sugar?” Ella crossed her long legs. “I’ve worn uniforms before. Some of them are real cute.”
“Not this kind.” Rowdy laid out the black, unisex, crew neck T-shirt with the bar name on the front in neon yellow. “Nothing sexy, Ella. I want everyone wearing the shirt with jeans.” He shook an apron from a bag. “And one of these.”
Avery eyed the black utilitarian aprons with the same logo as the T-shirts. “I like them.”
Ella looked horrified.
“You get three each. If I could, I’d pony up one for each day of the week, but hopefully, for now, these’ll get you through.”
“You’ll look incredible, Ella,” Avery told her. “It’ll be like a tease. All the men will wonder what they’re not seeing.”
“It’s not the same.” She located her size, hesitated, then put the shirts back and took a size smaller. “I better not lose tips because of this.”
“I doubt you will,” Rowdy said, “because the customers love you. But all the same, I’m giving you a raise. Additional buck an hour.”
That got her smiling again. “Really?”
“We’re doing better than I’d expected, and you’ve really given a hundred percent.”
“Aren’t you the sweetest ever?” Ella dropped the shirts and left her seat to give Rowdy an enthusiastic hug.
Clearly thankful for that reaction, Rowdy hugged her off her feet and kissed the top of her head.
He looked so relieved that Avery assumed he must have been expecting more of an argument.
Over the top of Ella’s head he met her gaze, and slowly eased the other waitress away.
Did he think she’d be jealous of Ella? No. She knew Rowdy valued Ella as an employee, nothing more.
Ella beamed up at him. “Is there anything else, sugar?”
“Nope. That’s it.” He put her shirts and aprons in a bag for her. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.” Ella gave him a loud kiss on the cheek, stroked his chest once and headed for the back door with her share of the new garments.
From her chair, Avery could see out the break room, through the kitchen to the back door. She watched Rowdy lock the door and then return to her. He dropped into a chair. “One down,” he muttered.
Grinning, Avery asked, “She had you worried?”
“A little.” He rolled his shoulders, rubbed the back of his neck. “I like Ella. She’s a hard worker with a great outlook. Never complains. Smiles at all the customers. But man, she does like to put it out there on display.”
“And here I thought you enjoyed that sort of thing.”
“Somewhere else, sure. But we’re trying to be a different type of bar, remember.”
Realization hit. “So the uniform shirts were your way of downplaying Ella’s assets without hurting her feelings?”
He shrugged. “It seemed better than telling her that she was showing too much boob.”
Avery laughed. “An ingenious move.” She picked up a shirt to better examine the logo. “And I like this. Casual but classy.”
“It’ll go with your jeans.”
Since that’s all she wore while working, she appreciated the effort. “Thanks for that. Just so you know, if you’d produced some cheesy uni that either looked ridiculous or like a fetish, I would have refused.”
“I figured.” Rowdy watched her as she gathered up three shirts and the aprons. “Looks like you’re doing the opposite of Ella.”
“How’s that?”
“A size larger than you need, versus her size smaller. You hide your figure. Ella flaunts hers. But I guess it balances out.”
“It’s not that I’m hiding anything.” Though she had stopped dressing to attract attention a while ago. “It can get pretty fast paced behind the bar. I need freedom of movement. Comfort is more important to me than anything else.”
“Avery?”
She folded the shirts. “Hmm?”
He didn’t move from his seat, didn’t change his tone, so it took her by surprise when he asked, “Why were you early today?”
Pausing, Avery felt the memories flood back in on her.
Rowdy’s deep, rough groan.
His taut expression while coming.
Flustered, she avoided his gaze while fussing with the garments. “I left my phone here last night.”
Slowly, Rowdy leaned forward in his seat and crossed his arms on the tabletop. “You could have gotten it when you got here.”
And instead she’d caught him getting his jollies in the office. “I needed to make a call before my shift started.”
“Yeah? Who did you call?”
No way would she tell him she’d planned to set a doctor’s appointment to get on the pill...because she’d wanted him to get his jollies with her.
But definitely not in the office. “It doesn’t matter now.”
He picked up that bad attitude again. “A boyfriend?”
Avery did a double take. “Where in the world did you come up with that?”
“You got a call from a man. Someone you’re seeing?”
“I... No. That was probably a wrong call or something.” She hoped. Waving off the question, she admitted, “I’m not seeing anyone.”
There was a heavy pause before Rowdy asked softly, “No?”
Refusing to admit it again, she checked the clock on the wall. “I need to go or I’ll miss the bus.”
His gaze searching her face, he came to his feet with her. “Bus?”
“Did you think I walked?”
“No, but I assumed...” He shook his head. “I’ll drive you home.”
“Nooo, you will not.” It was difficult enough being with him in a break room; a closed car would be too much temptation. “Thanks anyway.”
Irritation honed his tone. “Damn it, Avery, this is a tricky situation for me.”
For him? “That has to be a joke, right?”
The muscles of his jaw flexed. “I wish you hadn’t walked in on me today.”
“That makes two of us!”
“But you did,” he stated, “and I think we should talk about it.”
Oh, no, she would not let that intimate tone and determined expression win her over. “I’m not your keeper, Rowdy. And believe me, even without the peep show today, I wasn’t ignorant about your...overactive sex drive. I just hadn’t expected to trip over it at work.”
“It was before work, and an isolated incident.”
Of all the nerve! “You’re saying it’s never happened before?”
“Sure it has.”
Her stomach cramped—until he continued.
“But not here.”
Sputtering, Avery snapped, “Here is what I was talking about!”
“Yeah?”
He left her so disconcerted, she could barely find words. “I wasn’t suggesting that you had never...that you hadn’t...” No, she couldn’t spell it out