Protect Me (4 page)

Lining up the shot glasses she poured each one to the rim.

“So did you have time to change” Abbi said looking sarcastically at Dirty Deuce before glancing at the others.

“Yeah tough girl, did you? Took you long enough” Deuce reached for the shot glass.

“Oh no you don’t” Abbi stopped his hand from picking up the small glass.

With perfect timing the speakers started pounding a song about sexual fires as she reached for her back pocket, pulling out a BIC lighter she lit the tops of each shot glass. He gave her a look that showed a bit more respect that when she had left the first time. Spreading out the shots she clanked glasses with the men before tapping it to the table top and shooting it back. Trying as hard as she could to not grimace, she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. Damn she forgot how bad that shit burned going down. That one was going to hurt in a few minutes.

“Holy hell girl, you trying to kill us all?” Deuce said slamming his glass back down to the table “I’ll stick wit dis” pointing towards the vodka bottle with a grin.

“I guess those big boy pants weren’t quite big enough.” She said smiling as she removed the empty shot glasses; eyeing the other men still choking theirs down.

Over the next two hours she made a routine of refilling drinks and pouring shots. Handing out napkins and placing the small trays of hors d'oeuvres out onto the table. Simple enough it seemed. And it would be if she didn’t find herself constantly trying to avoid making eye contact with those dark eyes of the body guard again.

“You ah-ight’ girl. Keep the change.” Deuce said while sliding quite a few hundred dollar bills towards the end of the table.

That was all the confidence she needed, this wasn’t out of her league. Hell she was just getting warmed up. As she made her way back towards the velvet rope her hand met another on the clasp. Surely it wasn’t the liquor she drank that was causing the electricity to pulse through her body. She had felt it before when he placed his hand on her back. Looking up she snatched her hand away. How could someone she had never met before make her feel like that.  She looked into his dark eyes, and the warmth spread down into her stomach. His eyes looking back at her like he was the hunter and she was the prey.

“Hi, I’m Ryan.” Extending his hand.

“Um, hi. I’m Abbi.” Placing her hand in his, she could feel the fire again as his sultry southern accent rang through her ears. Coursing through her body. “Thanks for the help.” Taking back her hand she could feel her head spin. That shot had definitely not been a good idea. Then it happened, her two left feet attempting to move at the same time causing her to fall forward, she could see the ground moving towards her face faster than she would have liked.
Oh just kill me now!
She felt the glasses in her hand begin falling while throwing her other out in an attempt to catch herself. In slow motion the glasses went crashing to the floor, left over ice flying out into the crowd as a few patrons gasped and jumped out of the way avoiding the shrapnel.

“Whoa there.” Ryan said grabbing her around the waist; he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Yeah my nickname in high school was Grace, Grace-less that is.” This time her smile reached her eyes. How embarrassing. But through her embarrassment she felt the need to just linger in his arms for as long as she could. Slight disappointment spread over her as he stood her back upright. He reached down and grabbed one of the stray glasses off the floor. Thank goodness none of them broke from the fall. She nervously fidgeted as she attempted to brush the stray hairs from her face. Man did this guy make her nervous.

“That’s ok, you should see me dance. The music might move me, but it moves me ugly.” He joked trying to ease the embarrassment.

“Ha! Well it’s nice to know even tough guys have their faults.” She smiled.

“Oh well I have a long list of those. Anytime you want to hear them, you just let me know.” He smiled down at her.

Oh good grief, was he going to ask her out? No. There was no way that would ever happen. This man was way too gorgeous to be interested in someone like her. She might as well save herself the disappointment and run as fast as she could.

“Well thanks for saving my face, that one probably would have left a bruise. It might have messed up my tips for the night. Though I could have said I had to break up a bar fight and they should have seen the other guy.” Oh no now she was rambling. A nervous chuckle escaped her lips.

“I am sure that would have made for a very interesting story, but I like your face just the way it is.” A smile showing his teeth formed across his face as he calmed the free strand of hair she had been struggling with, “Bruise free.”

