Jessa James - Bad Behavior

“I’m six foot three,” I correct her. “You’re just really short.”

She sticks her tongue out at me, and I chuckle. I fetch a case of the glasses she wants off the back wall, setting it down on the bar.

I turn around to the towering neon-lit wall of different kinds of liquor. They’re all grouped by type: whiskeys and bourbons together, vodkas and gins and aquavits, rums and tequilas and mezcals, piscos and brandies, and a few dozen bottles of wine.

We’re at Cure, the bar that I co-own with my best friend Asher and my two brothers, Gunnar and Forest. At the moment, Cure is closed to the public for Asher’s wedding party. Forty or so tipsy wedding guests, all gathered here on the night before the wedding.

It makes sense, as far as gathering places go.

After all, Cure was Asher’s idea in the first place. He’ll be the first one of the four of us to get married. I should be happy for him, but I’m not. I fucking hate his fiancee Jenna, and I think he can do way better than her.

But I swallow my words. The time come and gone to get all my thoughts and opinions about Jenna and the wedding out. I said my piece. Asher called me a prick.

And I am, without a doubt. A fuck up, a misanthrope, an anti-social brooder for whom opening this bar was a total shot in the dark. This bar, raising my little brothers, and keeping my friendship with Asher are really the only good things I’ve ever done.

God knows, if there was a cosmic accounting of my whole life, there are plenty of bad things in my past that tip the scale in favor of my being a total piece of shit. Like dropping out of school young, dating an endless stream of surfer chicks and pretty bar patrons, constantly partying, and wrecking not one but two motorcycles in my twenties.

I know that my past and my tendency toward gloom don’t exactly make me lovable. I’m working on redemption, slowly.

I dip below the bar, to the low-boy coolers where the bottles of white and sparkling are kept. I search for a second, then find the right bottle. The rest is all muscle memory, peeling the foil off and unwinding the metal cage. I pop the bottle with as little fuss as possible, eyeing my brother Gunnar as I pour the bubbly into champagne flutes that I have set up on the bar.

Gunnar is next to me at the bar, pouring vodka and a little bit of cinnamon shrub together into a cocktail shaker. There are a whole line of pretty girls waiting for the shots that he’s making. I clear my throat and send him a look.

Don’t keep feeding the girls vodka , the look says. Seriously.

He grins and winks at me, then yells at the girls to bend backward over the marble-topped bar in order to receive their shots. Of course they do, giggling.

I can’t roll my eyes hard enough. I put the champagne flutes onto the tray that Maia dropped. She scoops it up with a fake smile, carrying it off to the bride.

She doesn’t like Jenna, either. Asher is the only one of the staff that Jenna is nice to. The rest of us are considered less than human.

I look across the bar to the booth where Jenna is ensconced with her whole rich, snobby clique. I watch Maia deliver the sparkling wine to Jenna’s table, where beautiful ice queen Jenna is telling a story.

I see Jenna push her empty glass toward Maia without a thought. The music in here is too loud to know what Jenna is saying, but one look at her ruddy cheeks and her exultant expression as she talks to the people clustered around her…

Yeah, she is drunk. Not just drunk, but demanding. She downs the sparkling wine in two swallows, then holds the glass out to Maia to refill.

Again, she’s not making eye contact. Jenna’s too busy loudly telling her story. Everyone at her table laughs at once, and she looks right at home, basking in their adulation.

Maia takes the champagne flute, and heads towards another table to check that they don’t need anything.

I grit my teeth. You would think that Maia really was just an unknown face, a server at some restaurant… but really, Asher and Jenna have been together since this place opened. Maia was our second employee.

Simply put, they know each other.

We should’ve hired catering staff to work this party , I think. That way everyone could mingle. And the staff could avoid Jenna’s table…

I turn away and bite my tongue. When Maia comes back, I’ll tell her she doesn’t have to wait on Jenna anymore. I’ll do it.

Things have been more than a little uneasy between Asher and me for the last few weeks, ever since I told him how I feel. Even though we’ve been best friends for almost twenty years, shit got awkward as fuck the second the words were out of my mouth.

Now we’re here. Asher is schmoozing Jenna’s parents over by the door to the patio, looking as golden as I am dark. In his checked shirt and khakis, he is exactly the guy you would want your princess-daughter to marry.

I swear to god, I can see his teeth sparkle from across the fucking room every time he laughs. Asher’s almost a goddamned Disney prince, my diametric opposite.

I remember that I’m supposed to be throwing this party for him, and keep my thoughts about Jenna to myself.

“Hey,” a voice says. I turn away from Asher to find his little sister Emma sliding into a seat at the bar.

Emma is twenty four, with her raven-colored hair done in a fancy updo, and she’s wearing a pale pink body con dress like it’s her job .

I’m not stupid enough to act like I know, though. I’ve been careful not to notice her for the last six years. She’s the rich princess that wants for nothing. I may be a lot of things, but I’m definitely not her speed, and she’s not mine. There are plenty of reasons why a guy like me shouldn’t even look at someone like her.

For one thing, Emma’s way younger than me. For another, she’s what you could describe as perky. As the loner who stands behind the bar and broods, I’m definitely not into her animated attitude.

Then there’s the fact that she’s going to law school, whereas I dropped out of high school. We are worlds apart in that respect.

Plus, if Asher ever found out that I’d had so much as an impure thought about his little sister, he would have a fucking stroke. And then he’d murder me.

That would be a sad way to go.

I glower at Emma. “Aren’t you supposed to be socializing? You know, representing your snooty-ass family, seeing as they can’t be bothered to show their faces?”

Emma grins at me, her green eyes twinkling with delight. That’s what I mean about perky . I refuse to let my eyes dip lower to check out her tits… but I’m sure they’re perky too.

“My parents are absolutely horrified that Asher has found himself a girlfriend that isn’t a social outcast. They’re positively fuming that he did well for himself without any help from them. So I’m not representing them, no.” She leans closer to me, biting her lower lip suggestively. “What have you got back there that’s not wine?”

Don’t look down at her tits. Don’t look down at her tits, I tell myself. Then I look down at her tits anyway, small but perfect, pushed up by her dress.

I jerk my eyes away as soon as I realize that I’m doing it. Fucking hell. The last thing I need is for Emma to think that I’m a fucking pervert.

I make eye contact with her, and hesitate. There are plenty of pickup lines that float to the surface, but I ignore them.

“What kind of liquor do you want?” I ask, turning and picking up a metal cocktail shaker.

“Mmm…” she says, twisting a loop of her dark hair around a finger. “Vodka? I want something that doesn’t taste like alcohol.”

I make a noise of displeasure. Emma cocks her head at me.