Business as Usual (Off The Subject) (7 page)

I climb out of bed, my erection demanding attention. It pisses me off that I’m hard for that bitch, but she knows what to do with that body of hers and my dick remembers every last trick. Thank God I told her
no
the last time I saw her. Otherwise, I have no doubt I’d be sitting in a jail cell right now, awaiting my trial.

I grab a pair of jeans off the floor and pick up a T-shirt, sniffing it before I pull it over my head. The beauty of this janitorial job is that I don’t have to wear a uniform. The office building I clean is empty, so as long as I’m wearing clean clothes—questionable at the moment—my boss doesn’t care if I show up in jeans and a T-shirt.

I slide my feet into my shoes and grab my phone and keys off the nightstand. If it were a school day, I’d make coffee, but there’s an industrial-sized machine in the kitchen at the office. And there will be plenty of refills to get me through the day.

Hillsdale isn’t a big town, nor is it affluent, which is why Southern University is a strange fit. One of the two local manufacturing plants has laid off half its work force and, the way things are going, it will soon close its doors. The town’s hurting bad and my father’s heating and cooling business is hurting right along with it. Before my arrest, Dad wanted to leave the business, Masterson H&C, to Kyle and me, but now he’s planning on saving the whole thing for Kyle. I wonder what will be left of it by the time my little brother is ready.

Despite the fact that I hate waking up at o-dark-thirty to go to work on Saturday mornings, once I get there, I usually enjoy it. With no one else around, I can plug in my headphones and listen to music while I clean. And I carry my backpack around, so I can study in between tasks. If I didn’t have my notes with me, I’d go insane. Busy work isn’t enough to keep my brain occupied for eight hours. I have no idea how my friend Bobby can stand working on the assembly line at the plant. He was one of the lucky employees who kept his job. Although the term lucky is relative, I guess.

I unlock the front door and scan my ID card to get into the building. The door lock pops and I close myself inside, ready for my eight hours away from the world. Coffee is first on my list, and then I’ll start cleaning.

The day goes by quickly and I’m actually feeling better about my history exam by the time I head back to my apartment, but I’ve spent more time than I care to admit thinking about Alexa, the girl from the play. She caught my attention the moment she walked into the bar last night, but when she started to tell me about her work with the charity, I became seriously intrigued.

Alexa was so animated as she spoke about her plans for the expanded summer program, which is obviously much more than a resume booster for her, and several things struck me as I stopped what I was doing to watch her. One, she was in charge of the program, as bizarre as that seemed given the fact she looked all of nineteen or twenty. Two, if I had two functioning brain cells left I would have carded her before taking her drink order. And three, all I could think about were her lips and what it would be like to kiss her.

And that alone is reason for me to worry about my sanity. I’ve given up women, especially Southern women, and even though she didn’t admit to being a college student, something tells me that Alexa is most definitely a Southern woman.

Still, her idea is incredible and I can’t help but think about how much I would have loved to attend something like that when I was Kyle’s age. Nevertheless, there’s no way she can raise that many thousands of dollars, not to offer the courses she has planned while still making it worthwhile for the instructors. And I find myself disappointed, not only for my brother but also for Alexa.

By the time I get off work, I have three hours before I have to be at the bar, and I need a nap. Getting little over three hours of sleep on Friday nights is a killer, but I can do this for three more months. I know I can. All I have to do is keep my eye on the prize: my diploma.

Both of my roommates are sitting on the sofa playing video games when I walk in the front door. I head into the kitchen and grab a bag of chips from the cabinet, stuffing a handful in my mouth. I grab a bottle of water out of the fridge to wash them down.

“You know that game’s like ten years old,” I say.

“Don’t be a hater…” Austin says, his eyes glued to the screen.

“…just because we kick your ass every time,” Noah finishes.

“Suit yourself if you want to be losers for the rest of your life,” I mumble on the way to my room. They know I don’t mean it, mostly. My roommates are socially awkward and I think they like it that way. In the entire year I dated Sabrina, she only came to my apartment once. She met Austin and Noah and stared at them with a blank expression on her face. They reddened under her intense scrutiny, and if I’d had any sense at all, I would have realized I did not want to be caught in the Sabrina Richmond’s gravitational pull. But I had no sense and my dick led me down a path to ruin.
What an idiot
. I sigh as I kick off my shoes and lie down on my bed. Live and learn, they say. No more Southern University girls, no matter how beautiful or altruistic.

