"Your salt, Lieutenant Corporal Carlyle," I muttered furiously between gritted teeth. "Will that be ALL for you now, SIR?"

He looked into my venomous eyes with his usual confidence, only tempered now by surprise. "Yes, I believe that will do nicely."

"Very well then."

I started to pull away when his voice piped up one last time.

"On second thought..."

I turned back, staring at his beautifully chiseled face. I didn't know if I wanted to punch him or kiss him.

Probably both.

In that order.

"Pepper?"

Taking a second to get myself under control, I reached back out and grabbed a pepper shaker, setting it down calmly.

"That's a good girl," he said before smiling coyly, his hand just barely brushing mine as I stepped away from the table.

I hated to admit it to myself... but I enjoyed his antagonization. It was a break from the usual hum drum routine. He was effortlessly making my blood boil, but I had to concede that his hot body and total f.u.c.king arrogance was kind of exciting for me... what can I say?

p.i.s.sed me off, but it was working for me.

The rest of the night went off without much of a hitch. Dalton left me alone after my brief snap, although I could still feel his eyes on my back or my a.s.s, more accurately.

That's why I was a little confused when I swung back by a little later on to pick up discarded dishes, only to find out that half the table had already left including him.

Before I could focus on that, our serving team was whisked back away from the chamber so that they could have their little post-banquet award show, or whatever they were doing. All I knew was that the lights were dimmed, the stage was lit up, and we were banned from entering until afterwards.

We made use of our hour-and-a-half of free time by cleaning up the kitchen. We went ahead and started closing up everything in the hidden corridors racking up the sodas, cleaning out the tea urns, breaking down refresher tables, cleaning and stacking the small, black, rounded drink trays, cleaning and breaking down our equipment, and generally just willing the night to finish out and let us all go home.

When the banquet was finally over, we were only barely notified. Most of the Marines disappeared without a word, and we were left with a huge room that needed to be disa.s.sembled and cleaned.

Luckily, the closing sidework went quickly. The other servers were apparently just as anxious to get out as I was, and we quickly scrambled around to rip up the tablecloths, help the couple of maintenance guys roll the closed tables backstage, and rack up all the gla.s.ses and silverware.

We still had an hour of polishing gla.s.ses and wiping and rolling silverware to look forward to, but hopefully that would go quickly enough.

"What a night, huh?" One of my coworkers, Beth, quietly asked. I didn't know her all that well, but she was one of the friendlier, more down-to-earth servers on our little freelance brigade.

"Yeah," I nodded, wiping the sweat from my brow. "That was way more trouble than I thought it would be."

"You're telling me. Seriously, he only scheduled ten of us? What the f.u.c.k was Arnold thinking? We've never handled more than ten people apiece, let alone three dozen..."

"He wasn't thinking," I grumbled, glancing around to ensure that our boss wasn't around. "If Arnold's going to keep stacking us with hotel work, he's gonna have to figure out how to either pay us better, or put more people in the trenches..."

"No s.h.i.t," Beth nodded. "Tonight was not worth ten freaking dollars an hour. Twelve, maybe thirteen would have been a bit more acceptable..."

"Preaching to the choir."

We shut up and focused on wiping down soaked, steaming drink trays as Arnold pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen area. With his usual air of controlled dignity, he quickly summoned everyone's attention and clasped his hands together.

"Excellent job, everybody. The event was apparently a hit, and we can look forward to additional jobs here in the future."

Those of us in the room stifled a collective groan. We hated hotel gigs.

"I hope you'll all forgive me for the short staff tonight. I had planned additional servers, but I needed to cut an operations costs deal with hotel management. Since we performed to our typical high standards, they've agreed to allow the morning staff to handle everything from here... an arrangement that will extend to all future events here. You're all dismissed."

A tired cheer rang out from us all. We had never left a gig early, and all of a sudden Arnold went from incompetent villain to heralded hero.

The servers began flocking to notify everyone else still in the banquet chamber. Before I could join them, Arnold threw me a meaningful glance, and I reluctantly dragged myself to his side.

"Clara, we need to talk about your performance for a moment," my boss told me when all others were out of earshot.

"What's the matter?" I tried to sound less exhausted than I was.

"There's the matter of your tardiness tonight," he replied coolly. "That, and I am led to believe that you engaged were in, uh, misplaced banter with one of the guests?"

"I'm... not following, sir."

Was he talking about that a.s.s-hat Marine?

Arnold sighed briefly. "I'm going to be frank with you for a moment. I don't know why you were late earlier, and quite honestly, I don't care. But it pains me when this happens..."

I braced myself.

Am I getting FIRED?

"I knew our crowd was going to be either incredibly polite and restrained, or a bunch of wild animals. Military types tend to go one way or the other. I have it on good authority that you comported yourself with grace tonight, and I wanted to commend you for your professionalism."

"I'm afraid I'm still not following."

What the h.e.l.l is he talking about?

"One of your guests, the, ahem, other tardy party," Arnold clarified. "A few members of his table apologized to me on his behalf, and another server clarified that he had been engaging in hara.s.sment against you. I wanted to tell you that I appreciate your care in representing us under that kind of attention. I hate to put you people in a room with crude animals like him."

