Read After Hours for Free Online Page A

name.
    “Sit tight.” Kelly tossed some bills on the bar and left me, presumably for the men’s
     room.
    I studied the taps and liquor bottles but decided I’d probably get wine as well.
    “Hey.”
    I turned, finding a guy about my age leaning casually on the corner of the bar. He
     wore baggy pants and a white tank, a gold chain. He wasn’t my type at all, but his
     friendly, hopeful smile made me think maybe I didn’t look as wretched as I felt.
    “Hey,” I said, and offered a little wave.
    The bartender returned, plunking Kelly’s wine and somebody’s beer by my elbow.
    “Buy you somethin’?” the friendly guy asked.
    I hadn’t come here to flirt, and a polite decline was halfway to my parted lips when
     the guy’s face suddenly fell. I sensed Kelly at my back, tangible as a shadow cooling
     us.
    When I craned my neck to look, I understood why the guy had withered. Kelly’s eyes
     had gone black, jaw set, expression like a rusty steak knife. His fingers closed over
     my shoulder, spreading warm misgiving down my arm, up my neck, through my chest.
    “Can I help you,” he said to the guy. It was no question, just cold, hard words wrapped
     in barbed wire.
    “No, man. Sorry.” And the guy slinked away with his tail between his legs.
    Kelly let me go and took his seat. I resisted an urge to rub my shoulder and see if
     the skin really was as feverish as it felt. This man had a wife, and if anybody got
     to feel all hot and confused by his touch, it was most definitely her.
    “Who was that?” I asked. And what had he done to get on Kelly Robak’s bad side? Drug
     dealer? Maybe some old beef over a woman?
    “Never seen him before,” Kelly said.
    “Oh. Then—” I stopped, frowning as Kelly slid the wine glass in front of me, the beer
     bottle before himself. Did I really look so rattled that I couldn’t choose my own
     drink? Or for that matter, handle myself around a stranger?
    He held up his beer, and I went ahead and tapped my glass against it, miffed.
    “Congrats on surviving day one,” he said, and took a deep pull off his bottle.
    “Thanks.”
    He stared at me, his pale, hueless irises tinted by the beer signs, blue and yellow
     and every other neon color. He had a scar above one brow, a thick shiny line that
     must’ve needed stitches in its day. To my great surprise, he reached out to run a
     fingertip up and down the frown crease between my own brows. “What’s put that there?”
    I tried to snuff out the spark I’d felt from his touch, hot and startling and inappropriate.
     “You could’ve asked me what I wanted to drink,” I said, hoping to camouflage my unease
     behind annoyance.
    “I’m paying.”
    “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get to pick.”
    He made a puzzled face like I was speaking Chinese, and took another sip of his beer.
    I decided to drop it. Maybe it’d been some kind of ignorant chivalry, antiquated bull,
     like choosing your date’s order off a menu. Not that this was a date, of course. Surely
     Mrs. Kelly Robak would have something to say about such a notion, same as I would.
     Same as Kelly ought to.
    I rubbed the spot he’d touched, finding my forehead greasy from the day’s long shift.
     I ran the heel of my hand across it, more tired than ever. My stomach gave a gurgle,
     anger pooling in my belly as I began to suspect maybe Kelly hadn’t brought me here
     to be understanding. Maybe he’d brought me here because I seemed vulnerable, amenable
     to a roll in the hay with a married colleague just because he’d deigned to buy me
     a four-dollar glass of chardonnay.
    But I was also exhausted, and not thinking clearly. It was a Mom-thought, as Amber
     and I had years ago christened our impulsive suspicions, the little embers that could
     burst into blazes with the mildest provocation.
    Time for a nice, neutral change of subject, before my tinder went up.
    Wanting Kelly’s own answer to the question I’d posed Dennis, I asked, “Why do you
     wear