Losing Streak (The Lane) Read Free Page A

probably didn’t even think it.
    “Right. No. You’re right.”
    “Of course I am. I always am,” I said with a wink before nodding toward one of the servers heading in our direction. The lights behind us caught the sequins of her dress, in a flashing, nearly hypnotizing way, judging by the way the male occupants of the room watched her swinging hips. “Better go grab Miranda’s order.”
    Unlike Bri he didn’t get pissy. He just slipped into that easy, flirty grin of his and was moving to fill Miranda’s tray before she’d even finished talking. I watched them for a minute, the curly-haired baby brother who looked so much like me yet acted so different, blindly charming everyone he came in contact with. Bri was right. He was good. Good at everything, really, and sometimes I found myself wanting to be jealous, more than the stabs of it I occasionally felt, because it didn’t seem fair that things were so uneven. It was hard, though, to feel anything too negative for too long toward the boy I’d shared a childhood with. Whom I mothered like he was my own because, in a way, he was.
    I had the rest of the world to direct that toward.
    For a lack of anything better to do, I picked up an oily rag and went back to wiping the bar down in a slow, mechanical sort of way. It didn’t really need it—it couldn’t get much cleaner than it already was—but it made me look like I was doing something without actually having to do anything. I was working, but not really. I could justify taking half those tips, only not. I’d fill orders only when I really had to. Besides, we’d get more if I limited my contact with the customers anyway. We all knew that.
    Only my peace didn’t last. It never did for very long. There was always someone around all too willing to fuck it up the first chance they got.
    “Come here often?”
    My head snapped up to glare at the boy who’d slipped in front of me without me having realized it, a cocky smile on his face as he ran a hand through slick, gelled hair. He wasn’t entirely bad looking, best as I could tell in the dim light. Nothing to make me straighten up and take note, but not awful. He looked a lot like every other boy who came into Duke’s on Sunday nights. A college boy, probably, most likely pledged to a fraternity. One who believed in khakis and cheap beer like my mama believed in Jesus and the saints she prayed to.
    I had no real use for boys in general and frat ones in particular. Well. No more use than they had for me.
    I narrowed my eyes at his expectant expression, vaguely aware that not too far down from us, Jackson had stopped mid-pour and was watching me closely. Maybe even holding his breath, hoping that whatever was going on didn’t end with a mess and another customer being dragged off by our hulking bouncers.
    It was good to hope for things sometimes. No matter how impossible they were.
    “What kind of line is that?” I snapped, seeing no use in easing toward that tone. Boys like this one didn’t need the encouragement and anything but instant and complete rudeness was encouragement to them. “That shit ever work for you?”
    His face fell slightly, but I had to give it to him. He recovered almost immediately, that cocky smile reappearing so quickly and thoroughly it was as if it had never gone away in the first place. I had a strong feeling that his were parents who gushed over C report cards, setting him up for a lifelong delusion that he was better than the average he so obviously was.
    “Sweetheart, I don’t need lines. I don’t even have to work. Not to get a bitch in bed or once I have her there.” Frat Boy finished off his speech with a slight chest puff and what I’m sure he thought was his best smolder.
    I didn’t have to fake the mocking noise that escaped.
    “Well, congratulations are in order, I guess.”
    “For?” It was a purr, unnatural. He had a playbook and he was following it to the letter.
    I slowly set the rag to the side and braced