Andria
She was admiring his muscles. Again.
Annoyed at her easily distracted brain, Andria focused on actually doing her job. She ran out to the tables, collecting drink orders from Rob and Adam, some of her regulars. They were older men, retired, she believed. Harmless and always ready with a good one-liner.
“Finally did yourself a favor and hired yourself some eye-candy did you?”
“Rob!” she hissed, glaring at him and Adam as they laughed at her expense. “You know I would never hire someone just for their looks.”
“Of course not, Andria. Of course not.”
“I am a respectable…whatever title it is I hold here, thank you very much.”
She wasn’t a manager, not technically at least, though she was paid decently enough and treated like one. Mr. Logan was a mostly hands-off owner, and she was okay with that. It allowed her to run the place the way she liked. Efficiently.
Adam shook his head. “You still don’t have a title?”
“Do I really strike you as the type in need of titles and accolades, Adam?”
He reached up and removed his hat, scratching as his long ponytail. “No. I suppose not.”
“I’m all about following proper protocol when hiring someone.”
Rob snickered. “Right. Is that why he just showed up out of nowhere? We didn’t even know you were hiring. I would have given you a resume! I’m so much more qualified than he is.”
Andria didn’t hold back her laughter. “Just because you’ve taste-tested all of our beers multiple times does not make you qualified to work here.”
He looked down, pretending to be hurt. “No, but the employee discount would have been nice.”
They all shared a laugh. Cowl came clomping back up the stairs again, looking for another load of boxes to take down. He paused at the top, noticing her staring his way. He smiled, that easy grin of his that showed just enough of his white teeth to make her legs quiver, and then put his head down and went back to work, arms straining to lift the full boxes.
How was it that someone she’d just met the day before could have such an effect on her? She’d been more open with him than just about anyone in her life in recent memory. After what had happened she’d closed herself away from the world and most of her friends, determined to hide from everything, hoping it would just blow over. But as the situation grew bigger, she’d found it necessary to cut herself off completely.
Then Cowl had come along.
She got drinks and took them back to the few occupied tables before returning to the bar. It was looking to be another slow night. No problems there; maybe she could even get some schoolwork done. She doubted Cowl would mind either. He seemed ready and willing to do anything that helped her out. A model employee.
Andria purposely ignored the rather obvious signs it had little to do with him caring about his job or not, and more about him wanting to make her life better. She had to ignore them. Letting herself dwell on them would be a mistake. School would be done at the end of this year, finally. She would have her masters, and she could leave Barton City behind, moving to the coast like she’d always dreamt about.
Somewhere big, where she would be unknown, and nobody would recognize her face. Andria longed for such anonymity. Barton City sounded like a big place, but it really wasn’t. Especially after your name gets into the news. Privacy was a thing of the past to Andria, on so many levels. But once she graduated, she could leave and go somewhere else. A place far, far away.
Which meant saying no to fantasies of Cowl being interested in her, which she knew wasn’t the case. After all, how could he be? She was short, squat, and though she had large boobs, she had no hips whatsoever. Andria couldn’t even call herself curvy with a straight face. No guy wanted that. Especially not one like Cowl, who could have any woman he chose. He was just being nice to her, nothing more. A possible genuine good guy.
In another world she might allow herself to fantasize over the possibility. Who wouldn’t? Images of him pushing her down onto the bed, his massive arms pushing into the bed on either side of her as he lowered his mouth to her. It was all perfectly hot and enjoyable to think about. Even now she could feel her body reacting to the idea, telling her it sounded great.
But it was never going to happen. Things like that didn’t happen to Andria Chalmers. Only bad things happened to her.
She pulled her hair from its failing ponytail, giving it a shake and then whisking it back up behind her head, tying it back into place with a fresh hair elastic from around her wrist. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Cowl looking at her, a blank stare on his face.
“Something wrong?” she asked, hands working methodically to reform the ponytail.
It took him a while to reply, and when he did, his words were dazed, as if he hadn’t really heard her. “Wrong? No. Nothing’s wrong.”
“Just fascinated by the process of how a ponytail is created?”
Cowl blinked, her ribbing getting through whatever fog had clouded his brain there momentarily. His eyes grew slightly hooded, the corner of his mouth turning up. “Something like that,” he said cryptically, winking boldly before returning to sweeping the floor in front of the bar.
Andria was glad he didn’t do anything more. She was almost forced to hold onto the bar as her knees failed to obey her commands to stay stiff.
It wasn’t fair! One look at her and she turned to putty in his hands, but Cowl seemed cool and composed any time she was around. How was she supposed to work in a situation like this? Andria thought about letting him go, but realized that would just be hypocritical of her.
Was she that weak that she couldn’t keep herself together?