Page 9 of Divine Sense

“You idiots better tip well since you’re taking up my entire bar on a Friday night,” Malcolm joked from the opposite side of the butcher block counter.

The boys and I were posted up at the restaurant he managed and was a bartender at, giving him a hard time and enjoying the warm fall evening. My friends and I always tried to see one another as often as we could, and since Hank and Bailey were doing something tomorrow night, we all agreed to meet up tonight to hound Malcolm while he worked.

“Here’s a tip, start showing up to campaign night on time,” Conrad mocked from his barstool. Hank gave Conrad a shove from his stool and laughed.

“Dude, you need to let that go.” Malcolm rolled his eyes at Conrad while he wiped a glass clean. “You know that stress lowers your libido, right?”

“Only you would know that, Malcolm,” Hank chuckled.

“What can I say? I’m a likable guy and I do what I can to make sure that Istaylikable.” Malcolm grinned towards us. We all loved the guy, but he wasn’t the type who shied away fromloving freely. The last time I checked, his body count was almost double mine.

Not that it mattered.

“Don’t worry, brother, I always tip well,” I added, trying to bring the conversation back to safe grounds. I wasn’t shy talking about sex, but talking about it in a very public setting wasn’t my speed.

“Kolb, how’s that new family treatin’ ya? I’ve heard about them through some of the bartenders here, what’s their name again? Sullivan?” Malcolm wondered after taking a drink order from someone standing behind us. How he managed to take orders, make drinks, manage the bar, and hold a conversation with us I’ll never know. He was one of the smartest guys I knew and the way his brain worked always fascinated me.

“The Sinclairs,” I corrected. “They’re fine. They will be more of Hank’s problem than mine. It’s his team that’s overseeing their security for the foreseeable future.” I had assigned Hank and the men he oversaw to be the team to support the Sinclairs over the next several months because I knew he would do a good job.

“Yeah,” Hank scoffed, “Thanks for that. Susan has already emailed me twice trying to convince me they need around the clock security at their home. The campaign hasn’t even officially kicked off and she’s convinced someone is going to try and kidnap her or her daughter. What’s her name again?”

“Magnolia,” I answered. Her name felt like silk on my tongue and just saying it brought back the image of her standing in front of me and how the top of her head hardly reached my chest. How when she called me ‘Jack,’ I felt my core get a little warmer. I blinked a few times and looked at my friends who were all staring at me. “What?”

“Why’d you say her name like that?” Conrad gave me a look.

“Like what?”

“Magnolia,” Hank dropped the pitch of his voice and dragged her name out slowly before laughing hysterically from his stool.

“I didn’t say it like that.” I squinted at him.

“Uh, yeah, dude, you did.” Malcolm chuckled behind the bar, shaking his head at me. His tattooed arms and hands were preoccupied with the glasses he was wiping down before making another drink.

“I just said her name. You asked what her name is, so I told you. That’s it. The Sinclairs are fine people, albeit a little needy, but they’re the largest client we’ve signed so we will do what they ask of us. Can we talk about something else? It’s the weekend and I would rather not have to think about work.” I took a long pull of my beer, finishing my glass and pushing it back towards Malcolm for a refill.

My friends eyed one another before he took the empty glass off the counter and went to refill it. Picking up on my desire to move on, Hank and Conrad turned to talking about whatever basketball game was playing on the TV behind the bar.

I didn’t say her name in any kind of way, did I?

I scrubbed my face with my hand and told myself to shake off the feelings that I could feel creeping in every time I thought about her. The feeling that I hadn’t been able to shake since I nearly ran her over a week ago. Or since I saw her at her house a few days ago.

But she was the daughter of a client, a very important client. And that’s what she would remain as.

Just a client.

I tossedmy keys into the bowl that sat just inside my front door and kicked off my shoes before locking it behind me. My friends and I had hung out at the bar for a few hours until Hank had to leave to go pickup Bailey. Conrad and I left with him and waved goodbye to Malcolm who had the closing shift. As I walked into the kitchen, I saw that the clock read eleven forty-five and I was suddenly hit with the exhaustion from the week.

My work kept me busy and a lot of the time I did a good job of not letting it get to me. In the early days of growing Sweetgrass Security, it was just me and a few men I had been able to hire on. I worked fifteen hour days almost daily and rarely had time for anything else. While I was at the point now that I could work a standard forty hour week, the weight of it all still sat heavily on my chest. I took what I did seriously, not just for my clients, but for the people I hired too. If anything went south in the business, it wouldn’t just be my life that was impacted, it would impact the people I employed as well. They were like family to me and I never wanted to do anything to let them down.

Sometimes the weight of it all almost crushes me.

I blew out a breath and headed upstairs to shower and head to bed. Tomorrow was Saturday, which meant I would get up early and take my board out for the first time all week. Skateboarding was something I loved doing as a kid but rarely had time for now. Maybe I would head to the skatepark tomorrow instead of riding around downtown for once. I haven’t hit up the skatepark in a few weeks and the thought of flying through a halfpipe sounded like just what I needed.

Once the water was running in the shower, I stripped out of my clothes and stepped in. The hot water hit my back as I closed my eyes and tried to let the stress of the week fall off my shoulders. Running a multi-million dollar business had its perks, but it was also a lot of fucking work. Most of my week was spent fielding phone calls, doing personal consults in people’shomes or businesses, or sitting in on meetings with the different department leads. I was always on while I was working, which was part of the reason I valued the time with my friends so much. They let me cut loose, justbe, and turn my brain off for once. More like my brothers than my friends, they were some of the most important people in my life, behind my actual family.

As I showered, I ran through all of the events from the week. My schedule had been thrown off because of the last minute meeting with the Sinclairs, making the second half of my week completely insane. As soon as their name popped up in my head, her face came to the front of my mind. Thin and slender with perfectly appled cheeks, her sage green eyes round and wide. She had soft pink lips and dark, shiny hair that fell down her back. It reminded me of expensive silk and I wanted to know what it felt like to run my fingers through it.

Stop. Stop thinking about her like this.I crushed my eyes shut and tried to push the image of her out of my mind.She’s a client, a very important client. You cannot be thinking about her like this. For the second time in one night, I rubbed my face with my hands and tried to shake off the feelings that were bubbling up in my chest. I couldn’t see her as anything more than a client, it would be unprofessional of me to.

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