I close my eyes and sleep isn’t far behind, given my perpetual state of exhaustion. I feel like I’ve only just gone under when I hear Austin calling my name. “Ben!”

I rouse, lifting my head. “
What
? I’m not settling another bet between you and Noah over whether the original Star Trek or Star Trek: The Next Generation is better. Now leave me the fuck alone.”

“Then I guess you don’t care that your shift at the bar started ten minutes ago.”

“
Fuck
!” I jump out of bed, disoriented. The bar. I need my black T-shirt and jeans.

“You’re welcome,” Austin calls out, his voice sarcastic, and I feel like an asshole.

Not
feel
like an asshole. I am one. I know this. I’ve carried a fucking chip on my shoulder since that night in late November when the police showed up my apartment. I was hosting a party of about thirty people to celebrate finally cutting the cord with Sabrina. Everyone who knew her knew she was toxic, everyone but me. So when the police knocked on my door, I figured a neighbor must have called in a noise complaint. Imagine my surprise when I discovered they were there to arrest me on rape and sodomy charges.

My life has been a nightmare ever since. I was in too much shock to put up much of an argument when they cuffed my hands behind my back and read me my Miranda rights. The horrified and accusatory stares of my so-called friends will forever stick in my memory. The crowd parted to get a glimpse of the golden boy Ben Masterson, getting arrested for rape.

The police shoved me into the back of a police car, then hauled me down to the station and locked me in a cell. My one phone call was to my father, who hung up on me before saying, “I raised you better than that.”

I sat in a jail cell for two days before I was hauled to an arraignment hearing, where I was given a court-appointed attorney. I had no idea who I was even accused of raping until that moment.

Sabrina.

She’d shown up on my doorstep the night before the party, begging me to take her back. I sent her on her way, but not before she slapped me, digging her nails into my cheek. The police loved that piece of incriminating evidence and made sure to take plenty of photos of my face. It was the word of a local boy who went to a snobby school against Sabrina Richmond and her banking mogul father, Robert Richmond. Who were they going to believe?

Sabrina thought she was smart, but she forgot one key piece of evidence in a rape case: DNA. I hadn’t had sex with Sabrina in over a week so there was no way my DNA would be in the semen they collected from her as evidence. Sabrina confessed it belonged to some guy she’d picked up at Belvedere’s bar, a place we used to hang out. The charges were completely dropped, but my father refused to post bail, so I ended up spending over a week in jail. By the time I was released, it didn’t matter that I was innocent. My face had been plastered all over the media. My father lost business because his son was a rapist. I lost my scholarship and was nearly expelled. All because of a selfish, coldhearted bitch.

Carry a chip on my shoulder? Why the fuck wouldn’t I? My good friends stuck with me. They all knew what Sabrina was like. They’d seen how controlling she was of my free time. My roommates heard the middle-of-the-night,
paranoid I was with another girl
phone calls I fielded from her. My few true friends never doubted me. But the people who only knew me in passing judged. Whispers and snickers followed my every movement those first few weeks. I’d never felt so ostracized in my life. Cut off from my family and all but a handful of friends, everything I had had been stripped away.

Three more months. Just three more fucking months and I’m out of this living hell.

I really need a shower but I’m not sure I can spare the five minutes to take one. Then I think about all the tips I stand to lose if I don’t impress the female customers. After what has to be the quickest shower in the world, I throw on my clothes and jam my feet into my shoes.

Austin is back on the sofa with Noah. Neither of them look up at me, which isn’t uncommon when they are absorbed in a video game, but the chill in the air tells me it’s for a different reason.

I stop at the front door, my hand on the knob. “I’ve been a real dick over the last few months, and you guys have born the brunt of it. I’m sorry.” My voice cracks and both of my roommates shift their gaze to me. “Only a handful of people have stuck with me through this shit, and you two are in that group. You deserve better from me.”

