-5-

Present Day

Bethany

The loud, collective 'Boo' from the crowd at Roy's had me popping up on my toes to see over the crowd of heads in the room.

Oh—Deputy Riley was in the house. In uniform, so on the clock. Yeah, that would certainly kill the mood.

He slid into a seat at the bar just two seats away from the Mikaelsons and waved me over.

"I'm not servin' you alcohol if you're on the clock, Riley." I said, throwing my dish rag over my shoulder and coming to stand in front of him, hands on my hips.

He groaned and rolled his eyes, propping his elbows onto the table and rubbing his hands over his face. "So little faith, Beth. I'm not here for that. This was the first chance I had to respond to your call about hitting something around Dead Man earlier– it's been a busy day."

"Poor thing, in a town like this? Shirley Elder missing her cat again?" I mocked, filling a glass with ice and soda and setting it down in front of him. He gave me a reproachful look, pulling a straw from the holder in front of him and smacking it on the counter to open it. "What did you find out?"

Riley shrugged, the move made him look like the boy I used to know. Before life found a way to destroy his happiness. His wife and their baby, both dead just three months after the little boy had been born.

I'd seen it coming in a dream, three nights before it happened. It wasn't the first time I'd dreamed something and it came true, but it was the most horrific of my predictions. When I woke up afterwards I thought it was just a nightmare. I'd checked on Kayla and the baby that day and they both seemed okay so I'd chalked the dream up to just that—a dream.

The guilt for not having found a way to prevent their deaths—for not trusting the dream predictions when I knew that they'd turned out to be unfortunately real before—clawed at me almost daily.

"There was nothing, I even went down the dip to check for a body. Any kind of body." He took a few sips of the soda and put it down again, looking me in the eye. "Nothin' to be found. If I didn't know you I'd think you were yankin' our chain."

"I would never."

"I know. Had to convince the Sheriff of that, though."

I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they'd fall out the back of my head and scowled, ripping the towel off my shoulder and dropping it to the counter. "There's blood and a dent on the front of my car that wasn't there yesterday. He can come out and take a look if he's so concerned. And he can ask Mr. Hoskins how he found me." I lowered a couple dishes into the soapy water, grumbling. "Fucking dickhead."

The sheriff hated me and Val. Another legacy left by our precious parents.

"Hey now, don't be like that. You know he's a stickler for pranks." Riley eyed me critically. "If you're good with it I'll grab a sample of that blood on my way back to the cruiser. Would've been better if you hadn't left the scene."

I swivel my head to glare at him. "You wouldn't say that if you'd ever worked for Marge Holloway. But you can take your sample, no worries."

He opened his mouth to retort but Millie swung between us and leaned over the counter, tits out suggestively. "Now I know you're not flirting with my wife-to-be, are ya sugar?"

I had to control the flinch. Kayla died just a year ago. I swooped in to rescue him. "Of course he's not. Everyone knows I'm saving myself for Ryan Renolds, Mil." There was a scoff and a grumble from a couple seats down. I tried my damndest not to look at the Mikaelsons–the only men in a thousand mile radius that I might toss Ryan out the window for. They're all so damn fine, and that's just the ones I've met. "I'm off the market until he turns up to whisk me away."

She turned, scowled, and then sagged—bitter dejection written across her face. "I can't even compete with a man like that."

I patted her shoulder as she walked away. "Few could. Sorry, dear."

"Still got that Ryan Renolds crush, Beth?" Riley cracked a smile, finishing his soda and pushing his glass at me.

"Me and everyone else on God's green earth." I sigh, fanning myself dramatically while staring off towards table three. They were getting rowdy. "Anyway, don't pretend you weren't part of those movie nights."

He stood and dropped a ten on the bar, adopting an air of indifference. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

I swiped the money and the empty glass off the counter. "Sure you don't."

Riley waved and hastened out of the bar, the 'boo's' following him as he went and he waved an arm over his head, middle finger extended.

