Searching for Neverland (19 page)

Stu shook his head. “I’m having dinner with your parents tonight, and I’m telling her then.”

“Good luck.”

“I don’t need it,” he said, in an Irish accent that was much better than my attempt. “I have the luck of an Irish woman on my side.”

“Aye, and a pot of gold waiting for you at the bottom of my checkbook,” Josh said, in his own Irish baroque.

My uncle just laughed. “Right you are, Josh
ua
,” he said, as he pulled Josh in for a hug.

Stu didn’t have kids, but Josh was like the son he’d never had. I was sure that had a lot to do with his decision to sell the bar. He knew Josh would maintain the integrity of the place.

“Should we go into your office?” Josh asked.

Stu raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s your office, and no, I’d like to sit at one of the tables, have a pint and after the papers are signed, be a paying customer again.”

“You’re money’s no good here,” Josh said, shaking his head.

“Ah, I always knew you were a smart boy.”

Josh grinned, as he stepped back behind the bar to pour us a round of drinks. I started to follow Stu to the table, but Josh grabbed my arm and held me back.

“Here,” he said, thrusting a black ‘O’Donnell’s’ sweatshirt into my hands. “Put this on.”

I tugged the sweatshirt over my head. It was huge. The arms hung way past my hands, and it fell practically to my knees. I also realized it smelled like Josh, which was going to be incredibly distracting if I had to k
eep it on during our meeting. His
scent was just this side of intoxicating,
which
was a little bit of a red flag
,
since it was
the second time in two weeks I’d noticed how good he smelled, and I hadn’t ever done that before in the three years we’d lived together.

What was happening to me?

“Josh,” I hissed, as he started to turn away.

“Yeah?”

“Are we buying the bar today?”

He grinned. “Yeah, we are.”

My eyes got wide. “Oh, wow. Okay. That was fast.”

He closed the distance between us. “You’re not thinking of backing out, are you?” he asked,
as
his blue eyes
darted back and forth berween
mine.

I shook my head. “No, I’m in,” I said seriously.

Josh nodded. “Good. I’m glad. Now go keep Stu company. I’ll be there in a minute.”

I nodded and went to join my uncle at the four-top he’d commandeered, thinking that this was the most unorthod
ox business meeting I’d ever attended
when Josh set down a pitcher of beers on the table and started pouring. But in getting into the business of owning a bar, I was pretty sure I’d get used to casual meetings like this one fairly quickly. And I wasn’t exactly complaining.

“Stu O’Donnell?”

We both looked up to see a middle-aged woman in a suit standing next to our table.

“That’s me,” my uncle said gruffly.

The woman laughed nervously. My uncle was a little assuming at 6’3” and probably close to two-hundred and fifty pounds. He was a big man, and he still kept in shape He’d always attracted women, but it seemed as he’d aged, he’d become more distinguished and attractive to the opposite sex. He was always getting hit on, and I wondered if I was about to witness another woman shamelessly flirting with him.

“Good afternoon,” the woman said, sticking her hand out to shake his. “I’m Louise Bellingham from the title agency.”

“Oh, right, Louise. Nice to meet you, and thanks for coming on such short notice. My niece and her friend are ready to be the owners of this bar, and I’m ready to sell it to them.

“Alright then, let’s get started,” Louise said, as she settled at the table and spread out the papers she was holding.

* * *

“Alright,” Josh said when I followed him behind the bar a few hours later.

I paused, looked around and for the first time I realized that I owned a bar. I looked back at him, and he must have been able to read what I was thinking. He grinned at me.

“We bought a pub,” I said, still not believing that the papers were signed, and the place was ours.

“You’re not going to freak out on me, are you partner?”

I shook my head and smiled. “Nope, this is the best decision I’ve ever made.”

A smile crept up on Josh’s face. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

He looked out over the pub, appraising the small, late afternoon crowd. When my uncle had left to go to my parents’ house, Josh told me we could practice mixing drinks for a few hours.
The place would be busy once happy hour started, so I’d learn what I could, and then I’d sit back and be a customer since my sister was meeting me after work for some celebratory drinks.

“Cute outfit, by the way,” Josh said, trying to hide the smirk that was creeping up on his face, as I yanked his oversized sweatshirt off. I had trouble moving in it and needed full range of motion if was going to work behind the bar.

Apparently he hadn’t gotten the ‘no flirting’ memo I’d issued earlier.

“I thought it worked,” I said ca
sually, looking down at my black
boyfriend tank, red plaid skirt and black Doc Marten’s. I’d been going for a
Coyote Ugly
in Ireland look, and from the way Josh was drinking me in, I’d say it was working.

“You do realize you’re also dressed like you’re in Scotland, right?”

I looked down at my outfit and realized he was right. Oh well, I looked damn cute.

“Stop checking me out, you pervert,” I chastised him and elbowed him in the ribs instead of telling him he was right, before I turned to the middle-aged guy in a suit sitting closest to us. “Can I get you another?”

“Sure, sweetheart. That would be great.”

“What are you drinking, sailor?” I asked, leaning my hip against the bar.

The guy chuckled. “This here is a Yuengling.”

I winked at him. “One Yuengling, coming right up.”

I turned toward the taps behind me, grabbed a glass, and started to pour from the Yuengling tap like I’d seen done thirty thousand times in my life. I felt a presence next to me but didn’t stop pouring.

“What are you doing?” Josh asked

“Pouring that guy a beer,” I said, as I glanced at my perplexed partner’s face.

“You called him sailor.”

“Yup, sure did.”

“What did you do? Watch every bartending movie ever made this morning?”

I
shrugged
. “I might have watched a few.”