"Oh. Why, thank you," I replied awkwardly. I'd already kind of moved past that, and didn't honestly expect that it would wind up in his ear.

"Try to not be late again, Clara," he told me, a sincere smile on his lips. "And thank you. I value your contributions to this team, and I want you to know that you have premiere call for future events. I'll be adding you to the mailing list when I'm in my office tomorrow morning."

The way Arnold handled things was to organize catering or serving events, then blast out an email of the week's openings every Sunday morning. Premiere call was his phrase for the four or five servers who were able to cherry-pick shifts in advance on Sat.u.r.day, before the other forty servers had any clue of the coming work opportunities.

This meant better shift opportunities, and as much work as I could possibly want. It was a distinction for only the most veteran or competent servers, neither of which I thought were particularly applicable in my case.

"I... thank you, sir. I appreciate this."

"Keep up the good work," he nodded kindly. "Anyway, that's all. You're dismissed."

With a quick, respectful nod, I excused myself from his presence. What a weird turn, I thought to myself. But it wasn't all that surprising that he'd taken that att.i.tude. Arnold could be a huge stickler for presentation and rules, but he took care of his crew, and he didn't tolerate mistreatment of his staff.

Still, this freed me up for another hour, and I decided to celebrate the occasion. While walking to my car, I thought of the bar just down the street. I'd been a few times and liked it, even if they had the occasional s.h.i.tty bartender.

With a small grin on my face, I quickly changed into a shirt and hoodie I'd brought along. Figuring the parking was going to be awful, I left for the time being, strolling casually towards the bar with a bounce in my step.

I had no idea that destiny awaited.

40.

Arrogant Brit

Chapter 3.

After ditching the banquet once the food was done, some of my Marine buddies briefly considered strolling to the nearby bar for an after-party. When they all p.u.s.s.ied out, I decided to go on without them, prowling around and scoping out the women. I hadn't been to the local spots in this part of town before, so I was paying closer attention to the details than my usual approach.

That was how I spotted her.

It was after my third or fourth round of pool that I noticed Clara stood at the bar, dispa.s.sionately pushing strands of her hair back behind her ear. Although she had traded in her waistcoat and bowtie for a jacket and graphic tee, it was still unmistakably her.

The world smiles down on me, I thought to myself quietly as I casually sauntered that way. There was an open chair beside her, and I was determined to make use of it. So much so that I glared down some greasy snake of a guy who was just placing his hand on the back, eager to sit down beside the little vixen.

Not today, motherf.u.c.ker, my eyes subtly communicated. Without a word between us, he got the message and backed off, off to chase other tail.

"Lousy service, huh?" I asked Clara, leaning against the counter beside her.

When she glanced up at me, her beautiful eyes were filled with surprise. That didn't last long, as they quickly turned defensive.

"Little bit," she replied coolly.

I nodded towards the bar. "What are you having? It's on me."

"I'm a big girl. I can order for myself."

"I don't doubt it," I shrugged apathetically. "Just being friendly."

"Just like earlier, right?" she muttered, rolling her eyes. When she turned back, she narrowed them, smiling sweetly at me. "Why don't you go be friendly somewhere else?"

I smiled inwardly. The game is on.

"p.r.i.c.kly little firecracker, aren't you?" I chuckled. "Sorry to say, I happen to like my women on the sharp side. I thought you could handle it."

"Is that so." Clara glanced over towards the bartender again, growing visibly frustrated. When he clearly wasn't noticing her, she started looking around choosing an escape route.

"Your name was Clara, right?"

The server sighed. "So you can remember nametags, but you can't pick up obvious social cues. Why don't you get lost? I'm way too tired to deal with your s.h.i.t right now."

"My s.h.i.t, love?"

"Don't call me love. I'm not your love."

"It's an English thing, love," I grinned c.o.c.kily. "Can't help it. You have your Sir and your Madam, and I have my guv'nah and my love."

Clara gave an exasperated sigh. "This is just my night. One long, miserable banquet, I get some good news and I get to leave early... and now I've got this walking f.u.c.king stereotype, pulling from the s.h.i.ttiest book of pick-up lines in print..."

I made eye contact with the bartender, flashing him a look with my eyes. Between that and realizing the girl beside me had been here for possibly ages, he immediately flew over.

"Whiskey neat, Jameson," I commanded. "And for the lady... long island iced tea."

"Coming right up."

Clara glanced up at me with mild amus.e.m.e.nt. "How'd you know I liked long island iced teas?"

"Lucky guess," I chuckled, withdrawing my credit card. I handed it to the bartender between two fingers, keeping my eyes on Clara.

"And your ID, miss?"

He took it, briefly scanning the card with his eyes before returning it to her.

"Open tab?"

"Of course."

As soon as he was out of earshot, I chuckled and shook my head at her. "He's a terrible bartender. That's the fakest card I've seen in a while."

"Excuse me?" Clara muttered.

"Your ID card, it's a fake. You're definitely not twenty-one years old. h.e.l.l, I don't honestly think you're a day over nineteen."

"Flattering, but no, the card's real."

I reached out the same two fingers, wiggling them briefly. "Show me."

With a disgruntled sigh, Clara handed me her ID card. Of course, I didn't really think it was a forgery. I just wanted more information on her. She was distracted, so I figured I could get away with the request.