Maya And The Tough Guy (8 page)

“She’s working. Okay.” Jayce felt his frustration rising. He gritted his teeth and glared at Maya, who was coming toward them with drink orders.

“Pitcher of beer,” she requested, coming behind the counter. He pulled beer as she sat mugs on a tray.
 

“Come back when you’re done,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

Maya shot him a look of pure terror as she walked off with the drinks. Jayce turned to Zoey. “I’ll take care of it. Kids are in my office.”

Zoey wisely said nothing more. She disappeared down the hall. A moment later, she was ushering the kids through the bar. They stopped to hug their mother, and then they were gone.
 

Maya appeared to be looking for reasons to avoid joining him behind the bar. She bussed a table, checked on some customers, changed the song on the jukebox, until, at last, she made her way to his side. “What’s up, boss?” she asked, clearly trying to be brave. She even managed to hold eye contact for a full two seconds.

“I don’t like having Zoey tell me what your needs are, and I can’t read minds. If you need Monday nights off, Maya, just fucking say so.” He winced, regretting the language. It was hard to be gentle when he was so frustrated. Maybe he needed to attend anger management with Zoey.

She withdrew a step. “I don’t need Monday nights off.”

“Look, I have six employees, including you. I can schedule around certain things. You have to get a weekday off, anyway, because you wanna work Saturdays, right?”

She nodded.

“So, I’ll just schedule you off on Mondays, okay?”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “It’s just a support group. I don’t have to go.”

“Go. Dammit, Maya, go. Go now, if you want. You can come back, later, finish your shift. From now on, you have Mondays off, okay?”

She nodded and rubbed her hand up and down her arm. “The one tonight starts at seven. I’d need to leave at six-thirty. I could be back by nine.”

“That’s fine. Take care of yourself.”

She sucked in a breath and blew it out slowly. “Okay. Thanks. I’m sorry Zoey bothered you—”

“She didn’t bother me,” he said.

Maya blinked.

It was so hard to talk to her. He wished she could just read his mind. He couldn’t seem to get his words to match up with his feelings. He wanted her to know that she could come to him with anything. That she could count on him if she needed anything. He wanted her to know that he’d move mountains or die trying if she asked him to. “If you need something, just tell me yourself,” he said. It was right, but it wasn’t enough. He cleared his throat. “And…I won’t schedule you to open on weekdays after this week. It just didn’t occur to me about you not getting to see your kids, so—“

“Jayce, it’s not your job to be my friend. You’ve got a business to run. My personal life shouldn’t affect how you schedule things.”

Not his job to be her friend? What was he doing then? His sole hope in life, lately, had been to become friends with her. He may as well be invisible for all the good it had done. It hurt, and the hurt pissed him off. He took a step back. “We don’t have to be friends for me to be a good boss. You need time with your kids and that’s that. Get on back to work, now.”

She bobbed her head and scurried away.
 

Jayce tried not to watch her. He found himself relieved and relaxed when she left at six-thirty. Tension returned when she walked back in at nine. It was gone again when she left at eleven. He had no idea how he was going to survive working with her.

Being a Monday night, Janice was his only employee after eleven. There were only a few customers at the table and none at the counter. Janice sidled up to him. He slipped his arm around her waist. “You regret rejecting me? Wanna come up after work?”

She laughed as though he’d suggested the absolutely ridiculous. “No, I’m good.”

He nodded. “Figures.”

“I was just thinking,” she said, but then she stopped talking.

He waited a moment, then let her go and stepped back so he could look at her. “Thinking?”

“Yeah. About the bar.”

“Okay,” he said slowly.

“It’s just, the lighting’s kind of bright in here, you know?”

Janice had worked here for four years, since he’d first bought the place. She’d never mentioned anything remotely related to the lighting. “Bright?”

“Yeah. I mean—I think—stark is the word she used. Stark. What do you think that means?”

“Bright,” he answered. “Who said?”

She shrugged. “Maya. Actually, she asked me if I thought it was a little stark, and I said yeah, I guess, and she said maybe if we mentioned it, you might like the suggestion.”

“What suggestion?”

“To change the lights or something. Make it dimmer. More—intimate, I think she said.”

