Stay with Me (17 page)

“You do look . . . different,” I said, at a loss for what to say.

“Of course I do. I got one with my body.” She slid her hands down the sides of said body as she did a little shimmy. “Did a little makeover.”

Roxy giggled from somewhere behind me.

“You look great.” Disco ball dresses weren’t my thing, but Katie did look hot. Hot in a way that probably had guys doing stupid things just to get close to her. Very different from high school, and I wondered what our classmates thought of her now.

“You look the same. The scar has faded a lot. You can barely see it with makeup on,” Katie said, and Roxy sucked in a breath as Katie popped down on the empty seat in front of me.

I realized she hadn’t changed completely. She was still painfully blunt. Not rude. Just had no filter whatsoever. I smiled instead of letting the comment get to me, because I knew it wasn’t coming from a bad place. “Yeah.”

She popped her tan elbows on the bar and rested her chin in her palm. “I can’t believe you’re back in town, working at your mom’s bar. I thought you were off doing bigger and better things.”

Well, this was awkward. It was like the kid who partied so hard they failed at college coming home with their tail between their legs. “I’m here for the summer.”

“Visiting Mom of the Year?”

Roxy sucked in another sharp breath and whispered, “
Daaammmn
.”

Again, Katie was as blunt as my fingernail. “I was planning on it, but she hasn’t been around.”

“That’s probably a blessing in disguise, girl.” Her blue eyes rolled. “I think it’s cool you’re back.”

“Thanks.” I bit down on my lip as I glanced at Roxy. She was grinning at Katie. “So what have you been doing?”

Katie leaned back on the stool as she waved her hands around her body. “Um, what does it look like? Not working in an office.”

I thought she looked like she was a stripper, but if that wasn’t the case, then I really didn’t want to throw that out there.

“She works across the street,” Roxy explained, leaning against the counter. “At the club.”

Oh. Double oh. So she
was
a stripper.

Katie giggled as she batted thick and long lashes at me. “I absolutely love it.”

Triple oh.

“Let me tell you, most girls do. This whole you only strip because you have daddy issues?” She flicked her wrist dismissively. “I strip because dumbass guys pay me to flash some skin when they can get that shit for free at home, and I make damn good money doing it.”

Well, if she was happy doing it, then whatever. I smiled. “Sounds good.”

“But you?” Those lashes batted again. “Working at a bar? I didn’t think you drank at all,” she stated, her glossy pink lips turning down at the corners in confusion. “Have you ever been drunk?”

I didn’t get drunk. Well, because of Mom. I could feel Roxy’s eyes on me. “I will drink a beer or two, but I’ve never been drunk.”

“What?” Roxy all but shouted.

Reece and the boys looked up from their tables. I lowered my voice as I felt my cheeks burn. “Well, it’s probably good that I don’t really drink since I’m working at a bar.”

Roxy gaped at me. “You’ve never known the wonders of being shitfaced?”

“Getting tipsy is fun . . .” Katie trailed off as a good-looking man, maybe in his late twenties, saddled up to the bar.

“Whiskey. Straight up,” he ordered, his gaze flickering over me and then to Roxy, who reached for the short glass.

Katie’s gaze started at the tips of the man’s dark-colored boots, up his jeans, white shirt, and traveled straight up to his wavy ash-blond hair. “Damn, I’d like to get tipsy with that.”

The guy gave her a long, lingering look—a purely male look I’d seen tossed around a lot during my short time at the bar, that said he was all about seeing her naked. He then grinned before turning back, heading for the table Reece was sitting at.

“Anyway, your whole life is about to change,” Katie announced randomly. She plopped her chin back in her palm. “For real.”

I blinked once and then twice, and managed to ignore Roxy’s elbow that she shoved discreetly in my side. “Come again?”

“I’m telling you. Your whole life is going to change,” Katie continued, and Roxy bumped her hip into mine. “This summer is going to be epic.”

I had no idea where this conversation was going. “Well, my life has already kind of changed.”

“Oh, no. I’m not talking about what has already happened. It’s what’s about to happen.” Katie leaned onto the bar, and I thought her boobs were going to spill right out of the top of her sequined dress and wipe down the bar for me. It would be like a nipple wipe-down. “You see, I got the gift.”

The gift of stripping? “Um. What kind of gift?”

“Oh boy,” muttered Roxy.

