FEET HURT LIKE a son of a bitch. Tonight had been, without a doubt, one of the longest nights on record. And it wasn’t over yet.
She worked hard at the family ranch. But mainly, she managed the office. When she went out and practiced barrel racing, she was on her horse. It definitely worked her muscles, but it also fed her soul.
Right now, she was pretty sure her soul was leaking out the bottom of her feet, which she had certainly worn a hole through walking around the dining area of the bar.
Being a waitress—it turned out—was exactly as little fun as it had always appeared to be.
She supposed some people might enjoy it. They might enjoy interacting with tables full of people and making runs between the kitchen, the bar and the dining area. She, it turned out, did not.
Also, she had discovered that men were slightly different with her when she was serving them drinks, versus when she was drinking near them. Sure, they still flirted with her. But there was a different tone. It was stickier. It left a film over her skin, and she didn’t like it.
“You’re a precious, precious blossom, Sierra,” she muttered to herself as she bent to clear glasses off one of the tables that had just been vacated, before straightening and looking back over at the bar.
Chad, Leslie and Elyssa, the friends she’d been here with just the other night, were half draped over it. They didn’t usually hang out right at the bar, but Leslie had just broken up with her boyfriend and it looked like she was thinking of testing her odds with Ace.
She was grinning and giggling and working the duck face like she was trying to take a selfie, not talk to a guy.
Ace, for his part, didn’t seem disinterested. He was smiling. Smiling in a way he certainly hadn’t smiled at Sierra. That just wasn’t fair. Leslie was not less of a spoiled brat than she was. He should be mean to her, too.
But he wasn’t being mean. He was being...charming. When he handed her drink over the counter his lips curved up into a half smile that made Sierra’s stomach flip from all the way across the room. His dark eyes were glittering with intent. Wicked intent, even. Sierra could imagine that any woman on the receiving end of Ace’s attention would feel like the only woman in the room. Maybe even in the world.
Of course, he didn’t give her that kind of attention. He always acted like he wanted to stick her in the corner and cover her with a blanket so he could pretend she wasn’t there.
She realized she’d been standing there, frozen and staring, for way too long. She mobilized. Holding tight to her bin of dishes, she walked quickly back toward the kitchen, her focus fixed straight ahead.
“Sierra?”
She turned at the sound of an incredulous voice, just in time to see Elyssa and Chad walking toward her. Leslie was still on her bar stool giggling loudly at something Ace said.
“Are you...working here?” Chad asked, his lip curling up into a borderline sneer.
“Yes,” she said, steeling herself as she propped the bin on her hip. “I am working here. Since I’m not working with my dad anymore I needed to get another job.”
Elyssa frowned. “But...at the bar?”
“All the glamorous positions at high rises were filled. Also, in another town. I had to take what I could get.”
Elyssa scoffed. “Come on. Couldn’t your brother help you? This is...beneath you, honestly.”
Sierra bristled. “Why? It’s fine for you to come drink here but it’s not good for me to work here? Leslie can sit over there flirting her tits off with the man who owns the place but this is beneath me?”
“That’s different,” Chad said. “I’d do a waitress, but I wouldn’t wait a table.”
Sierra felt like she was having an out of body experience. Like she was witnessing this exchange from high above the bar. And with that distance came clarity. These people were terrible. They had also been her friends for a long time. And she couldn’t say she wouldn’t have felt the same way a few months ago if one of them had gotten a job here.
She wasn’t even hurt. Or embarrassed. She was mad. Not even at them, but at herself. For all the coasting she’d done for so many years. For doing the schooling her father had wanted her to do, taking the job he’d created for her, having the friends that were convenient for her to have.
Suddenly, she didn’t feel tired anymore. She felt energized. Empowered. Standing there in front of her former friends she felt separate and different. And like she might be more herself than she’d ever been before.
“You’re an asshole, Chad,” she said, her tone crisp. “I mean, do you hear yourself? Do you ever stop and listen to the words that come out of your mouth?” She knew he didn’t. Because she never had, either. “You think you’re above any of this? Trust me, you’re one parental crisis away from being here. Except I don’t think you have it in you to work this hard. You think you’re too good for a job like this? You aren’t good enough.”
She continued on past them toward the kitchen.
“Wow, Sierra.” Elyssa’s voice stopped Sierra in her tracks. “Just wait till the town sees you like this.”
Sierra shot her former friend one last furious glance. “I’m not worried about that. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.”
She glanced over at Ace, who was still flirting with Leslie, and then barged into the kitchen, angrily depositing the bin of dirty dishes by the sink. She wasn’t going to let them make her feel ashamed. She hadn’t sunk to anything.
She was rising to the occasion.
She’d be damned if she felt embarrassed about that.
She spent the rest of the shift working as hard and furiously as possible. As if she could prove the world wrong right here in this bar, as long as she was the best waitress she could be.
Anger fueled her for a while, but that ran out quickly enough, leaving her drained and a bit less full of purpose than she’d been a few hours earlier.
She looked up at the clock on the wall and everything inside of her sagged. It was just after two thirty in the morning. She stayed out late often enough, but not usually this late. And definitely not usually schlepping drinks and hamburgers.
She wrinkled her nose. That was what she smelled like. Beef, bacon, french fries and exhaustion. It was in her skin.
Suddenly, she felt very small, and very persecuted.
She dragged herself back into the kitchen, setting the dishes on the edge of the sink. At least she didn’t have to wash those. That made her feel slightly less persecuted.
She walked back out into the dining area, untying her apron and setting it on top of the bar.
“That isn’t where that goes,” Ace said, suddenly appearing out of his office like a flannel, bearded vapor.
“You certainly have a lot of systems,” she told him, rubbing her temples before snatching the apron back up. “Where exactly do I put it?”
“I’ll take it,” he said, reaching his hand out.
His shirtsleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing those muscular forearms that her body seemed to be kind of obsessed with.
She tried to think back to her last boyfriend. Had she ever noticed Mark’s forearms? What had they looked like? Had they been hairy? They must not have been, because she hadn’t really noticed. Anyway, he had lighter hair. She made a mental note to go look at a picture of Mark and see if his forearms were spectacular, and if she was suddenly just now into forearms, and hadn’t been back then.
“Why don’t you let me take it,” she said, snatching the apron back. “I’m going to need to know where it goes.”
“You’re stubborn,” he said. “You know