Not really sure what to do at this point she awkwardly turned and went straight back towards the main bar. The crowd was starting to thin out as the night was slowly becoming morning. Heading back behind the bar she found Judy checking her phone and Ashley walking towards the end of the bar grabbing a handful of napkins from the box and placing them on the counter. Good, they obviously hadn’t seen that little exchange.

As the music began to thump Ashley jumped up onto the bar top, her ass syncing in rhythm to a song about “Last call for alcohol”. Abbi couldn’t help but stare with her mouth open. Her embarrassment of falling in front of the hottest guy she had ever seen was now in the back of her mind. Was Ashley seriously about to start dancing on the bar? She looked more like a pole dancer than a bartender. But she had to give it to her, Ashley had moves.

“Ha! This is her signature skill. She’s good at closing up a bar.” Judy’s eyes staring the same direction as Abbi’s as she walked up to her side “This usually gets her one of two things, lots of dollar bills or her booty call for the night. Although it looks like there is one guy that isn’t under her spell tonight.”

Abbi snapped her head towards Judy as she felt her elbow jab her side. “Huh?”

“Mr. Dixon over there, he can’t keep his eyes off of you.”

“Who? Who is Mr. Dixon?”

“Ryan Dixon is only one of the most eligible bachelors in the area.  He owns a bodyguard service, or whatever you call it. Started out small and now he works with crazy famous celebrities. I heard that he hooked up with Lady GaGa one time when he was her bodyguard. I don’t see him out on the scene as much anymore. I think he usually stays in his office, but it looks like he is working tonight.”

“Oh, well I am not trying to be someone’s piece of ass so he is sadly mistaken.” Glancing towards Ryan she met with his dark eyes again. Even turning her head back to Ashley, she could feel his stare on her. “Really… Lady GaGa?”

“That’s what I heard.” Judy said with a laugh as she began grabbing empty glasses from the bar.

As the last remaining customers were closing up their bar tabs, Abbi could hear the laughs of the women that had been with the rapper for the evening. Dirty Deuce made his way over towards Trent. Not knowing what their exchange was about, she saw Trent look back at her with a smile. Hopefully, he hadn’t just told Trent she was terrible at her job. As the men went back to talking she let her gaze drift towards Ryan. He was dressed pretty sharp in that dark suit. To imagine, she had been talking to some hot stuff CEO when she thought he had been just an average Joe. He looked and acted like everyone else. She wondered briefly how old he was, probably much older than she was, she didn’t know of any young successful company owners. To be honest, she didn’t really know any successful company owners, other than the ones she had read about in magazines.

She found herself staring as he turned to look at her. Oh shit! Busted! She quickly grabbed the broom to pretend she was sweeping. As she peeked back at him out of the corner of her eyes he was smiling at her. She felt her body flush at his gaze. Man, it should be illegal to make a girl feel like that from just a look.

“Man, you got it bad already, don’t you Country.” Ashley giggled as she walked to the outside of the bar counter.

“What are you talking about?” Abbi just grinned. She wasn’t divulging any secrets tonight. She would much rather stay in her day dream where she would actually be in Ryan’s league.

“Yeah, Ryan is pretty cool. Have you ever met him before?”

“No, I haven’t been here long enough to meet anyone really. Judy mentioned he owned the bodyguard service he is working for tonight, and something about Lady Gaga.” Her voice trailed off as she started to focus more on cleaning and less on dreaming.

“This is LA Honey, you know we thrive on the gossip.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.” Both girls turned to watch the group as Trent lead them towards the door.

“So, what’s your status Country? You got a boyfriend, girlfriend? Both?” Ashley laughed.

“Ha! No neither. I’m not really the relationship kind. I’ve tried to steer clear of them all together.”

“Have you ever even been on a date?” Ashley eyed her suspiciously.

“Yes.” Abbi fidgeted as Ashley’s gaze got stronger. A half smile forming on her face.

“Family reunions don’t count.” Ashley teased.

“It wasn’t a family reunion!” Abbi paused “It was my senior prom.” She burst out laughing. Mostly from the memory of her giant teased hair coming to mind.