Katie tapped a long, French manicured finger off her temple. “The gift. Sight. Psychic. Whatever they’re calling it nowadays. I get
feelings
about things and I just
know
things.”

Um . . .

I had no idea how to respond to that, and I wasn’t sure if she was serious, but Katie had always been odd, so I was going to go with yes, and Roxy was absolutely no help. From behind her glasses, she was squinting at the ceiling, her lips twitching as she pressed them into a firm line.

“So, um . . . did you have this gift in high school?” I asked.

Katie laughed. “No. I had an accident. Woke up the next day with the gift.”

“What . . . what kind of accident?” I asked, wondering if I should know or not.

“Oh Lordy Lord,” muttered Roxy.

“Fell off the damn pole.”

Oh my God. “The pole?”

She nodded as she ran a fingertip along the bottom of her lip. “Yep. Those damn bitches oil themselves up like they’re going to take a skinny-dip in a deep fryer, so sometimes the pole gets slippery if it doesn’t get wiped down. And trust me, after
some
of the girls, you want to wipe that pole down.”

My eyes widened, and all I could picture was a slicked-up stripper pole.

A short giggle escaped Roxy and ended in a forced, fake cough as she grabbed a bottle and then three shot glasses.

Oh no.

“Anyway, I got on the pole for a show. Busy night, too. On a Saturday, and I was doing this thing where I hang upside down.” Katie leaned back and raised her arms, and for a second I thought she was going to reenact the whole thing, and I had a feeling it was about to become a boob apocalypse. “And I was all like this.” Twisting her arms together, a rather convincing sexed-over look crossed her pretty face. “Just upside down, right?”

“Right,” I mumbled as Roxy poured brown liquid into the three shot glasses.

“Next thing I know, my legs are slipping down the pole, and I’m all like ‘Man down!’ or at least ‘Stripper down!’”

Another funny-sounding cough escaped Roxy as she slammed the bottle on the bar, and I forced myself to take several deep breaths as I murmured, “Oh noes.”

“Yep,” she said. “Cracked my head right off the stage. I was out like a belly button.”

Out like a belly button? What the what?

“And the rest is
Long Island Medium
history, but without seeing the dead people or the cool, poofy blond hair.”

“Really?” I gasped out.

She nodded. “So your life’s going to change. Ain’t going to be easy, but it’s going to change.”

I turned slowly and looked at Roxy.

“Shots anyone?” she offered.

“Shots! Shots! S-S-S-hots!” Katie shrieked, snatching one of the glasses as she bounced her shoulders back and forth. A freaking second later, her shot was gone.

“Impressive,” I said.

Katie grinned.

After Roxy took her shot, both of the girls looked at me, and I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“Told you,” Katie said.

Roxy frowned at me. “I want to see you taste liquor for the first time, and I poured you the good shit.”

My stomach coiled tight. The idea of seriously drinking, of not having control and . . . I couldn’t even think about it.

Sighing, Katie reached over and grabbed my shot. “Snooze, you lose.” She downed it and then cracked the glass off the bar top. “Yeah, I just said that. And yeah, I got to go and make some mon-nay! See you later, bitches!”

I watched Katie spin like a ballerina on her heels and head for the door just as it opened and two other girls walked in. One of them, a busty redhead, curled her lip in Katie’s direction and then whispered something to her friend, causing the other lady to giggle.

Eyes narrowing, I realized I didn’t like that.

Katie stopped, looked the redhead straight in the eyes, and said, “I’ll cut a bitch.”

Roxy’s mouth dropped open.

I snorted. Yep. Like a pig in a cozy blanket.

The redhead paled and the other woman flushed.

“And those bitches back there won’t serve you, so you can go hang out at Apple-Back down the street.” Katie glanced over her shoulder at us. “Right?”

Since I figured I had some ownership over the bar, I nodded. “Right.”

“Be gone, bitches.” Katie all but ushered them back out the door, pausing to throw us what looked like a gang sign. “Peace out, home skillets!”

Roxy and I were quiet for a good minute and then I looked at her. “Katie’s always been a wee bit different, but I’ve always liked her.”

She nodded as she grabbed up our shot glasses, grinning. “Oddly enough, she has been right with some of her predictions. She told me something once . . .” Her tiny button nose wrinkled. “Something I really should’ve listened to.”

