Sinner(5)

Jesus, fuck.

The pounding in my head that’s been momentarily forgotten by opening my eyes to this angel standing over me comes roaring back. For a minute, I scrunch my face up, trying to remember why the hell I’m naked, and sleeping it off on my damn office sofa instead of my apartment upstairs.

The still-beer-damp jeans remind me as I yank them on.

Right, the bar fight.

The boiling point of townies, the insanely drunk bachelorette party of out-of-towners, and the even more drunk groom that showed up to see his fiancée slow dancing to Whitesnake with Mikey Sullivan who works down on the docks.

Somehow this led to me getting punched in the face, and after that, it’s a bit of a blur.

I vaguely remember the close up of the bar, saying fuck it to cleaning up the place post-fight, and getting rip-shit drunk with Jade instead.

Jade, who’s probably still crashed upstairs in my place actually. One, because no wasted employee of mine is going to take the shitty sofa while I sleep upstairs, and two, because I’m pretty positive I couldn’t make it up the stairs last night if I fucking tried.

“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.”