“Any from this century?”
he said, grinning at me in amusement.

I ignored him
and set the guy’s beer in front of him on a fresh coaster. “That’ll be, uh,” I turned back to Josh. “How much do we charge for beer?”

Josh shook his head in impatience. “Imports are five dollars. You want that on your tab, Walt?”

The guy at the bar nodded, and Josh started doing something with the register.

“What are you doing?” I asked, peering over his shoulder.

“What you would have learned how to do if you’d have let me show you the ropes before diving right in,” he said, as a receipt printed out of the top of the register.

Josh grabbed it and stuck it in a glass in front of Walt. Walt just nodded at him and refocused his attention on the Rays game on the TV above the bar. They were losing to the Red Sox.

“So Walt has a tab?” I asked Josh in a low whisper.

“Yes,” he whispered back. “Walt comes in here a few times a week, and at the end of the week, he pays me.”

My eyes went wide, wondering if that was a good business decision.

“Do you do that for a lot of people?”

Josh shook his head. “Nah, Walt worked with my dad. They were partners, and I think Walt feels like he’s looking out for me by coming in here. He only works part-time now, and his wife passed away last year, so he gets lonely.”

I swallowed but didn’t say anything. Josh and Allison had lost their dad two years earlier to an unexpected heart attack – his second in a year. Josh was close to his dad and took his death particularly hard.

“So who else has a tab?” I asked, choosing to skirt over the topic I knew Josh wouldn’t want to entertain. He didn’t like talking about his dad.

“A few guys Stu was on the force with, along with Cole and Sean, but I’m not sure they’re ever going to pay me, the fuckers.”

“Does Stu know?”

He nodded. “As long as everyone pays up, he doesn’t care. I guess we need to talk about what that’ll look like now that we’re the owners.”

“I’ll put it on the list,” I said, taking out my phone and adding it to the list of thing
s
we needed to iron out.

After we’d signed the papers with Louise, we’d sat with Stu as he’d expelled all the knowledge he had about owning a bar and the advice he had for us to be successful. Josh and I
had started writing down things we needed to do or figure out, and the list was getting pretty long. I figured we’d sit down the next day and start working on it.

“So, am I special? Is that why you never charge me when I come in here?” I asked sweetly.

I hadn’t paid for drink since Josh had started working there, and I wasn’t sure my uncle knew that.

Josh grinned down at me. “I charge you each time you come in here, sailor, because you drink like a fish.”

My jaw dropped. “I do not.” Yeah, okay, that was probably an incorrect statement. “You don’t charge me, do you? I don’t have some ridiculous bar tab I don’t know about, do I?”

He shook his head. “No, you don’t. I don’t charge my family.”

“Aww, I’m your family? That’s so sweet.” I grinned up at him. “Just out of curiosity, what would my tab be if you happened to add it up?”

Josh looked like he was doing some quick math in his head. “Rough estimate?” I nodded. “Just since I’ve been working here, I’d say it’s somewhere in the ballpark of
nine thousand dollars
.”

My jaw dropped. “I’m unemployed,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t pay that.”

“Well then,” Josh said coyly. “It’s a good thing you don’t actually have a tab – and that you’re the owner of this bar now.”

Hell yeah, it was.

“Okay, for real this time, are you ready to learn all you can about bartending in two hours?”

I nodded eagerly. “Lay it on me.”

Yeah, that just sounded really sexual.

* * *

“You bought a bar today – with Josh?!” Taryn asked with disdain as we sat at the bar after my lesson.

“Yes,” I said, as I took a sip of the vodka and cranberry juice I’d proudly made.

I was treating myself to some well-deserved cocktails after working hard to learn the finer points of bartending, of which I’d only grasped the most basic principles – drinks with roughly two, maybe three, ingredients. But I’d gotten to taste test my creations – all of them – and as a result, I had a nice buzz going without even trying.

“And you invited him to Marissa’s wedding?”

“Yes,” I repeated.

“Why?” she asked, screwing up her face in question.

“Because he’s my friend, and I needed date.”

“Just go solo. That’s what Trey’s doing. You could hang out with him and Tanner.”

I shot her a leveling look. “I’m not hanging out with my little brothers at my cousin’s wedding.”

“So you invited your roommate/business partner?”

“Yes!” I said loudly, not sure what she wasn’t understanding.

“But why?”

“Taryn? Are you high? I already feel like crap that I’ll be twenty-nine in a few weeks, and I haven’t dated anyone noteworthy in two years. It’s pathetic, and I’d rather not feel pathetic when I watch my twenty-four year old, gorgeous, bitch of a cousin walk down the aisle. Josh is doing me a solid and helping me out. End of story.”

“And he’s hot,” she added.

“And he’s hot,” I repeated, knowing I would feel a hell of a lot better showing up with him at Marissa’s wedding than with anyone else.

“You’re not sleeping with him, are you?”

“What? No!” I said, taking a gulp of my drink and almost choking on it. “Why would you even link me going into business with him and taking him to a wedding to us obviously having sex? He’s just a friend. I’m actually seeing Alex again.”

Consider me weak. Alex had called me the day before and told me how much he wanted to see me. And I caved. I am a weak, pathetic, flaccid human being who has a serious issue with letting go of a guy who can’t commit to her. I totally suck.

“Oh Christ,” Taryn hissed, a definite tone of distaste in her voice. “I can’t believe you’re seeing that douchebag again. Everyone hates him. Why do you like him so much?”

Yeah, you’re one to talk. How is Noah these days?

“Oh, get over it. I could care less what you or Allison or anyone else thinks. I like him, and I’m seeing him, and that’s it. And he’s meeting me here later, so you’d better be nice to him.”