Two hundred dollar bills slid into my peripheral and I looked over at Klaus and Kol—the former was nowhere to be seen, which was odd. I thought I'd just seen him a moment ago. I glanced around, but there was no Klaus in sight. I dropped my gaze back to the younger Mikaelson and Kol smiled mischievously at me, holding the money out to me. I hesitated with narrowed eyes.

"Your tab is only like fifty bucks, dude." I reached forward and plucked one of the benjamins out of his fingers, nodding at the other. "That's just excessive."

"I have no idea what Nik ordered, could've been the Queen's finest whiskey for all I knew." Kol huffed, stuffing the extra money back in his wallet, eyes meeting mine once more and a wide flirtatious grin spread across his face. He folded his arms on the bar and leaned over them like he was trying to get closer to me. "Keep the rest of it, darling."

"I doubt the Queen would send her finest this way." I laughed with a small smile, cashing his bill out and pocketing the rest; a $65 tip. That's my backed up water bill. Thank you, generous, hot, intense Mikaelson. "But Woodford is a favorite around here. Roy is from Kentucky– won't let us stock any bourbon that's not from home."

"I'll bet that's a favorite with the tourists that end up this far out from bourbon street."

He was staring at me again. That same unnerving stare from when he'd introduced himself. Like he was looking into my soul and seeing everything I was hiding.

"They can take it up with Roy, we don't cater to tourists around here." I felt my face heating up under the scrutiny and turned away, busying myself with prepping drinks for the rowdy table that just called out for a round of beer.

Kol chuckled (the sound was kind of Elijah-esque with a hint of smugness, though she could just be reading into it) and pulled back from the bar. "Well, sweetheart, it was lovely to meet you. I'm sure we'll see each other again soon."

I tossed a smile and a wave over my shoulder at him just before he turned to leave. Smile and wave, Beth, don't try to jump his bones. Don't flirt. Just smile and wave.

As soon as he was out the bar door I slid up to Millie and pinched her side. She shrieked and snapped at me with the rag in her hand.

I narrowly dodged the whip. "You step in with Riley but you don't save me from the hot new guys in town?"

Millie's look of outrage morphed into a salacious little grin. "Well if you're not gonna fuck me I've gotta get you bent over for someone, baby. And those boys were fine and interested."

"Oh my god Mill!" Face the color of Millie's hair and mortified beyond belief I turned away to get table three of their drinks while she fucking chortled and play humbed one of the bottles of rot gut gin behind the counter. The guys at her end of the bar nearly died laughing.

"We have a lot of space for more tables down the hallway if we turned them the opposite way. At least three, maybe four more." I pulled a piece of paper out of the folder I'd brought with me and handed it to the bossman. He took it with an unreadable look. "I drew up a few of these plans a couple years ago. It measured everything and scaled the sizing down to millimeters for this plan, so it's all accurate. We can move the condiment bar so it's against the regular bar and put a couch and two big chairs with a coffee table in that space. It would be inviting for the people who come in here to read and sip coffee—or for the teens in the afternoon."

I shuffled through my green folder that I'd labeled 'Bistro Ideas.' My nerves were shot the second I pulled myself out of bed and I hadn't even been able to choke down a piece of toast in anticipation of this meeting. And I was getting increasingly more nervous at Elijah's silence.

"We get packed on the weekends or when there's a game at the high school. When that happens people will walk in and see no seats, then they'll just walk out and head to the diner or go home and that sucks. Especially since we have the space, we just need to rearrange a little."

I put the papers I'd scattered across the table back in the folder while Elijah was still looking over the sketch. "The POS system is old and it goes down at least twice a month. On those days we can only accept cash. That's another issue that causes people to walk out. Really those are the two big issues when it comes to drawing in and keeping customers."

I shut the folder and slid it over to him. He looked up from the sketch, expression still shuddered and it was really messing with my stomach. I was suddenly glad that I couldn't keep anything down that morning because I would've already darted into the bathroom at this point.

Elijah's fingers brushed mine and I tried not to jolt at the shivers that ran up my spine as he took the folder from me and slid it toward him.

