Chapter 2: Conversations

Rhiannon's POV

"He asked you out. To dinner. Like a date dinner or...?" Lauren gawked.

"I think like a date. He sure looked like he meant a date." Rhiannon slid several hangers holding acid wash jeans across the rack to try and find her size. "Here's the thing, I only said yes because he clearly didn't recognize me. I don't want to go. It's weird right?"

Conveniently, she left out the fact she had practically drooled over the man since she was in high school. There was no denying the man was handsome; he was tall, broad shouldered, and had a sweet spot somewhere deep inside all that blustering and flaunting young blondes.

Lauren grinned. "Honestly, it's kind of hot."

Rhiannon smacked her across the arm. "Ew, you're foul."

Lauren laughed. "He's rich, he's hot, you're a grown woman now, what's it matter if you go to a nice dinner with the man?"

"I'm making him take me to Hadley's."

"Hadley's? For f*ck's sake, why?"

"The steak's good," Rhiannon shrugged.

Lauren threw back her head and laughed. "You're doing that thing you do. You refuse to take this seriously because you don't think you measure up to his usual caliber of blonde bimbo. You're allowed to be hot, Rhiannon."

Rhiannon faked a gag. "Ugh, I didn't ask for the psychoanalysis."

"You do this all the time. That's why things never worked out with Tyler. You won't let yourself have what you want."

"Okay, okay, leave it. Especially leave Tyler out of this."

Lauren turned to face Rhiannon. "You know what? I bet you ten dollars you can't even sit through the whole date."

Rhiannon scrunched up her face. "You know what? Give me two weeks and I'll have this man on his knees for me. I bet you fifteen bucks I can do it."

"If you get that grown adult man on his knees within two weeks, I will give you twenty bucks. There's no way."

Rhiannon grinned. "Deal."

Lauren turned back to the rack of flannels she was flipping through. "What are you wearing to your dad's birthday this weekend?"

Rhiannon froze and threw a hand over her mouth.

"Lauren. He's going to be there."

Lauren's jaw hung slack. "Rhiannon, you have to use this to your advantage. You need a whole new outfit, you have to be so hot."

Rhiannon pursed her lips and nodded. "I'm about to get myself into so much trouble."

John's POV

"Here's the thing, I think she just wants a little cash and to move on. It's harmless." John shrugged.

"It's not harmless. She's an employee. You're looking right down the barrel of a loaded lawsuit." Richard turned his chair back to the computer to where he was going over the books.

"I only have a thirty percent ownership in this place, so that makes her only thirty percent my employee."

"John, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard come out of your mouth. Why her? You never get hung up, especially on some girl you watched do her job for what, an hour and a half? She's a bartender. Don't you usually prey on aspiring actresses and models and singers or whatever?" Richard tapped away at his keyboard. It drove John nuts that he wouldn't look at him.

"I'm bored with that stuff. She's got...joie de vivre."

Richard scrunched up his face. "And the girl who threw a drink in your face didn't?"

John loosed a groan. "That's different. She doesn't count. That's the only exciting thing she did the entire six months we were together."

"Six months?" Richard taunted. "You should be heartbroken, that's a lifetime in terms of your dating history."

John waved a dismissive hand. "You really just let that tight little ass flounce around your bar every night and you never think a thing about putting your hands on her? You should have seen the look in her eyes when she licked that blood off her mouth."

Richard frowned deeply. "I am a happily married man. I do my job, I go home, and I make sweet love to my wife. I don't have the time for women in their twenties. And I'd appreciate it if the twenty-year-olds you brought in my bar refrained from assaulting my employees."

"You've lost your touch, Rich. What happened to the ATO man I met at Auburn?" John plopped down in a worn leather chair.

"I turned fifty! And then I turned fifty-one and fifty-two, and so on and so forth. John, you are flirting with danger. She's an employee. You will inevitably get bored and go back to Birmingham until this blows over and I will be left to deal with the fallout."

John laughed a little. "Oh, please, you need a little excitement in your life."

Rich finally cracked a smile and turned back to his friend. "Do what you want, John. Just keep me out of it. Good luck, you're not her usual type."

"Is that a challenge?"

"No, absolutely not, that is not a challenge, and you shouldn't make it one."

John smiled. "I guess we'll just see about that."

"I can't do this with you. I have a daughter that age. David has a daughter that age." Rich shook his head. His sandy brown hair hadn't grayed the way John's had; it still sat in tight curls on top of his head, unmoving. "Are you going to David's tomorrow?"

"Wouldn't miss it! I haven't seen him since I got back into town." John rested an arm against the desk. "What do we even get that cranky old bastard? I swear he has everything."

"I was just gonna go with some Johnny Walker and a cigar or something," Richard shrugged. He was just thankful to be done talking about the tall blonde bartender. He couldn't even remember her name if he was being honest, he just knew she was a friend of Rhiannon's and she was good with the patrons. If John didn't have such a thing for young blondes, Rich might have believed John was talking about Rhiannon. But even John wasn't that dumb.

"That's a good idea. I'll get us all some cigars, and maybe something for the boat." He stood and made his way to the doorway. "This is gonna be fun, Rich. I've never been with a brunette." And with that, he was gone.

Rich's eyes widened. Oh no. He wasn't talking about the blonde at all. That moron didn't recognize Rhiannon. He frowned and shrugged at no one at all. You know what, let David handle it. John wouldn't survive the night.