The pub was slammed, and Jennie was my only help up front for the night. My part-time employee was sick, and Lotte was alone in the kitchen with Sam, who was serving as her slave for the night—chopping vegetables, seasoning chicken, and washing the multitude of dirty cups that were stacked along the counter.

But despite the noise, the bodies swarming what little available space existed around the dance floor, the moment she walked in the door, I knew immediately. It was after nine, so it was already dark outside—but it was that crazy kind of light that followed her like shadows followed everyone else that drew my attention to the entrance.

Unlike all the other times she walked into my pub, the expression on her face was less than jubilant. And in seeing who followed her, I understood. A man much taller than her followed her, his eyes scanning the crowd, and based on how much they resembled one another with their coloring, I knew this was her twin brother, Jude. And judging by the older couple that followed them, I knew she’d brought the whole gang with her. Which explained her mood.

They took the four seats I’d had Jennie save at the end of the bar, and I nearly laughed at Mila’s face—she looked like she was facing an executioner. Her eyebrows were furrowed, her eyes wide, and she mouthed, “Send Jennie,” to me.

I shut down the disappointment I felt, and sent Jennie to their end to take orders while I filled an order for a hen party happening across the room.

Jennie brushed past me to fill two glasses with lager. “We’re not going to survive this crowd.” Jennie was one of the most confident women I knew—often annoyingly so—so to hear that she was afraid of what the night would bring gave me pause. Tonight’s crowd was so unlike anything we’d previously had, so Jennie wasn’t wrong—we were wholly unprepared.

“We’ll be fine.” I turned around, and accidentally bumped into her.

“Shit!” she exclaimed as cold beer poured down her shirt. She looked at me with death in her eyes. “Ames!” She whipped off her apron to see the damage of her shirt.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, and handed her a rag. “See if Lotte has a shirt you can borrow.”

She held the wet shirt away from her body and muttered a hundred obscenities. “I know you didn’t mean to, but it’s taking everything in my power not to destroy you right now.”

I believed her, especially because the look in her eyes scared me enough that I couldn’t look too long. “Go on. I’ll hold down the fort.”

“No you won’t. It’s mad in here.” She stepped through the door to the kitchen and I took a steadying breath and grabbed the beers she’d been pouring.

“Hey,” I said softly when I got to the end of the bar where Mila and her family were. She smiled instantly and the fog lifted from her eyes. “Two lagers?”

“Mine and his.” Mila pointed at the older man, whose beer I set down first. When I set hers down, I let my finger graze over her pinky before I pulled away.

The woman I assumed to be Mila’s mother wasn’t talking to Mila at all—her attention completely focused on Jude. She seemed pushy in her affection for him, brushing his hair away from his forehead even as he resisted her touch.

“Sorry, what did you order?” I asked Jude and the woman.

Jude was eyeing me, but not in an intimidating way. It was the first time I’d ever met the brother of a girl I was interested in, and I wasn’t exactly sure how to play it, with her parents here. Mila had told me that she’d told Jude a little bit about me, about us, but I was at a disadvantage with knowing how much talk was appropriate at the moment.

“Water for me.”

“Mom, the sangria is really good.” Mila’s eyes flashed over to mine, her smile a little secretive.

“Sangria? In a pub?” Mila’s mum made a face and peered up at the menu above my head. “Just give me a martini, please.”

I nodded and moved down the bar, but not before poking my head into the kitchen. Sam was fending for himself, unloading the dishwasher and drying the wet dishes. I ran a hand over my head, realizing that Jennie was absolutely right. We were in trouble for the night.

When I returned to Mila’s end of the bar with the drinks for Jude and her mum, Mila gripped my wrist, halting me from moving.

“Mom, Dad, Jude, this is Ames.” Her eyes were unsure, worried. I turned my wrist enough so that I could curl my fingers with hers. “Ames, this is Jude—my brother. And George and Emma—my parents.”

“How do you do?” I nodded at each of them.

“Ames manages this bar,” Mila said without taking her eyes off of me.

“Do you own it?” Emma asked. The answer seemed important to her.

“No, my father-in-law does.”

“Father-in-law?” She flicked her gaze to my ring and then sighed. “Mila…”

Mila’s face went red. “Mom, it’s … never mind.” She wouldn’t look at me.