"The menu is good—people don't have complaints about the food. Most of the townies see the bistro as their comfort place so we've got a good atmosphere and we're loved in the community. A couple people have suggested we get some more seasonal flavors for our lattes and I think that would be awesome, our current vendor only sells the standard fare but I did some experimenting a few years back and learned to make flavor syrups. I think we could really market some 'organic, in-house made' flavors. Charge like $.50 extra or something."

I stopped talking abruptly. If I didn't I would've kept chattering on and I didn't want to annoy the new boss before the day even got started. Noah would be in within the next five minutes and we'd have to get coffee brewing to open and the display case organized.

I hated the opening shift. 5:30 am was too early for any sane person. Noah and I were the mid-shifters but we opened on Tuesdays and Thursdays because the normal openers had classes in the city on those days. They'd come in for the mid shift. It was a good trade off, I was able to make afternoon appointments on the days I had to open.

"Beth—" Elijah looked up from the paper and his austere expression cracked wide open, a smile that lifted half his mouth, eyes glittering, and my stomach swooped as some of my nerves dissipated into a new kind of fluttering; the good kind, "—these are wonderful ideas. I'll get the POS updated in the next couple of weeks. I'll order a couch and such, too. When those come in we'll rearrange the dining area. There are a few dishes I'd like to add to the menu in the upcoming months but I have no intentions to take anything away and I'd love to try your coffee flavors. See which we should market in house regularly and which would be better seasonally. Of course, you'll be well compensated for your recipes."

He lifted the folder and tapped it on the table and I did my best to keep my jaw from dropping at his casual acceptance of every point I made. But he wasn't done. "Did you go to business school? You've got a knack for it."

"I graduated from Google university," I joked and he released a laugh through his nose and pinned me with a dry half-smile that looked way too sexy on his face, "but no, no traditional education. I'm just interested in making sure the townsfolk get what they need so the bistro stays open. I've seen businesses come and go within a few months around here and I don't want to see it happen to this place."

"How would you feel about a promotion?"

I short circuited. My brain stalled.

Gorgeous man said what now?

If Elijah noticed my pause he didn't draw attention to it as he continued undeterred. "Manager. I need someone I can trust who cares about how the bistro runs and the community. It would be a significant pay increase. Salary, actually. $65k a year. Much better benefits. Those need to be updated anyway, I hate to be critical but Marge wasn't offering enough to her employees."

Almost choking at the number I was still trying to scrape my jaw off the floor when his eyes met mine. $65k a year salary would change my life.

Marge managed the bistro for years, never even had shift managers let alone a full manager. She didn't let anyone have even a smidge of control—that was just how Marge operated. And the benefits she offered were non-existent because nobody was a full time employee. Elijah was offering what amounted to gold standard around here.

"I'm flattered," I began, unsure, "I'd love to accept. It's just… full disclosure; I have a schedule I've got to keep up. I'm raising my little sister so I have to be around at certain times for her and I really don't want to give up my job at Roy's." I lowered my voice, talking to myself and answering my own statement. "I could just do one or two nights at Roy's, though. And Val can probably take the bus or ride with one of her friends."

Elijah waved a hand, as if batting all my problems away like there was nothing and drawing my attention back to him. "Managers make their own schedule, you won't have to give up anything." He paused with pursed lips and gave me a long, unwavering look. "Don't decide today. Think about it. Work out how it would change or fit your schedule. Talk it over with your sister. Let me know on Friday."

They both heard the backdoor get wrenched open and a few seconds later Noah came through the kitchen grumbling a good morning with a half wave as he trudged over to the espresso machine.

I cracked a smile and waved back at sleepy Noah before glancing back at the bossman. "I'll let you know Friday."

His hand extended over the table and I slid mine in his waiting palm, the jitters and the spine shiver back and the way he smiled was like a shot of adrenaline straight through me.

"I look forward to your acceptance." His eyes dragged slowly over my face, neck, chest, and then back up to my eyes and he winked at me again and I just knew I was a goner.

Did I plug Woodford Reserve because Kentucky is my state? You're damn right. Kentucky bourbon all the way baby.