Page 49 of French 75
“No, I don’t.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I pout. “Well, I mean,yes. I do have to talk to him, but I’m not nervous.”
I’m totally not. I swear. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die’ kind of shit. I mean, I’m asking Davis if he’d maybe—potentially—be willing to consider funding the shelter’s prom. I already feel like shit for not visiting these last few weeks. The least I can do now is not chicken out of asking the only rich person I know for support.
Okay, that’s a lie. Somehow, I know a lot of rich people, but I’m not asking the Hill brothers for money. I’m sure they’d give it to me, seeing as their dad is apparently the king of the filthy rich, but it’s a matter of pride. Davis, on the other hand, is a businessman. I’ve come up with a whole speech for him about how donating time and resources to the shelter could boost the club’s image. I even had Elton help.
Okay, maybe Max was right, I do have to pee.
“This happened last time,” Knox points out, throwing his husband an evil glare as he colors in his tattoos with a pink sharpie. “I thought he had an entire energy drink with how he was bouncing off the walls.”
“I’m notbouncing off the walls,” I growl. Ironically, it’s the moment Cassius has to settle a hand on my shaking knee. I groan and smack my hands against my face. “He’s probably busy, right? I should come back later?”
“He’s not busy,” Max says, chewing loudly on a bag of chips, spilling them everywhere and causing Butch to throw him a scathing look. “He was upstairs playing Sudoku the last I checked. He didn’t want any pie.”
Butch narrows his eyes at him. “What are you doing checking on him?”
To this, Max flushes and, in a moment of sheer panic, starts choking on his chips. It takes both RhysandKnox almost a minute of smacking his back to get the chips dislodged and they land in a soggy mess on Elton’s pants. “This isArmani!”
“Don’t worry,” Knox tells Max when his face starts to heat. “I’ll fuck the snob out of him later.”
“Rhys, do you think I should talk to him?” I ask. When he continues to stare at his phone, I frown. “Rhys!”
He lifts his head in a daze, but there’s a sly smirk on his lips. “Sorry, Everest is on his way.”
“Does nobody care that Everest isn’t twenty-one? You know that’s weird, right?” Max asks, looking around at all of us. “I mean,technically, isn’t it illegal to?—”
“I’ll stop you right there, Bambi,” Butch growls, staring him down. “You’ll want to watch what you say next.”
Cassius rolls his eyes and tips my chin toward him, which gathers my full attention, even though I’m curious as hell if Butch is about to fight Max. “Do you need me to come with you?”
I chew on my bottom lip, mesmerized by the sheer devotion in his eyes. I know he means it. He’ll join me without a second thought if I ask him too, but I feel bad. He’s already so tired from his late night at the gym. I told him he should have stayed home and rested, that I’d fill him in on the meeting, but he insisted on coming with me. What he needs is to chill, not shit himself in front of Davis.
Well, I thinkImight be the only one who might do that. Elton is too chill to get nervous, Rhys and Knox don’t give a damn, Butch is his bodyguard, and even Max doesn’t seem terrified of our boss.
Okay, ifMaxcan talk to him, so can I.
I hop off Cassius’s lap and square my shoulders. Holding my chin up high, I declare to the room loudly that I’ll be right back. Just like the loving family they are, they all erupt into cheers, and I pretend that I can’t hear the sarcasm in it as I go up the stairs. I march straight to Davis’s office and, for some wild reason, don’t even knock as I walk inside.
I haven’t been in his office very often, since he’ll normally come down to the bar to speak to Rhys and me. It’s…nice? Cozy, I suppose. If you’re a robot, that is. A soulless robot with a distaste for color schemes. Everything is sleek and black andcold. The only signs of life in this office come from the glass window that faces the center of the club. I look back quickly to see everyone is going about their business. Rhys is making out with Everest by the door, Butch, for some reason, is holding Max by the collar of his shirt, Knox is helping Elton clean his suit, and Cassius is staring up like he can see me too.
“Why are you back?” Davis groans, his back hunched over and his face down as he fills in his Sudoku. “I told you already. I don’t want fucking pie.”
I quirk an eyebrow in confusion and clear my throat. “Um, hi, boss.”
His head snaps up comedically andoh my fucking God. Is Davis…blushing? I don’t have time to confirm my suspicions before he’s schooling his features to his natural‘it smells like shit’expression. “Skylar. What do you want?”
He’s never rude, per se, just blunt. Straightforward. It intimidates the fuck out of me. Knox can be that way, Cassius to a certain extent, but there’s something about Davis’s demeanor that makes me think he’s secretly some sort of highly-trained government assassin posing as a club owner to take down the Irish mafia.
Maybe I’ve been watching too much television.
“Skylar, I really am very busy,” he drones, and how is it possible to both quirk an eyebrow but stay motionless at the same time? “What is it?”
“Oh, so, yeah…” I say lamely, tip-toeing my way into the office. “So, you’re going to find this hilarious.”
He cocks his head. “Hilarious.”
“Okay, maybe not hilarious.” I start picking at my cuticles. “Well, it’s actually not funny at all. See, Cass and I volunteer at this shelter for at-risk youths. It’s a cool spot. Poor, though. Not like poor quality, but, like, they have no money because people don’t care about runaway kids. Which is a total problem, by the way. Personally, I believe?—”
“Skylar. Your point?”