“My wife passed away two years ago,” I butted in, surprising both me and Mila, judging by her expression. “I stayed on with my in-laws after that.” I laughed and looked around. “I’m doing a terrible job of it right now. We’re short-staffed.”

“Where’s Jennie?” Mila asked.

Mila’s father seemed oblivious, eyes focused on the television mounted on the wall above the bar. But Mila’s mother was watching our exchange with a singular focus that made me nervous.

“Ah, well, when she was pouring the lager, I accidentally stepped into her.” I hooked a thumb toward the back of the pub, beyond the kitchen. “She’s getting a shirt from Lotte.”

“Need help?”

“Mila.” Emma’s tone held warning and I wondered at it.

“What, Mom?”

“We came all the way here to visit you.” She raised an eyebrow that I expected was meant for Mila to cower to it.

“I know, Mom. I won’t be long.” She turned to me. “Ames is a friend.”

A friend. Was that what we were? We hadn’t really defined it. But it seemed to be an inadequate word for what we were.

“Ames, need help?”

She said it so earnestly, and under any other circumstance, I would have refused her help in order to keep her on the stool. So I could keep looking at her. But I sensed that she was seeking a reprieve, so I nodded. “Can you take orders?”

She nodded and jumped off the stool so swiftly that it was almost funny how keen she was on escaping. I lifted the bar top and she walked through it. “Where are the aprons?”

With my hand on the small of her back, I led her into the kitchen, toward the utility closet. Once inside, I grabbed a black apron with our logo across it and turned to her. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“One billion percent,” she said as I looped it over her neck.

When her hands were behind her back, tying the strings, I leaned in and dropped a kiss to her lips. It’d been so long since I had the last time—since I’d taken her to the restaurant a handful of days earlier. Seeing her tonight had lifted my soul a little bit, and having her alone for the space of a minute in the back meant I needed to do whatever I could to make the moment last.

She stopped tying to grip my shirt. When I pulled away, she smiled. “Hi,” she whispered.

“I’m glad you’re here.” I tugged on the apron. “And not just for the help.”

“I’m glad I’m here too.” She tugged on my apron, mimicking me. “Sorry, I had to bring them along.”

“Don’t apologize.” I stuffed a pad and a paper into the pocket of her apron. “All you need to do is take orders from the tables and the bar. I’ll fill them. If it gets to be too much, I’ll have you do simple refills—like water and soda.”

“Okay.” She looked determined. “I think I can manage that.”

“I know you can.” I rubbed her chin. “Jennie will be down in a few and she’ll line you out on the register, logging the drink orders. For now, just write them down.”

She nodded and pulled the pad out, pen poised and ready. She looked adorable like that, all official and excited, that I couldn’t help but steal another kiss from her. So I did, making it last long enough that I heard Lotte’s heavy steps trotting down the staircase before I finally pulled away.

For the next three hours, Mila was a workhorse. She took drink order after drink order, smiling and being social the entire time. The patrons seemed to enjoy her presence—which I only took notice of because I couldn’t stop looking at her. I wasn’t checking on her—I didn’t doubt she could do what I’d asked of her. But whenever there was brief lull in the volume of drink orders, I sought her out.

Her parents left after the first couple hours, without even giving her a goodbye. Jude stuck around though, nursing his water. I tried to chat with him a few times, but the visitors to the pub didn’t start reducing until close to midnight, so it was steady enough that I couldn’t chat for longer than a moment.

When Mila stepped behind the bar to refill a soda, I took the opportunity to place my hand at her lower back. Just that slightest bit of physical connection was what I had been craving for hours, but now that I had touched her, I wanted more. “You’re doing great, Mila.”

She bloomed under the praise, her warm cheeks turning the lightest shade of pink. She’d pulled her hair back into a high ponytail, leaving her neck free. I hadn’t seen the curve of her neck often, not with her pile of hair always spilling over her shoulders. Seeing it like this made me want to touch. “I love it.” She beamed. “I like talking to people.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really? That’s a surprise.”

She pressed a hand to my chest to push me playfully, but I captured it and held it still. “These people. They’re just so interesting.” She moved closer and pointed with the hand I wasn’t holding. “The couple in the corner near the fireplace? They’re writers, backpacking through Europe. How fun is that?”

Her eyes were so honest, her smile so welcoming, that I couldn’t help myself—I smiled with her, and brought her hand to my lips, kissing it gently.

