“Are they torturing you, Craig?” Braden’s familiar voice drew his head back up.
Braden leaned against the bar, staring at Joss in amusement.
It had taken Braden a few months to stop looking at Craig like he wanted to rip his balls off—he was pissed at Craig for the time he’d kissed Joss at the bar during a shift. Craig had actually done it partly because he’d always wanted to and partly because he wanted to piss off Braden. He’d assumed Braden was just some rich arsehole who thought he could get anyone he wanted. He’d watched him play Joss that night, hanging on to some pretty brunette’s every word, attempting to make Joss jealous. So Craig had delighted in showing him that Joss didn’t belong to him, that two could play that game.
It worked out in a way he never imagined, but Braden turned out to be a decent guy.
He also eventually got over Craig and the kiss.
“Joss thinks it’s funny that my mum has joined a dating site.”
Braden’s gaze darted to him and he winced sympathetically. “Fuck.”
“Thank you.” Craig slammed his hand down on the bar. “That right there! That is the appropriate reaction.”
“Okay, so obviously I don’t get it.” Joss seemed to unconsciously lean across the bar toward her boyfriend. Braden automatically linked their hands together.
Craig ignored their lovey-dovey shit. “Do you know how dangerous dating sites can be?”
“They’re not too bad,” Jo said.
It was not lost on him that he was a lucky man who got to work alongside two stunning women he had a laugh with, but right now they were being deliberately obtuse and annoying. “Not too bad?”
She shrugged. “My friend found her boyfriend on a dating website.”
“This isn’t your friend. This is my mum.”
“I didn’t realize you were a momma’s boy,” Joss teased.
“Jocelyn,” Braden murmured in warning.
She sighed. “What? What am I not getting?”
“It’s weird for a man to think of his mother being a woman. It’s even stranger for your mother to be dating. It’s concerning for your mother to be dating via the Internet, where there are millions of fucking weirdos pretending to be people they are not,” Braden said.
Her eyes lit up with understanding. “Oh. Right. I see.” She patted Craig on the shoulder. “She’ll be fine.”
“Aye.” Jo patted his other shoulder. “Don’t worry about her. Just make sure she tells someone where and when she’s going if she decides to meet up with a guy.”
He nodded. “I’ve already told her to tell me.”
“Well there’s nothing more you can do, I’m afraid,” Joss said in her usual straightforward manner. “She’s a grown woman and she has a right to make these kinds of decisions. Has it been a while since she’s been on a date?”
“Ten years.”
“Oh hell yeah.” She scrunched up her nose, “You are going let your mom do this.”
“Ten years,” Jo whispered, her eyes wide. “God, I hope I never have to go ten years without getting some.”
“Right,” Joss murmured, shooting Braden a look.
Braden grinned at her. “You have nothing to worry about on that front, babe.”
The thought of his mother doing what they were talking about doing and using the Internet to find men to do it with . . . “Okay, subject change. You bastards just made it worse.”
Braden shot him an amused but apologetic look. “What would you like to talk about instead?”
Feeling uncharacteristically agitated, Craig just shook his head. “I think I’m just going to take my break.”
* * *
When he returned from break the bar was a little busier, and he was feeling somewhat better about the whole situation. Joss was right. His mother was a grown woman and he had to let her do this. He’d be there to protect her if she needed him.
As Jo passed him to take her break, she touched his arm. “I’m sorry about earlier. And I think it’s really nice you worry so much about your mum.”
He gave her a peck on the cheek. “We’re all cool, darlin’.”
She smiled, her stance relaxing a little before disappearing into the staff area.
“So . . . you’re really touchy about your mom,” Joss called down the bar to him as he poured a customer a draft of lager. Joss was anything but sensitive. He shot her a filthy look and she laughed. “I’m just saying . . . this is another side to you. It’s nice.” She shrugged and turned back to her customer.
He shook his head, wearing a small smile. Women. He’d never fully understand them. And that was all part of the appeal.
“And what can I get you, beautiful?” He grinned at his next customer, a mousy-haired brunette with gorgeous big brown eyes.
She blushed. “Two JD and Cokes, please.”
He winked at her. “Coming right up.”
He wandered down the bar to get a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, his gaze roaming over the club. There were more people dancing on the small dance floor at the back of the basement club, and plenty more sitting at tables and standing on the main floor. His gaze was just flitting past the doorway when a woman walked in and his attention automatically swung back to her.
It was the way she walked—sexy, slow, relaxed steps in her high red heels, a seductive sway in her hips that seemed unconscious, and an overall gracefulness about her movements that was incredibly appealing and feminine.
And then there was the way she was dressed.
She looked like some stunning 1940s pin-up girl. Her dark, shoulder-length hair was swept back off her forehead in high, curled waves, and the ends were curled under in a similar fashion. Her black dress might as well have been glued to her body it was so tightly fitted. She was tallish, perhaps not as tall as Jo, but only an inch or so off it in her heels, and she was slim with gentle curves. The square neckline of the dress showed off a very nice cleavage, the cap sleeves accentuated slender arms and the flash of what could be a tattoo on the inside of her upper left arm. The hemline of the dress stopped below her knees, showing off the prettiest, shapeliest calves he’d ever seen in his life.
And now that he had stopped to look, the third thing that froze him in place was her face.
Fuck.
She was stunning.
Big, thickly lashed eyes that he’d bet his life on were dark brown. A small, delicate nose. High, rounded cheekbones. A lush full mouth she’d painted red to match her shoes.
Lust shot through his blood and traveled south.
“You may want to wipe your chin,” Joss’s voice murmured in his ear. “You’re drooling.”
Snapping out of his preoccupation with the jitterbug babe who had just strutted into the bar, Craig scowled at Joss. “Are you just here to take the piss out of me all night?”
She grinned. “When you make it this easy, yes.”
He grunted at her teasing, fighting the urge to laugh, and returned to fixing his customer her drinks.
He worked on, halfheartedly flirting with his female customers and pretending to give them his full attention, when in fact seventy percent of his attention was on the woman.
And he only grew more intrigued as she wandered around the club, assuming an air of casualness while her eyes searched the faces of the punters with a real determination. She was up to something. He just knew it. When she didn’t come near the bar for a drink, his interest only grew as he watched her find a spot behind where Braden and co were sitting, her eagle eyes on the doorway.
For the next hour, Craig watched her as she watched the door.
And he was more than a little surprised by the disappointment he felt when she left the club without ever approaching the bar.