Redemption: A British Stepbrother Romance (43 page)

“
J
ust
three more hours to go,” I said to Alison, as I handed her another Diet Coke.

“Stop looking at the time. It’ll only make your shift go slower.”

“I can’t avoid it,” I replied. “The time is on the cash register. Every time a punter buys a drink, I get to see just how few minutes have passed since the last time I looked.”

“At least you only have one more night here,” Alison said, cringing as she placed a hand on the sticky bar and quickly peeled it away. “And that means I don’t have to come here any more to keep you company.”

“I’m going to miss this place.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I replied, looking around at all the drunken idiots that I served for minimum wage and miserly tips. “They’re not a bad bunch really.”

“Yes, Nora, they are. They actually are a bad bunch. The last time I went to the bathroom, three different men groped my breasts.”

“Just three? Well, it’s busier now. You’ll have more luck next time.”

Alright, maybe I wouldn’t miss this place, but I would miss what it represented. I’d finished college a few weeks ago, but while I still had this job, I could still pretend to be a student. No responsibilities, no career. Just serving assholes in a bar and listening to bad pick up lines.

I’d hoped for an easy final shift, but no such luck. We had a “VIP” in for the evening. I knew he must be special, because Ray had dusted off the old bit of red rope from the back room and provided them with table service.

Unfortunately Ray hadn’t thought to perhaps hire more staff for the evening, so I was stuck behind the bar by myself while the other two barmaids were on VIP duty.

“Maybe you should ask to wait on that table,” Alison suggested, motioning to the loud group of men and their hangers on behind the roped-off area. “I bet the tips are better.”

“No way. The price of those tips is having hands all over you. Look.”

Alison looked over at the table and saw one guy with his hand creeping up the thigh of Jasmine who stood there smiling and pretending to enjoy it. Maybe she
was
enjoying it. Who was I to judge?

“Good point,” Alison replied.

I walked away to serve beer that looked—and tasted—like piss to some customers who wouldn’t know any difference at this point. The time popped up on the register. Three hours and ten minutes to go. Wait, hadn’t it been three hours five minutes ago? Was I imagining things now? This night would never end.

“So…” Alison said slowly when I’d returned. She let the word hang there like one of the many bad farts currently lingering in the air.

“So…?” I queried, as if I didn’t know exactly what she was talking about.

“Are you still planning to meet your father soon?”

“Yep,” I replied confidently, even though the prospect had me scared as hell. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

“And we’re going to keep having it until I’m convinced that you know what you’re doing. Meeting your biological father is a big move. He doesn’t even know you exist.”

“He’ll be fine. If I can handle it, then I’m sure he can.”

“You don’t know anything about this Duke Nott guy.”

“I know a bit about him. He runs a gym in town. That’s a respectable way to make a living.”

“There’s rumors that gym hosts illegal cage fights. That’s like human cock-fighting. Hardly respectable.”

“Rumors,” I insisted. “You can’t believe everything you read.”

There were a
lot
of rumors though. The fighters had even become mini celebrities of sorts, if that’s the sort of thing you were into. I couldn’t even watch boxing, let alone no-holds-barred fighting in a metal cage.

Alison hated it even more than I did. She was a doctor; her job was to fix people who’d been hurt. The idea of men deliberately getting themselves hurt was anathema to everything she believed.

“It’s not just that,” Alison said. “You should put more time between your mom’s death and meeting this Duke guy.”

“I’m not trying to replace Mom,” I insisted for the hundredth time. “I just want to meet the other half of my DNA. Maybe I’ll need a kidney one day.”

“Okay,” Alison said, holding up her hands. “I’ve tried. If I don’t see you before then, good luck meeting Duke.”

“Thanks,” I replied with a smile. With any luck, that would be the last time we’d have to have that conversation.

Tomorrow was the day. I would go down to Duke’s gym and introduce myself. How hard could it be?

“Okay, well I’d better be leaving now. I’ve got a sixteen-hour shift starting in eight hours.”

“Ugh. I thought I had it bad. You know, doctors really shouldn’t work such long hours. If I ever end up in ER, the last thing I want is to be treated by someone on the tail end of a sixteen-hour shift.”

“There are worse things. Think everyone working at the hospital is sober?”