The pink in her cheeks deepened and I vowed then to do whatever I could to make that happen again. To be the cause for color to bloom in her face, to be the reason she smiled.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

“Like what?”

“Well, you’re smiling at me.”

I hadn’t realized I’d been smiling at her. It had just formed on my lips effortlessly, thanks to her.

“You say that like I don’t know how to smile.” The hand on her back pulled her closer to me. “Like I haven’t smiled at you before.”

“You have,” she said, her voice soft. “But never like that.”

What a shame, I thought. I should smile at her all the time, for all the ways her presence alone brought light into my life.

“Hey lovebirds,” Jennie said, bumping into us from behind. “We’re not closed yet, and this isn’t a hotel.”

We separated and she moved back to the other side of the bar, depositing drinks on tables with a pep in her step that was solely her.

“What’s going on with you?” Jennie asked, pushing an empty bottle into my hands.

I shook my head and dropped it in the bin with the other glass. “Nothing.”

“You’ve never been a good liar, Ames. Not even an adequate one.”

“Shut up, Jennie,” I said with no heat.

“It’s cute,” she added when I handed her a fresh bottle.

“It’s nothing.”

“No—not nothing. But keep it up. It’s good to see you smiling. Even if it does make me gag a little.” She twirled away, to join Mila out on the floor.

Just after midnight, Mila handed me her apron. “I have to take Jude back to the hotel.”

“Okay.” I glanced at the clock and wrote it down. “Come by tomorrow, I’ll give you your pay and share of the tips.”

She shook her head and framed my face in her hands as she smiled at me. “I don’t want to be paid, Ames. I just wanted to help you.” She brushed a lock of hair away from my forehead, and having her this close, her heartbeat under my skin, was driving me crazy.

“Be right back, Jennie,” I called as I tugged Mila from the front of the bar to the back and past a bewildered Lotte and Sam. When we reached the closet, I yanked the door open and pushed Mila inside as she laughed and laughed.

I propped her up on the desk and pressed my lips to hers, needing to taste her skin again. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I stepped between her legs, pulling her close—the closest I could.

When my lips left hers to press into her hair, she squeezed me tighter. “Embarrassed to kiss me in public, Ames?”

My brow furrowed and I pulled back to make sure she could look directly into my eyes. “Absolutely not. But I am selfish enough to want to kiss you with no one looking on—especially not your brother, when I’ve said hardly three sentences to him.” The tiny closet was dark except for the monitor screen that awoke from the movement. All I saw were the shadows that surrounded her, reflecting off the glint in her eye as she watched me.

She sighed and pressed her forehead to mine. “I don’t want to go back to my hotel.”

“I understand why you have to, Cinderella.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Cinderella? I’m not sure that’s the correct fairy tale.”

“Hm.” I pressed a kiss to the underside of her jaw. “Well, it’s after midnight. And you have to get back.” My lips moved along the line of her jaw, to just behind her earlobe.

Her head fell back, knocking gently against the cupboard behind her. “Mhm. But in this case, it’s more like Romeo and Juliet, isn’t it?”

“Why? Because your mum doesn’t approve?” I didn’t stall my kissing, wanting to explore her whole face, to make this last as long as I could.

“I’m not sure that’s the correct phrasing, but yes—it’s probably more accurate.”

“Yeah, well,” I kissed her lips and pulled away and then kissed them again before I continued, “Romeo and Juliet isn’t a fairy tale, is it?”

I felt rather than saw her swallow hard. She let out a breath just by my ear as I kissed the shell of hers.

“Right.” Her voice was fragile, breathy. “This isn’t a fairy tale either, is it?”

That time I did pause. She wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t know what to say in that moment to assure her. So I kissed her once more, softer, and then helped her down from the desk. “I wish you could stay,” I told her as I took her hand in mine and led her out of the office.

She smiled at me, but it seemed forced, sad. “Me too. I’ll come by tomorrow, I promise.”

“It’s already tomorrow.” I pointed at my watch.

Her smile appeared more genuine then and she let go of my hand as she said, “I’ll see you today.”

“Can’t wait.” And then she walked through the door to the pub and I turned to Lotte and Sam who were staring at me.

“You’ve got it bad, mate.” Sam started laughing and I threw Mila’s apron at him.

I didn’t say anything to that, knowing that Mila’s time here was so short. I wanted to make it special for her, to hold onto her as long as I could, before I’d have to let go.