last tasks before we can lock up.

“You didn’t have to stay this late,” I say, double-checking the twenties for the third time because my brain’s too fried to trust the first two counts.

“You needed help.” Simple as that. Like it’s obvious. Like anyone would stay until midnight mopping floors for someone they barely know.

The bar feels different with him here, like it remembers him from all those years ago. He moves through the space with surprising confidence for someone who hasn’t worked here in likely well over a decade.

“Mom drilled the routine into me,” he says, noticing my watching. “One summer she made me close by myself every night for a month until I could do it with my eyes closed.” He mops methodically, back to front just like Susan showed me. “Said a bar treated right would treat you right back.”

“She told me the same thing.” I finish the count, rubber-band the bills, tuck the cash into the deposit bag.

“The first few months I owned this place, she came in every night to make sure I wasn’t drowning.

Stayed until close, helped me figure out ordering, scheduling, how to handle the regulars.

I think I took her up on her help almost every time. ”

“Sounds like her.”

We fall into easy silence, just the sound of the mop sliding across wood and me organizing receipts.

What catches me off guard is how naturally we work together after that rocky first meeting when he arrived.

When he was all sharp edges and barely contained grief, snapping at me before his truck door was even closed.

And I was defensive and territorial, throwing his absence in his face within minutes.

Now we move around each other like dancers who’ve learned each other’s rhythms. It’s unsettling, this ease between us.

Makes me wonder what else I’ve misjudged about him.

He’s leaving soon. Back to Seattle, his real life. Tonight was just him being helpful. Stop reading into it.

I head to the back to check the locks, make sure Jayson closed the freezer properly (he didn’t, never does), then return to find Calvin holding up a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

“We’ve earned this, I think.”

“God, yes.”

He pours two generous measures, none of that precise ounce-and-a-half bartender pour, and slides one across to me. We don’t toast, don’t need to, just drink in silence. The whiskey burns warm down my throat, chasing away the exhaustion.

“Your mom used to keep this exact bottle for rough nights,” I say, studying the label, running my thumb over the raised lettering. “Said it was too good for customers but perfect for staff who’d earned it.”

“Some things shouldn’t change.” He takes another sip, slower this time. “She’d approve of tonight. The controlled chaos, the bachelorette wrangling. You handled those drunk guys at table six perfectly.”

“She’d especially approve of the part where her son saved my ass,” I say.

“Especially that part.” His eyes hold mine over the glass, and there’s something there I don’t want to name.

I watch him lean against the bar, looking more relaxed than I’ve seen him since he arrived.

His sleeves are still rolled up, and there’s a splash of grenadine on his forearm he hasn’t noticed.

I have the insane urge to reach over and wipe it off.

To touch his skin and see if it’s as warm as it looks.

Instead, I finish my whiskey in one swallow.

“Another?” he asks, bottle already tilted toward my glass.

I should say no. Should definitely say no when he’s looking at me like that, all focused attention that makes me feel like I’m the only person in the world. When the empty bar suddenly feels too small, too intimate.

“Better not. It’s not exactly a long walk home, but it sure feels like it at midnight after a shift like that. Plus, Laila’s probably destroyed something by now.”

He nods, but looks maybe disappointed? Or am I imagining that? “Fair point. Long night.”

He rinses our glasses, sets them in the drying rack. Every movement is deliberate, controlled, and I wonder if he’s feeling this too. This electric awareness that makes the air between us feel charged.

“Shall we?” He says, gesturing toward the door.

I nod, not trusting my voice, and duck past him into the night. The rain hits my face, cold and sobering, but it doesn’t wash away the heat still thrumming through my veins.