On that cheerful note, Alison left me to see out the rest of my final shift by myself. My eyes followed her to the exit to make sure she didn’t get any grief.

Customers referred to me as the timid one, which compared to the other girls working here was true. Alison was on another level of shyness entirely and the guys knew it. They saw her as a challenge, and had a habit of getting aggressive with her. Or they tried, until I stepped in.

“I thought she’d never leave.”

A voice to my right snapped me out of my trance.

“What can I get—”

I stopped mid-sentence as the words I’d said thousands of times before got stuck in my throat.

I was many things, but speechless was rarely one them. Right now, I couldn’t have yelled “fire” if the building were burning.

The man at the bar looked exactly like every other man here, but also nothing like them at the same time. He was covered in tattoos, wore a tight t-shirt, and looked like he’d just popped in off the street for a break from fighting.

Customers like that didn’t faze me. I was used to them. But this one… This one was different.

This man was pant-wettingly sexy. Literally. I wasn’t exaggerating and I could prove it.

Unlike the other customers here, the man was covered in muscles that threatened to break through his tight shirt if he so much as flexed an arm. He had stubble, but it suited him, and looked deliberate, not the result of laziness or lack of hygiene.

His eyes smoldered, as I stared at him in silence. I’d heard plenty of pick up lines while working here, but none were half as effective as the look conveyed by this man’s deep brown eyes.

Hi
, his eyes said.

Hi
, mine replied.

Let’s go fuck
.

Okay. Your place or mine?

Shit, snap out of it, Nora. I’d been working here for a year without falling for any of the smarmy jackasses that came here. No need to start on the last day.

“If you stand there much longer with an open mouth,” the man said, “I’m going to put something in it.”

I scowled. He had something else in common with the clièntele here.

He was a complete and utter prick.

“What do you want to drink?” I snapped.

“I want to get my lips around something sweet and juicy. Something… orgasmic.”

“We have lager that tastes like it came out of someone’s penis. Is that close enough to orgasmic?”

The man smiled. “I guess I’ll have a Jack and Coke then. I can see now why you aren’t working on the VIP table. Doesn’t look like you’re all that friendly with the customers.”

I poured a load of Jack in the glass and topped it up with Coke. No one ever accused me of giving a small portion. The same could probably be said of him.

“If by ‘friendly’ you mean ‘happy to be groped by drunken assholes,’ then no, I’m not all that friendly.”

“They might not all be drunken assholes,” the man replied.

His hand reached out to grab the glass before I’d let go, his fingers lightly grazing mine. I flinched as a static shock passed between us. The floor wasn’t carpeted, but it had to be a static shock. The alternative was too ridiculous to contemplate. Sparks between a man and a woman were a thing of fiction. That had been real. Very real.

“Trust me,” I replied, trying to ignore the shock still working its way through my body. “Anyone that is considered a VIP in this place is scum.”

“Wow, you’re real employee of the month material, aren’t you?”

“Last day,” I replied with a big smile. “I don’t have to deal with jerks like you for much longer. That’ll be five dollars please.”

“I’m not paying,” he replied.

“You fucking well are.”

“Nora,” Ray’s voice called out behind me. “I’ve explained to you before that our guests’ drinks are on the house.” He turned to face the man. “Sorry about this, Mr. Clyne.”

“No problem,” the man said with a grin.

Ray walked away and left me facing the “VIP.” He didn’t look important. He looked strong enough to pick me up and have me up against the wall. He looked intense enough to want to do it. He looked hot enough for me to want him to.

“Riker, Riker,” a girl said excitedly as she rushed up next to the man. She stood next to him bouncing up and down like an excited schoolgirl, her breasts doing their best to defy gravity as they slapped against her chin.

“Go away,” Riker said, sounding bored.

He was so fucking rude. But… well, I couldn’t help but be flattered that he’d rather talk to me than deal with Miss Bouncing Bosoms. Still, he was a fucking dick.

“Can I get a selfie?” she asked, brushing off the insult as if the sound had never reached her ears.

“No pictures,” he replied gruffly.

“What about an autograph?” She pulled a black marker pen out of her purse. Who carried around a black marker pen?

“Fine, if it’ll make you go away.”

Without hesitation, the woman yanked down her top to reveal the full motherload that was her right breast.