“Hmm.”

Janice shrugged again. “I don’t know. Seemed like a good idea.” She looked around and wandered away.
 

Jayce stood there frowning, wondering what he was supposed to think about Maya’s criticisms of his bar.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kellen was due home Wednesday. He’d been gone two weeks, and Maya was excited to have her brother-in-law home. Sometimes she wondered how Kellen and Damon could be related. Damon was cocky, hateful, and abusive, whereas his little brother was the kindest, most generous person Maya knew. The morning after Damon had given her the worst beating of her life, Kellen had been the one to carry her to the hospital, never hesitating to take her side in the matter, even at the risk of alienating his family. Of course, his family had come around, and his actions had led him to the love of Maya’s best friend, Zoey, so Maya took comfort in the fact that he’d been rewarded for his gallantry.

For her part, she didn’t see how she could ever repay his kindness. He was more family to her than anyone else outside of her children. But Kellen’s attention was no longer solely Maya’s. With Zoey in his life, his priorities had made a dramatic shift.
 

Zoey was beyond excited to have him back. She fluttered around the house cleaning and rearranging things. Fluttering was not a typical Zoey behavior. She even bought a new dress and was likely wearing new lingerie underneath. Maya suddenly felt very out of place.
 

“Maybe the kids and I should crash out at Kellen’s tonight,” Maya offered on Wednesday morning. Zoey was having a cup of coffee before heading to work. The kids had already taken the bus to school.
 

“Don’t be ridiculous. You won’t be home from work until after one.”

“I wish their grandparents weren’t sick.”

“Maya, honestly, stop worrying. Kellen will be just as excited to see the kids as me.”

“I somehow doubt that.”

Zoey kissed her on the cheek and went to work. Maya puttered around the house for a while, doing laundry and getting dinner prepped. She sat at the kitchen table with her laptop working through the GED prep material in the online course she was taking. Later, she called her babysitter to see if she would be available to watch the kids that evening. Then she drove to the bar. She didn’t go all the way in, instead turning up the back staircase, knowing that Jayce wouldn’t be downstairs just yet. She climbed one floor. At the landing was the daunting door. She knocked.

A few seconds later, the door swung open and a shirtless, sweaty Jayce appeared before her. He was breathing hard.

She took a step back. “I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”

He was gaping at her. “No. No, of course not. Come on in.”

Skeptical, she stepped in. She didn’t know why he was sweating, but if it had anything to do with activities involving her fellow barmaid, she didn’t want to know. Still, there didn’t appear to be anyone else in the apartment.
 

“What can I do for you, Maya?” he asked. The door clicked shut.

She froze at the sound. She tried to force herself to be comfortable around him, but then she would inevitably remember that he was a man. A big man. An occasionally violent man. She bit her lip and stood still. He came around in front of her. She no longer had to wonder what was under his shirt. What she’d taken to be an abstract design along the length of his arm was actually the body and tail of a dragon whose head began over Jayce’s left pec. He also had the word “survive” intricately tattooed along his right obliques, as well as a few smaller tattoos.
 

“Maya? Everything okay?”

She quickly, guiltily, forced her eyes up to his face. “Everything’s fine. I had come to ask a favor, but then I just realized how unreasonable it is. So I’ll just go.”

She turned, but he asked, “What’s the favor?”

“Well…”

“Yes.”

She turned back to face him. “Huh?”

“Yes. To whatever the favor is.” He flashed a quick smile.

She laughed. “Jayce, you really should hear the favor first.”

“Doesn’t matter. Anything else?”

She was baffled by his acquiescence, and then her eyes, of their own volition, dropped back down to his bare chest, slick and defined. Down to his abs, trim and chiseled. Down to his low-slung sweatpants, hanging almost too low, barely covering his—package. Anything else?
 

Something stirred low in her belly. A tingling she hadn’t experienced in a long time. It shocked her eyes back up. She hoped he didn’t notice the heat in her cheeks. But how could he not? “Kellen’s coming home today,” she blurted.

“I know. Can I tell you something without you laughing?”

She grinned, momentarily forgetting her intimidation and her misplaced desire. “Sure.”

