I was dreading the night shift and going up against one of those girls. Not only had they, so far, proved themselves bitches, but also all the men would probably move from my station and tips would likely be even less.

I started toward the dirty tables when I heard Tate call, “Ace.”

Considering this was obviously his nickname for me which I thought was weird since he’d known me less than twenty minutes and you didn’t give a nickname to someone you’d known less than twenty minutes (more like ten years) and I figured it was meant to be not very nice, I looked at him even though I didn’t want to. However, I couldn’t ignore him. He couldn’t be calling to anyone else, ignoring him would be rude and he was my boss.

“Yes?” I asked when I caught his eyes.

“I know you heard,” he said.

I knew he knew I was just surprised he brought it up. I showed no response except to raise my brows again.

“I was in a shit mood, babe. Shake it off,” he ordered and I stared.

He’d called me old, sorry-ass and fat and he wanted me just to shake it off?

“Sure,” I agreed, turned and spritzed a table with the cleaner.

“Ace,” he called again when I’d bent to wipe. I sucked in a visibly annoyed breath and twisted only my neck so I could look at him. When my eyes hit his, he repeated, “I said, shake it off.”

I turned fully to him. “And I said, sure.”

“You said it but you didn’t mean it,” he returned.

No, I didn’t.

“I did,” I lied.

“Babe, you didn’t,” he replied.

“I did,” I repeated and turned back to the table and started wiping.

“Ace, look at me,” he demanded and he sounded like he was getting impatient.

I straightened and looked at him, again raising my brows.

“Let it go,” he ordered.

“I’ve let it go,” I lied again.

“You haven’t,” he shot back.

I inhaled deeply and on the exhale, I said. “Due respect, considering you’re my boss, but since they don’t exist, you’re not a mind reader. I’ve let it go or I would if you’d quit talking about it.”

“You haven’t,” he repeated. “You’re stewin’ on it.”

This was true too. If I had a dollar for every time his words in his voice popped into my head and made me flinch the last two days, I could move to the Riviera. They even woke me up in the middle of the night. Then again, I had insomnia and always did, even as a kid. I regularly thought of stuff in my life, stuff that embarrassed me or hurt me or worried me or freaked me out and I couldn’t get to sleep. Then, when I did, I’d wake up three, four times a night sometimes tossing and turning for hours before finding sleep again. This beautiful man saying those horrible words when talking about me was not only fresh, it was the worst of all my nightly demons by far and it would be in a way I knew would last the rest of my life.

But it hit me just then that since not only did he feel free to shout those things about me when he barely knew me but also he knew I heard it and he didn’t apologize but told me to shake it off and let it go because I should somehow accept he was in a shit mood and just deal with it, that he obviously wasn’t a very nice person and maybe, even though I was a nice person, there were some people who deserved to get back what they got.

I mean really. Why did I always have to be nice? Why did I always have to do the right thing, turn the other cheek, a blind eye? Why did I always have to be the good girl?

So he could fire me. Whatever. I’d just see if they needed cashiers at the grocery store or move on. If I could find one Carnal, I could find another. It might take another four and a half months but I had money and I had time.

Fuck it.

“Yes,” I said softly, staring him straight in the eyes. “I’m stewing on it. I hear you say those words again and again. So much, I can’t get to sleep at night. So much, they come to me in my sleep and wake me up.”

“Ace –”

“But you said them, I heard them and those are the consequences. No taking it back, no shaking it off, no letting it go. It happened. I deal and move on and maybe you’d do me the courtesy of shutting up about it.”

He walked from behind the bar and toward me and I watched him do it while forcing my body to stay where it was and not take a step back or, better yet, flee.

He stopped a foot away and looked down at me. I saw, that close to him, he didn’t have dark brown eyes. They were dark brown but they had tawny flecks in them that made them even more interesting.

Great, the lucky jerk was even luckier.

“I’m a silent partner,” he declared.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“Me. I’m a silent partner,” he repeated.

I tipped my head to the side and felt my brows draw together. “So?”

Tate threw a hand out to indicate the bar. “I look silent to you?”

Considering he was clearly my bartender that day and he was changing kegs, the answer to that would be no.

Instead I said, “And?”

“Deal was, I put in the money because Krys and Bubba didn’t have the cake to take this on but I wasn’t involved. I just get my piece and I do my own thing. Five years, Ace, I find more often than not I usually gotta wade in. Bubba’s off fishin’ and Krystal’s always hirin’ folk who suck. Tonia and Jonelle both make an art outta being the worst waitresses in history. They’re here to socialize, when they drag there asses in that is. I got shit to do and I ain’t doin’ it ‘cause I’m here, ‘cause I gotta keep an eye on my investment, ‘cause Bubba’s a moron and Krystal’s tryin’ her best but she can’t do it on her own. That pisses me off. Bubba’s gone again and I got pissed again and you bore the brunt of that. It was an ass**le remark; I said it and didn’t mean it. I get pissed I say a lotta shit I don’t mean. Now you know that, you need to shake it off.”

Maybe for him it could be that easy. For me, it was not.

“I appreciate that but you’re old enough to know better. You’re old enough to know words have power and to use them wisely. You’re angry at Bubba, take potshots at him, not some woman you don’t know.”

“Like I said, when I get pissed I say a lotta shit I don’t mean and what I said about you I didn’t mean,” he repeated, beginning to look as impatient as he sounded.

“And like I said, you’re old enough to learn you shouldn’t do that,” I repeated too, probably also looking impatient.