Riker shot a quick look in my direction and smiled, before grabbing hold of the woman’s boob and signing his name right above the nipple.

“Thank you,” she replied gleefully, and ran off to rejoin her friends, leaving her pen in Riker’s hand.

“You want an autograph too?” he asked, holding the pen up at chest height.

“Yes please,” I replied and thrust my chest towards him. I looked him in the eyes and licked my lips as I put my hand to my top and slowly… very slowly… handed him the check.

“You’re a tease. Anyway, you heard, I’m not paying.”

“This isn’t for your drinks. Consider it a tip.”

“You want me to give you a tip after the way you’ve spoken to me?”

“No. This is going to those poor girls over there who are being manhandled by your friends while trying to do their jobs. I’d think $100 each is a small price to pay for what they’re going through.”

I’d expected him to laugh me off, but he put the thick marker pen to the paper and signed.

“I’ll let you fill in the amount,” he said. “Now where were we? Oh yes, you were about to tell me what time your shift finished.”

“
W
hy don’t
you go and rejoin your little posse,” Nora said. “That brunette keeps looking over here. I think she misses you.”

“I’m done with her,” I replied. “I want someone new tonight.”

“I’m honored to meet your demanding criteria of being ‘new,’ but I think I’ll pass.”

“In my defense, there aren’t many women in this bar who I haven’t had before, so I’m being quite selective.”

“That’s your defense?” She rolled her eyes and went away to serve some more drunks who didn’t know when they’d had too many.

I watched her ass move temptingly from side to side as she walked in her tight jeans. God, what I wouldn’t do to get a bit of that. The other barmaids had skirts so short they were invisible from some angles, but here I was fantasizing over the one girl in the place with jeans on.

The men at the bar ordered a round of shots. Nora casually poured them all a large vodka shot, spilling half of it over the bar as she moved over the line of glasses, and then busied herself emptying a dishwasher to avoid coming back over and talking to me.

I might have to adapt my usual approach for this one. It’d be worth it. Anything to get my lips on those succulent tits.

The group of men were still hanging around by the bar. Of the four men, three of them looked to be in their early to mid twenties, but the other one couldn’t have been much older than eighteen. The door staff weren’t exactly particular about who they let in here.

One of the older men had his arm wrapped around the younger boy’s shoulders, while the other hand thrust a small bag into the young boy’s free hand.

Drugs.

The bag contained either pills or powder, I couldn’t tell from here, but nothing good got passed around in small plastic bags in dark bars.

The young kid eyed the bag suspiciously, but slipped it into his pocket. The men all made a big fuss about downing their shots, as if they were the first human beings ever to drink vodka, and then made a beeline for the bathrooms.

I grabbed the kid by the arm as he walked past.

“What the hell are you—” he began, before making eye contact with me. “Hey, you’re Riker Clyne. Cool man. Uh, what’s up?”

I let go of his arm and pointed to the empty seat next to me.

The kid looked towards the bathroom where his mates were heading, but decided he should probably do as I’d asked.

“You know my name. What’s yours?”

“Theo.”

“What’s that in your pocket, Theo?” I asked. “Coke? E?”

“Don’t be ridiculous man,” Theo replied angrily. “Ain’t nothing in my pocket.”

Ain’t nothing in my pocket
.

My brother had said those exact words many times. They sounded so alike. This kid wasn’t my brother, but I was damn well not going to let him take the same path. My brother wasn’t around for me to look after him any more.

I couldn’t be bothered to muck around. I reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the bag.

“Hey, give that back,” Theo yelled. He went to reach out for the bag, but decided better than to try and wrestle it back off a fighter.

The bag contained six tiny pills that I didn’t recognize. Probably ecstasy, or a variant of it. Every week there was a new recipe available, always promising an even better high than the one before.

“You don’t want to take these,” I said, handing the bag back to him.

Theo took the bag nervously. “It’s just a bit of fun. The effect will wear off after a few hours and they aren’t dangerous.” He sounded like he was parroting his friends’ words back to me.

“Who were those other guys?” I asked.

“My brother and his mates.”

“And they want you to take these?”

“I need to loosen up a bit. Have some fun.”

“This shit isn’t fun.”

“Yeah, well neither is getting grief from the guys,” he said, getting angry again. “It’s easier just to take them and be done with it. Saves a whole lot of hassle.”