“Promise not to tell?”

“Promise.”

He lowered his voice and leaned in. “I’m glad he’s back. I always miss him when he’s gone.”

She did laugh, but not because it was funny. She laughed because it was so utterly surprising and charming.
 

“What?” he asked in mock offense. “He’s my bff. If Zoey or Addy left for two weeks, you’d miss them, wouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t know boys had bffs.”

“Of course we do.”

Her laughter faded as she found herself smiling up at him, adoring him for a moment. Maybe there was nothing here to be afraid of. Damon certainly never would have admitted to missing his best friend. Maybe that meant that Jayce was a good guy. A safe guy. “Anyway,” she said, still not able to take her eyes from his. “Kellen’s coming home, and I know all he and Zoey are going to want to do is be together.”

“You don’t think he’ll come see me first?”

He was joking. “Depends on if you can beat what Zoey’s offering.”

“Definitely not.”

“Didn’t think so. So I was wondering if my kids—”

“I already said yes.”

“To letting them stay up here this evening?”

“Yeah. Not a problem.”

“There will be a babysitter with them. A stranger in your home.”

“Whatever you need, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. “Okay. So—thanks.”

“Sure.”

Once again her eyes dropped to his chest.

“I was lifting weights,” he said.
 

“Oh.” She forced her eyes back up.
 

He grinned. “Been a while, huh?”

She blushed. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned and opened the door, but he reached around her and pushed it shut. The gesture sent her heart pounding in fear. It took her a moment to catch her breath. If Jayce decided to try something with her, what would she do? He could easily overpower her. But no…this was Jayce, not Damon. He could have hurt her any number of times in the past and he never had. She forced herself to calm down.

“How long’s it been, Maya?” he asked.

She faced the door with his hand inches from her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He lowered his voice; his tone becoming more serious. “How long?”

She sighed. Breathed. Breathed again. “A while,” she whispered.

“Was…” He stopped for a long moment. “Was he good to you? Ever?”

She couldn’t believe he was asking her these things. She couldn’t believe how good it felt to be asked. “In the beginning.”

“And then?”

“And then there was no more lovemaking. Only brutal…taking.”

His body heat warmed her back. She closed her eyes and felt—not at all sure how to judge the feelings. She took in a shaking breath and turned to face him. She forced her eyes to his—his very kind, gentle eyes. His very heated eyes.
 

He studied her for a moment before pushing off the door and taking two steps back. “How’d he make a sweet girl like you love him, Maya? How?”

She blinked. Fidgeted. Something in his words was making her nervous in a different way than before. Almost a good kind of nervous. “I don’t know. I was scared at home. He made me promises I desperately wanted to believe.”

Jayce’s eyes, still kind, still warm, were the only indication of what was going on inside his head. His posture was relaxed, his expression blank…cold, even. Just those eyes, which she was finally learning to look into. “Promises,” he said. “You still want to believe those promises?”

She hugged her waist. “My eyes are open to who he is. What he is. But yes, sometimes, when I’m feeling really desperate, really alone, I wish I could go back to the way things were.”

His jaw muscles tensed, the only visible change. “It was easier.”

She let out a breath and a laugh. “Yeah. Exactly.”

“Were you happy?”

“No.”

“But you felt safe.”

“It was more that I was less afraid of him than of being on my own.”

He studied her, leaning against the back of his sofa. “I was thirteen, the last time Norris hit me. I distinctly remember switching over from fear to anger. I guess I’d always been both, but that fight…Jesus.” He shook his head and looked away. “I’d mowed the lawn for him. I thought I’d do something nice. It was a pretty day. I was feeling good. But I wasn’t supposed to touch his tools, and that included the lawn mower. So he came home and turned on me. Said, ‘You touch my mower, boy?’”
 

Jayce laughed at the memory. “It just flipped for me. All of a sudden like that. I’d always been more afraid of being without a father than of being beaten by one. But he said that to me, after I did that hard work as a favor to him. Suddenly, I just didn’t give a fuck anymore. I said, ‘I mowed the fucking lawn for you, asshole.’ Because I knew if I cursed at him, he’d snap, and that would be the end of it.”