Page 27 of The Love You Fight For
Slowly and steadily, I take the steps up to what Macon has dubbed “The Outpost Penthouse.” Once the mattress is on its side on the landing, I watch Sam swing the door open and maneuver her end of the mattress through the doorframe.
“Okay,” she calls from inside the apartment, popping her head out around the doorframe to look at me. “You can push it in.”
I smirk at the innuendo, and she glowers, so I give the mattress a hard shove. She yelps and jumps backward.
“Asshole!” she shouts, and I’m biting back laughter as I shove the mattress the rest of the way into the apartment.
I don’t look at her. I just slide the mattress all the way down the hallway, then prop it on one of the walls in the bedroom. I note a few LV suitcases and garment bags as I walk out, and I realize she’s actually going through with this. I can’t help but chuckle.
Sam’s so fucking stubborn. I knew my comment about her family would piss her off, but this is next-level spiteful. She’s going to hate it here, but she’ll suffer through it just to make a point.
When I step back into the living room, Sam is checking her nails, and I bark out a laugh.
“Break a nail, princess?”
She looks up from inspecting her hand, smiles sweetly with her blood-red lips, then slowly brandishes her middle finger in my direction, displaying a pristinely manicured nail. Even the vulgar gesture is classy when she does it.
She raises a brow, and I lock my eyes with hers. I smirk, drop my gaze down to her middle finger, then bring it to her lips before finally looking back at her face.
“Thank goodness,” I say playfully, and she rolls her eyes and looks away.
Then I notice the couch, end table, and television already set up in the living room.
“You got a couch up here?”
Lennon grins at my surprise. “It’s Ikea, so it was in boxes. But the boxes were heavy,andwe put it together.” She puts her hands on her hips. “See? We could have done the mattress. I just got a cramp in my leg, and it messed up our momentum. And then we started laughing...”
I shake my head.
“I would never doubt what you ladies are capable of,” I say honestly, then I turn my head to Sam. “But it’s not beneath you to ask for help when you need it.”
Sam sighs dramatically and turns her back to me.
“You may leave now,” she says.
Lennon stifles a laugh, and I narrow my eyes at her before stalking slowly up to Sam. I feel her stiffen when I brush my chest against her back, but she doesn’t flinch. When I lower my mouth to her ear, I think she even stops breathing.
“I’m right downstairs if you need me, princess.” I keep my voice low. I wait a breath, just long enough that my pause is noticeable, then I straighten and make my way to the door. “See you later, Lennon. Try to stay out of trouble.”
Lennon grins and tells me thank you for helping with the mattress, and I step out onto the landing. Just before I pull the door shut behind me, I hear Sam shout.
“I won’t need you!”
I close the door without a response, but the smile I’m sporting carries me all through my bar shift.
EIGHT
The lights flickerfor the third time in an hour.
I check the clock. It’s only midnight, but the storm outside is getting pretty bad. So bad that I’m surprised more people haven’t fucked off to their own homes already. I even changed the bar televisions to the weather channel to stay informed. The high winds mean high potential for downed trees, and it’s pouring, so some of the streets in town are probably already starting to flood.
The longer I watch the radar, the closer I come to kicking everyone out and closing early. A storm like this is dangerous at the best of times, but when you’ve got a bar full of drunk people who need to get home? I don’t want that on my conscience.
I tell Paul, the other bartender working tonight, my decision, and we start closing out tabs without an announcement, handing people back their cards when we see them and doing the closing routine as we go. I’ve just locked up the register when the lights flicker for a fourth time. Then a fifth.
Then they go out completely.
Everyone yelps, some people start to laugh, and there’s a smattering of applause when the emergency lights come on, but after thirty seconds, I realize something must be wrong with the backup generator because the rest of the lights in the bar stay dark.