Noah picks up a pillow and throws it at my head. “Yeah, yeah. We love you too. Get out of here already.”

I laugh and then sprint out the door, down the steps, and across the parking lot. My apartment is about a block behind the bar, so I never drive my car. I realize belatedly that my hair is still sopping wet and I forgot a coat, but it’s too late to turn back. It’s going to be cold as a son-of-a-bitch when I go home in the wee hours of the morning.

I slip in through the back door and immediately see Uncle Tony manning the bar.

“Ben.” he growls. “Where the hell have you been?” My father’s brother might be my boss, but it doesn’t get me a pass in the slacker department. I know Uncle Tony took a risk when he hired me after my arrest. He lost a few of his older, more regular customers, and my father is giving him the cold shoulder, but my uncle insists we’re blood and blood sticks together. Someone needs to tell my father that.

“Sorry, Uncle Tony.”

He reaches up and rubs my head. “You’re digging an early grave, Benjamin, running around with all these part-time jobs. Is it worth it?”

I’ve asked myself the same thing every fucking day since I started this punishing schedule in December, but I’m too stubborn to give up. “I sure as hell hope so.”

“You can be thankful that you’re such a hit with the young females of Hillsdale. Your presence has increased our revenue by forty percent and makes up for the idiots who left me for O’Malley’s after I hired you.”

I start checking the glasses and supplies, making sure we’re ready for the night. “I’d like to think it’s my charming personality and not just my looks that appeals to the ladies.”

“More like your notoriety,” he grumbles, heading to the backroom.

My smile falls. Surely, he can’t be serious.

I don’t have time to give it much thought. I’m thirty minutes late, and Tony is going to dock my pay, uncle or not. I need to pour on the charm so that my tips make up for it. The early evening is slow, but I expect business to pick up between eight and nine. Brittany, my co-bartender for the night, shows up an hour after I arrive.

“Hey there, sexy,” she purrs as she struts behind the bar.

“Hey, yourself.”

Brittany is in her late twenties, a single mother of two toddlers, but you’d never guess it to look at her. She’s got dark brown hair with a streak of blue, a nose ring, big tits that catch any guy’s attention—particularly in the one-size-too-small T-shirt she wears to work—and a tramp stamp of a heart that’s always visible because of her aforementioned T-shirt. She has a job as a nurse’s aide at the local old folks home during the week, but as she’s admitted on more than one occasion, it doesn’t pay shit. The money she makes in one night here supplements her income by twenty percent.

I like working with Brittany. She doesn’t hold back and always tells it like it is. She doesn’t play mind games like the majority of the women I’ve met in my twenty-one years of living, my own mother included. Brittany and I have worked out an arrangement that suits both of us most nights. Brittany waits on the guys and I get the girls. While I use my charm and charisma to rake in extra tips, Brittany uses her pure sex appeal.

“There’s a Grizzlies game tonight,” Brittany says with a grin. “Tips should be good.” She definitely has the advantage in a bar that caters to sports. But I choose to see it as more of a challenge.

I hold my hands out at my sides. “You think you can get more tips than me tonight?”

Her eyebrows lift and she gives me a smirk. “
Think
? I know so, little boy.”

“Then let’s bet on it. Loser closes on their own tonight.”

She releases a throaty laugh. “You got a deal. I hope you’re ready to stay late.”

I shake my head with a grin. “We’ll just see about that.”

The crowd begins to pick up and Brittany soon has the advantage—there’s a good two-to-one ratio of men to women tonight. Thankfully, a group of ten women comes in at around nine-thirty. It doesn’t take long for me to figure out that their night out is a bachelorette party. I flash a mischievous grin at Brittany, who’s realized the same thing.

She curls her fingers and growls. “Go get ’em, tiger.”

I rarely venture out from behind the bar. Brittany’s more prone to do it, especially when there’s a large group of guys watching a game. They like that she gives them personal attention and tend to show their appreciation with big tips. I usually do just fine behind the bar, but when a group of half-drunk women come in looking for a good time, I know when to leave my comfort zone. Especially if I want a shot at winning this bet.