“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” she said, brushing past him and out the front door. He followed her out the door and through the forest meadow, trailing her like he was hunting a deer, smiling as he watched her move through the wildflowers like she belonged there.
Opening the bar didn’t consist of much except getting the daily ledgers cleared and ready, turning over stools, and making sure the front door was unlocked. At least, that was all Eva did as Will sat at the bar and watched her scurry around. Charlie came in after a few minutes and began doing heavier work, something with the keg connections under the counter and in the back. After an hour or so, when he was finished, Charlie asked Will if he wouldn’t mind holding things down for a bit while he finished the oak branches he had been working on the day before.
“I don’t want Eva in here alone,” he told him quietly in the kitchen.
Will nodded in agreement and patted him on the back. “I got you. I’m going to try and get her back up to the house, anyway.”
Charlie took off out the back door and Will watched him go before turning to watch Eva. She was sitting at a messy old desk stuffed into an ill-fitting office space to the side of the door, rustling through paperwork in a focused way.
“All right,” he said to her, leaning in the door way. “Time to go.”
“See ya,” she said without pausing or looking up.
Will snorted, folding his arms. “I mean it’s time for you to go back up to the house, out of the way.”
“I’m not in your way now,” said Eva, giving him a face. “You’re in mine.”
Something in her tone gave Will a little shot of heat, and he decided to tempt her a little. He stepped into the cramped office space and put one hand on the corner of the desk. “I’m in your what?”
Eva stopped rummaging through the papers and froze. Her gaze ran up Will’s body, starting with the bulge that was more or less at her eye level and begging to be noticed. Will enjoyed the feeling of her staring at his body until her gaze stopped on his face. “My way,” she spat out, flustered. “You’re in my way.”
“I can think of better things I can be in,” he said, taking another step toward her chair.
Red heat flushed over Eva’s face, and Will saw her lick her lips. For a moment, he thought he had her, but she stood up from the chair. He didn’t move; she was nearly pressed up against his body.
“Like a muddy ditch, somewhere?” she offered. “Or how about anywhere but in my face?”
Will smiled down at her wickedly. His voice came out a whisper. “But I like the idea of being in your face.”
Eva’s lips pursed open in shock and arousal, her chest heaving with a thick breath. She stared at him for a few tense moments before she huffed, frustrated, and pushed past him out of the office.
Will chuckled to himself, enjoying the feeling of her hand on his chest as she passed, even if it wasn’t meant to be tender. He followed out toward the kitchen with his hands in his pockets, and a half-hard dick in his pants.
Before he could tease her again, the rumble of an engine came from outside before stopping abruptly. A few seconds later, the door to the bar swung open and a familiar face walked in.
Of all the gin joints in all of the towns in all of the world, Will thought bitterly from the back as he watched Jase walk into the bar. Jase removed his sunglasses and looked around, an ugly look on his face. Before Jase could spot him, Will ducked behind the wall to the back room. Next to him, Eva gave him a quizzical expression.
“Oh, God, is it…” she whispered as fear washed over her face.
“No, no,” said Will. “It’s something else.”
“Are we in danger?”
You two aren’t; I’m not so sure about me. “No. But listen, I need you to do exactly as I say.” Will grabbed Eva by both shoulders and looked straight down into her eyes. The feel of the warm skin of her arms beneath his hands made his heart race. Her pupils dilated when he touched her. “Go out and serve him. I need you to act like we don’t know each other. Don’t say a word about what’s happening or why I’m here. Got it?”
“Why don’t you just go out the back? You can wait in the house until he leaves.”
“He had to have seen my bike, he knows I’m here. We just have to go with it.”
Eva nodded, and then licked her lips. “Okay, sure.”
“Go on out, I have to fake like I’m coming from the restroom,” said Will. He waited until Eva had Jase’s attention at the bar before he came walking out from behind the wall, thumbing absently at the fly on his jeans. He did a decent job coming to a surprised stop when he looked at Jase, as if he was seeing him there at the bar for the first time.
Jase straightened in his stool, his expression grim. He spread out his arms and shifted a bit. Will knew the man well enough to know by his body language, Jase was daring him to run.
A shameful sting pierced his chest; it was like seeing just how far he had fallen in Jase’s eyes. He didn’t have to fake the anger rising under his skin as he took a stool next to his MC brother, although Jase would never guess the source was more from shame than fury.
Eva put a full stein in front of Jase and wiped the glass with a rag before she turned to Will. “Did you need another drink?”
Pushing against all his instincts to look at her face as long as he could, Will only flicked his eyes up at her a moment as he ordered a beer and a shot of whiskey. Eva nodded and bent to pull glasses up from under the counter.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding out,” said Jase. He took a big gulp of beer.
Will took the shot that Eva put in front of him. “I’m not hiding.”
“Not answering your phone, not being where anyone but me can find you… what else would you call it?”
“How did you find me?” said Will.
Jase rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I know you, man. I’m not blind to what’s been going on with you.”
Will took a deep drink of his beer and looked up at Eva. She sat near the other end of the bar, trying to busy herself with organizing. Jase probably didn’t notice how she was trying to listen without being obvious, but Will did. He waited until she looked up and caught his eye, and gave her a very slight nod toward the back room.
Eva froze for a few seconds, as if considering whether to follow his unspoken command. But when she finally moved to follow his direction, she did it with such nervous speed that she knocked her leg hard into a stack of boxed beer sitting on the floor. A jolting sound of glass rattling against glass made both he and Jase look over curiously.
Eva went red with embarrassment and gave them a small smile. She kept her eyes down as she moved past and disappeared into the back room.
Will took a quick, clean side glance at Jase. He frowned at Eva as his eyes followed her out, but nothing on his face said he was suspicious.
Jase cleared his throat. “So, are you just going to spiral downward until someone kills you, or you kill yourself?”
“Fuck you,” said Will. He could feel the blackness rising from the back of his mind and realized he had actually been feeling better the past little while—until this moment. “I don’t need your self-righteous bullshit, Jase.”
From the moment Will spotted him, he could see the anger boiling under the surface of Jase’s skin, and it took no time at all for that kettle to start steaming. “Self-righteous? What part of me driving around the pass, searching for my asshole of a best friend who can’t answer his fucking phone… What part of that is for me?” said Jase. “I should be home with Maggie, getting my brains fucked out. Instead, I try to help out, and I get this shit.”
“No one asked you to come looking for me,” said Will, turning to him with a sour expression. He could feel a tension rising between them, the opposite of the tension he felt with Eva—this was the rage he was used to, all the earlier shame had dissipated against it. “Don’t nail yourself up on the cross and expect me to start wailing for you.”