“Are you decent yet?”
I roll my eyes as I button my jeans. “It is my house you know.”
“It’s a bar.”
“Well it’s my bar.”
Church girl is starting to get annoying and I decide I’m not done messing with her.
“Sure you don’t want to look?”
I turn and pointedly reach out and poke her ass with a rigid finger.
She shrieks, and I start to laugh before I wince and grab my forehead.
Fucking hangover.
“Okay, fine. I’m decent.”
She turns, cautiously, her face bright red and her eyes wild as she glares daggers at me.
So this is the Evangeline Ellis I’m going to be working with over the next few months. Working with, because of course Dad roped me into working on this outreach center project he’s putting up in some of the old factory spaces over in Lynn.
Evangeline’s eyes dip to my bare chest as she fingers the cross on her neck, her cheeks getting redder before she looks pointedly at my face and sticks her open hand out.
“Key, please?”
“Sure you don’t want a peek?” I grin, nodding down at my jeans.
“Quite,” she says icily.
“Suit yourself.” I make a point of making sure my arm brushes hers as I move past her out of the office, grinning when she flinches away from me.
“Um, where are you going?”
“You want the key?”
She says nothing as she follows me down the hallway. I wince as I step out into the bar area and glance at the place.
Jesus fuck, what a wreck. No wonder I got drunk instead of cleaning this place up last night. That is the last time I let Mikey Sullivan and his shithead cousin drink Jägermeister in here.
I glance back at Evangeline as I step behind the bar. Jesus she looks out of place. The blonde hair, the white dress, the silver cross. With that dim light from the hallway window still hitting her from behind, she almost looks angelic.
There’s no place for angels in a place like this.
She’s young, too. Not like, young young, but younger than me, that’s for sure. Or maybe that’s a perspective thing. Turning thirty was a bitch, I’ll say that.
The other thing is, she might be all church-mousy in those furtive movements, all piss and vinegar with that uptight attitude, but it’s doing a real bad job of hiding the obvious.
Church girl is hot.
“Shouldn’t you be dressed differently?”
She frowns. “How should I be dressed?”
“I dunno, ankle-length skirts, a bonnet maybe?”
“You know I’m not Amish, right?”
“You’re not?”
She rolls her eyes. “No.”
“Remind me what you guys are again? Some kind of cult thing?”
“Grace Church of Salvation and Divine Retribution is not a cult.”
I scratch the stubble of my chin as I stare at her. “Right, yeah, no, that sounds totally on the level.”
She narrows her eyes at me and I grin. “Sorry, I just didn’t expect you to be dressed like that I guess.”
“Like what?”
“Hot.”
The word catches her off-guard, and her eyes go wide, her face blushing just like it did back in my office when I gave her the full monty.
“I am not.”
“Trust me, you are. You look hot in that dress.”
Her face going a bright red pink color as she huffs.
“That’s a compliment, you know.”
“I know you’re trying to be crude, not complimentary.”
I whistle. “Huh, so you’re going to dress hot, but you’re not going to be okay with a guy telling you you look hot.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Stop dressing hot.”
She glares at me again, and I grin right back, savoring the moment. The light from the hallway window is still coming in from behind her, so truth be told, I’m also still savoring taking in the clean outline of her legs underneath that sundress, too.
“I’m sorry, but I’m kind of in a rush.”
“All in good time, all in good time.” I wave her off as I step behind the bar. “Don’t worry, the house’ll still be there when you get there. Probably.”
I reach behind the register for the familiar bottle of Tylenol. I do want to keep ogling this chick, but I also sort of want to die with this hangover ripping through me. I pop four pills into my mouth and reach for the low-boy fridge behind the bar, grabbing a beer.
Thank God for hair of the dog.
Evangeline makes this disgusted scoffing noise as she sees what I’m doing, and I grin.
“You want one?” I turn to see her scowling at me.
“What? No!”
“Suit yourself.”
“It’s nine in the morning!”
“Tell me about it.” I swig back the beer, swallowing the Tylenol. I glance back and see that she’s looking at me expectantly.