I gaped. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Nope,” she remarked. “But I love that girl. Crazy shit always happens when she’s in here. And I like her
feelings
.”

“Feelings . . .”

“Feeee-lings,” Roxy crooned loud enough that Reece’s table turned in our direction again.

Namely Reece.

His lips were hitched at the corners as he watched Roxy spin around like a drunk go-go dancer and place the shot glasses in the tray to be cleaned. She twisted back to me and pointed. “Nothing more than—”

“Feeee-lings,” I sang, just as badly and loudly. Probably more badly. “Trying to forget my feeee-lings . . .”

“Oooof loooove,” Roxy belted out as she spread her arms and bowed dramatically.

A round of applause went up from Reece’s table, and we broke into a fit of giggles just as Jax rounded the bar. He stopped a few feet from us, grinning as he eyed me. “What in the holy hell is going on out here?”

“Nothing,” Roxy sung, and I stared at him a moment too long, but he looked good in his jeans, like always, and in his worn shirt, but then she twirled back to me. “So you’ve never been drunk?”

“Back to this again?” I crossed my arms. I’d rather be singing.

Jax’s grin slipped into a look of incredulous disbelief. “What?”

I rolled my eyes. “Is it really that big of a deal?”

“She’s never been drunk,” Roxy pointed out to Jax, who was still staring at me like I had whipped off my top and was shaking my ta-tas at him. “Like ever.”

“Do you drink at all?” he asked, strolling forward, and somehow he managed to get in the minuscule space between Roxy and me, which meant the entire left side of his body was pressed against mine.

I tried to suppress the shiver of response and lost. “I drink a beer or two every once in a while.” Truth was, I never finished a whole beer in my life.

Placing a hand on the bar top, he angled his body toward mine, which lined our hips up and put me at eye level with the tight black shirt that stretched over his chest. Oh my. I could see his pecs. The boy had actual pecs. “Have you ever drunk liquor before?”

I shook my head as I stared at his chest.

“Not once?”

“Nope,” I whispered. Staring at a guy’s chest like it was a chocolate mousse cake was dumb, but it was the kind of dumb I liked.

“Before that drink I tried, I’d never tasted liquor,” sighed Roxy. “Never been drunk. Missing out on a lot of stupid.”

“We’re going to have to change that.” Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see Jax move his other hand. My chin jerked up as he tucked a strand of my hair back behind my left cheek. “Soon.”

When he exposed my left cheek, I jerked back, banging my butt into the ice well. I could see Roxy watching us, brows raised and grinning. God, this bar needed to be busier on Thursday nights so it would leave Jax less time to torture me.

And Jax was really in the mood to torture me with his charm and flirt. He dipped his head, and I knew it wasn’t just Roxy watching us. “What else haven’t you done? I think you said something about this before.”

My breath caught in my throat and then was released. Him being so close threw me. “I haven’t been to the beach.”

Roxy shook her head.

“And . . . and I haven’t been to New York City or been on a plane. I’ve never been to an amusement park,” I rambled on, stomach tumbling. “I haven’t done a lot of things.”

Jax held my gaze for a few moments and then he backed off, heading toward the other side of the bar. I stood where I was, finding myself staring at Roxy.

She arched a brow and mouthed,
What?

I shook my head, feeling warmth in my face as she turned back to Jax, her grin spreading. I had no idea what she was thinking, but I was sure it involved something dumb. Turning to the stack of dirty glasses, I figured it was a good time to hit the kitchen.

The door opened, and I felt the change in the atmosphere before I saw who walked in. Tension poured into the air, crackling with strain and anger. Biting down on my lip, I caught the way Jax stiffened as I turned.

Oh no.

Mack Attack was back, and he wasn’t alone this time. A buddy was with him, just as big and just as shady looking. They looked across the bar at Reece’s table, and then Mack’s gaze swung back to mine.

He grinned a shit-eating grin.

My stomach tumbled some more.

“You’re not welcome here.”

That came from Jax, and as my gaze swung toward him, I saw that his jaw was so hard it could cut ice.

“Oh boy,” murmured Roxy.

Mack’s buddy chuckled darkly, sending a shiver up my spine.

“I ain’t planning to stay,” Mack responded, eyes never leaving mine. “I just got a message to deliver—a message I’m fucking thrilled to deliver.”