That was how my brother had started. Growing up in our neighborhood, we’d been exposed to drugs on a daily basis. Daniel had resisted them for years, until his friends started taking them.

They’d pressured him week after week to join in, and then finally his willpower evaporated and he gave in. The rest was history.

I wasn’t about to let that happen to this kid.

“Nora,” I called out to get her attention.

“Yes, Mr. VIP. What can I get you now?” she asked, as if I’d torn her away from a good book, and not emptying the dishwasher.

“You have a first aid kit back there anywhere?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, ducking down behind the counter. “But I don’t think anything in there is going to mend your broken ego.”

“My ego is as big as ever thank you,” I replied. I took the first aid kit, but the only painkillers in there were far too large. “Nope, this won’t do.”

“What are you looking for?” Nora asked.

“Small pills. Any of the girls have hay fever?”

“One of the barmaids, but she’s busy with your friends. We can’t take her tablets. I have a feeling she’ll need to be able to breathe through her nose later when you get your hands on her.”

“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, sweetheart,” I replied with a grin.

“And what does suit me? A huge cock in my mouth I assume?”

“I never said I had a huge cock.”

“True,” Nora replied. “Guess I got confused because you’ve been a massive dick all evening. But that’s not the same as having one.”

I turned back to look at Theo who seemed even more awkward now than he had been around his idiot friends.

“Sorry about her, Theo. Some women like to play hard to get before I fuck them. Makes them feel less slutty.” Riker turned back to me. “I assume you’re on the pill?”

She pursed her lips in displeasure. This wasn’t going brilliantly so far.

“It’s none of your business,” she snapped.

“Don’t get your hopes up. I’m not asking because I want to have sex with you—I’m still on the fence on that one. I’ll let you know when I’ve made up my mind. You got the pills on you?”

She sighed, but nodded and grabbed her pills from her purse behind the bar. “I have enough for a few more months.”

I took out one of the pills and compared it to Theo’s drugs. The contraceptive pill was slightly bigger, but no one would notice in the heat of the moment. I put six pills in the bag, and threw the drugs on the floor before crushing them under my foot.

“There you go,” I said, handing the bag to Theo. “No one will know any difference.”

“Uh, thanks,” Theo replied nervously. “Will this stuff… affect me at all?”

“No,” I replied. “You should be fine. But, uh, best not try to park any cars for a few days.”

Theo smiled, but the grin disappeared when he glanced towards Nora. I didn’t look. Best not to know.

“Your brother’s scum,” I said to Theo. “He should be keeping you off that shit, not encouraging you. Stop hanging around with him after tonight.”

Theo nodded, and ran off the bathroom to join his friends.

That was one of tonight’s missions accomplished. Now, came the tricky part.

I finished off the last of my drink and slid the glass over to her. “Straight whiskey this time.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, giving a mock salute.

“You still haven’t told me when your shift ends.”

“That’s right, I haven’t. Anyone with half a brain would take the hint.”

“Ah, well, that’s where we have a problem. My brain’s just mush these days, what with all the fighting.”

“And yet you still do it.”

The big-boobed woman from before came back with an equally well-endowed friend. I still had the marker pen, so I grabbed a handful of boob and signed my name again.

“It has its perks,” I said to Nora as the women left.

“So you decided getting punched was a good way to make a living just because you’d be able to get your hands on some tits in dirty bars?”

“No. I decided to fight for a living because I was fighting anyway. Might as well get paid for it.”

“What type of fighting is it anyway? You’re not involved in any of that illegal underground stuff are you?”

“No,” I lied. “Not that.”

I usually made no secret about being an underground fighter. Women loved it. But there was something in the way Nora asked the question that made me think twice this time. She looked relieved by my answer, but I had no idea why.

“What about you?” I asked. “Why did you decide to work in a dive bar? No offense, but you don’t look like the usual type you get working in these places.”

“If you must know, I’m a student. Well,
was
a student. I’ve graduated now. Tonight is my last night here.”

“Ah. So if something’s going to happen between us it will have to be tonight.”

“Nothing’s going to happen between us.”

“We’ll see.” I picked up my drink and stood up. “Oh, one more thing.”

“What’s that?” she asked with a tired sigh.

“I
do
have a huge cock. See you later.”