“Ha! Ok my new mission is to hook you up!” Ashley clapped her hands together as if accepting the challenge she had just placed on herself.

“Oh good grief, Ashley. Honestly I’m fine. I don’t need to go on any dates.”

“Come on it will be fun. Ok, how about on our next night off you, me, and Judy go out on the town?” Ashley looked as if she was almost ready to plead to get her way.

“You can count me in!” Judy said as she came back around behind the bar smiling at Abbi. “Come on, it will be fun. You can think of it as a welcome to LA party.”

“Ok, but first I am going to have to find something to wear. You know I only brought what I could fit in my suitcase when I left.”

“Girl, I cannot let your closet go unfilled. Tomorrow we will go shop till we drop!” Judy practically bounced around behind the bar. Naming shops and stores that she loved, and dishing out all the secrets of shopping on a budget in a high dollar town.

Abbi finished cleaning as she listened to the banter between the two girls. They found it very humorous that she had called the rapper Mr. Dirty and she was starting to think they weren’t going to let her live that one down. As they finished up for the evening and headed out of the building, Abbi felt a feeling of relief. Her first day of work was behind her and she had managed to make more friends here than she ever had in her hometown. She hailed a cab and directed the driver towards her apartment complex. As the thoughts of the night flickered through her head so did a pair of dark eyes that made her stomach do flips. She was going to have to find out more about Ryan Dixon.

Abbi could feel the warmth of the sun as the rays came peeking through in between her curtains. Yep, she was going to have to add getting darker curtains to her to do list. Stretching she sat up in bed and looked at the clock; damn it was already two in the afternoon. At least she had gotten in a good eight hours of sleep though. It was a familiar feeling living on the opposite time clock as the rest of the world. Closing down a bar meant at times you were getting home around six in the morning. Sometimes she wondered if she really should have been made into an owl or some other nocturnal creature. She was much better at staying up all night than she was getting up in the morning.

After a summer stint in Jacksonville, Florida, while shacking up with some of her high schools friends that had moved there for college, she had gotten over the awkward feeling from the stares that people gave you, in their business suits with briefcases, as they were making their way into work and she was just stumbling back home to her apartment after a long night tending the bar. It was almost just as bad as the walk of shame, but once she had experienced it enough it no longer made her feel self-conscious. She actually had fun with it, taking off a shoe and sticking it in her bag on the way into the apartment complex. Messing up her hair and smearing a little bit of her mascara. Looking back she could only imagine what those people thought of her.

After her mom had been diagnosed with cancer, She moved back home to take care of her and found a job bartending in the town watering hole. There she stayed until three weeks ago; her mom had always said that when opportunities presented themselves you better hop on board or the train will leave you stranded at the station. She missed her mom. When her parents had split her mom raised her as best she could on a single parent income. After her Dad left she didn’t have much contact with him over the years. Though it made her feel guilty, she thought the best thing her dad had ever done for her was die. If it hadn’t been for him she would still be in Georgia waking up in a double wide. When she was younger she wondered what it would have been like to have a normal family. A mom and a dad that loved each other, siblings that she could always rely on. Although through her experiences, she found that even having those things didn’t mean your family was any more normal than another.

She really didn’t know where she was going to live when she first arrived in LA. She stepped off the plane with rose colored glasses. She was in a whole new world. Though she hadn’t made a plan on what to do next, since she was a pro at winging it, she still somehow knew everything would be ok. She grabbed a newspaper on her way out of the airport terminal, and headed towards the exit doors that had yellow taxis waiting just outside of them. She had stopped at a counter top and opened the newspaper to the classifieds section. Once she found the section named “Rentals” she closed her eyes and circled the section with her index finger,
Eanie, meanie, miney, moe…
Her finger landed in the upper right corner of the page; opening her eyes she found an ad for a one bedroom loft apartment available immediately. Grabbing her cell she dialed the number as she hailed a taxi, just like she had seen in all of those movies she watched back home, telling the driver to head towards the address listed.