Chapter 36
Kellan
“The Cottages, huh?”
I glanced up from my menu, squinting my eyes in the dingy light of The Half Shell, the raw bar just down the block from my still rented room. The waitress was pretty, young and oozed the kind of sensuality you often only saw on a photo shoot—for porn, that is.
“Pardon?” I asked.
She waved her open waitress pad toward my T-shirt. “I see you’re staying at The Cottages,” she reiterated. Her voice was soft and husky, to match her smoky brown eyes.
I followed her pad down to the logo on my crisp new T-shirt. I’d run out of clean clothes and had resorted to picking up a few odds and ends in the hotel gift shop, a soft, salmon colored souvenir T-shirt being one of them. I could still feel the collar, stiff and new, poking into my neck.
“Oh, yeah,” I blushed, feeling overdressed in the local raw bar. “I’m staying there until I can find something more permanent.”
“Nice places,” she said, leaning a narrow hip against my table for two. “They’ve got a great view.”
“You’ve stayed there?” I asked, figuring her for a local, born and bred like Carla. I mean, why else would someone work at the Half Shell Raw Bar in Siesta Key?
She winked saucily and leaned in a little closer, her breasts small and perky beneath her faded blue Half Shell T-shirt. “Only with very special customers,” she said, the implication as clear as the leer on her pretty, young face.
I chuckled and leaned back, clinging to my menu as if for shelter. “Oh?” I said, like a clueless old grandfather suddenly in on the joke. “Oh!”
She laughed heartily and said, “I like it when you blush. Your face matches the color of your T-shirt.” I had nothing to say after that, nor did she, apparently. Straightening up slightly, she announced, “I’m Penelope, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. Can I take your drink order?”
“Got any Bloody Mary’s back there?” I asked, nodding toward the half-empty bar.
She nodded. “You’re in luck. They’re part of our happy hour special.”
She turned without another word, scribbling something on her notepad and flashing me a glance at her small, ripe derriere—barely hidden behind white denim short-shorts—and drifted away to tap in my order at a computer terminal at the nearest waitress station.
I sighed for days gone by and glanced at the menu. It had a surprisingly vast array of offerings for a local oyster shack, from bacon wrapped scallops and smoked fish dip to raw oysters to steamed clams and more. Amazingly, after over two weeks in town, it was my first foray into the dining options of tiny Siesta Key, Florida.
Ever since Carla and I had arrived in town, under separate cover and in the middle of the night, we’d had our boots on the ground struggling to keep vigil over her stepfather and provide much-needed support for her mother. At first, that had meant endless nights at the hospital, or cleaning out her mother’s house or even paying her bills.
Then, once Roy was transferred out of ICU with a better prognosis, it had meant taking over his charter fishing business and getting the house ready for his inevitable return. Even now, running Roy’s boat out once a day and getting in late afternoon or early evening, it left little time for luxuries like dates or dining out.
But tonight, with Carla in South Beach and a late client call for the next day’s boat trip, I felt restless—and worse—lonely, in my tiny rented cottage by the sea. I’d seen the blinking neon road sign for the Half Shell a dozen or more times driving home after a long day at the marina, and had finally decided it was close enough to my rented cottage to walk to.
Penelope returned, bearing a Bloody Mary in each hand. “Are you joining me?” I flirted out of habit, not really meaning me.
“I wish!” she gushed. “No, it’s happy hour—two for one.”
“Oh goodness,” I murmured as she set the drinks down in oversized plastic Half Shell cups. “I’ll never be able to drink both of those.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, you’re a big boy. I’m sure you’ll find a way.”
Her tone was both mocking and encouraging, both teasing and suggestive, and I felt a small ripple in the pit of my stomach. Not only had Carla and I been too busy to go out on “dates” while caring for her ailing parents in Siesta Key, but we’d been too busy to do much of anything else, either—including sleeping together.
Where we’d often gone twice a night back in South Beach, now we were lucky to go twice a week, and even then I was sore and sunburned from a day at sea and Carla was distracted and depressed about her family, making our hot times lukewarm at best.
I hadn’t thought about it much until this very moment, sitting in a dingy raw bar while a barely legal temptress flirted with me via Bloody Marys. “Thought any more about dinner,” she purred, leaning her hip dangerously close to my drinking hand.
I could feel the heat wash off of her in waves, dangerous and throbbing and available. I could just as easily picture a night in which I downed the two drinks, then two more, and felt brave—and reckless—enough to walk Penelope back to my place for a night of what I hadn’t been getting from Carla.
She seemed to sense it and, as I considered the open menu on my table for two, leaned over provocatively to point at items she thought I might like. She smelled like nicotine and girly perfume, bubble gum and sex and it was so intoxicating I immediately sat up and grinned.
“It all sounds great,” I said, closing my menu definitively and forcing her to stand, waitress pad at the ready. “But I think I’ll just grab a fried shrimp basket—to go.”
“Oh?” she teased, putting her pad away and crossing her hands over her chest. “You don’t like the service here?”
Our eyes met and I held the suggestive glance far too long. “I think I like it a little too much,” I said, reaching for my wallet and handing her enough cash for the drinks and dinner. “That’s why I better be a good boy and scoot on home before I do something I’ll regret.”
She winked and, ignoring the rejection, leaned even closer. “I could always call off early and make a special ‘to go’ delivery to your cottage?”
I blushed and gushed, “Oh, gosh, no. I’ll just sip my drinks until it’s ready. But thanks anyway.”
At last, the words seemed to sink in and Penelope turned, abruptly, keying in the order and then promptly disappearing into the kitchen. I sipped my drinks, far too strong and spicy, until a busboy delivered a white plastic “Thank You” bag bearing my dinner order.
“Penelope asked me to bring you this,” he said, almost bashfully, as if she’d told him the whole, sordid tale. “She hopes you have a great night.”
I sighed, almost relieved. “I will now,” I muttered to myself, leaving the change on the table and making an abrupt departure before I could say—or do—anything I’d regret.