Dylan (Bachelors of the Ridge #1) Read Online Free Page B

clapped a hand over her mouth when Bill said my name, pinching her eyes shut. I took his outstretched hand and smiled back.
    “This our bouncer?” I asked, jerking my chin at her. By now, she’d covered her face with both hands, peeking out from behind her fingers. Her shoulders shook a little and I could hear muffled laughter, which made me grin in return.
    She lowered her hands and gave a pitiful wave in my direction when Bill laughed in response.
    “Kat,” she said, cheeks pinking in a blush. “I’m just gonna go hide behind the bar now. Nice to meet you, boss.”
    “So,” Bill started once we’d taken a seat, and spread open a folder with a bunch of papers in it. “I was working on staffing before you showed up and what we have left to do before we open on Saturday, which isn’t much. Kat is training the newest server we hired, but we’ll have to wait until we open to see if we’ll need another.”
    “Kat? The girl?” I asked. “Is she even old enough to serve drinks?”
    Bill coughed out a laugh and pointed a finger at me. “Careful, can’t ask that or we’ll slap you for age discrimination.”
    I relaxed a little when he smiled. Because hey, you never know.
    Bill shook his head. “You need to relax a little, Dylan. Kat’s in her early twenties. She was in our location down in the Springs for three years, and was going to move up here for a job after she finished school, so I asked if she’d help out with the opening and training some of the new staff.”
    “Ahh, okay.” Great start. Insult what sounded like one of his favorite employees.
    Bill nodded and we got to work, going over schedules for opening week, deciding what kind of specials we wanted to extend past those first few days, and a couple other things. After we’d finished that, Bill took me around the corner from the restrooms and we walked down a flight of stairs to where the storeroom and a small office was.
    Cases of liquor lined the walls toward the office, which was for the three managers and Bill when he was there. The two other managers that I’d be working with would be in the next day. I excused myself to go get a glass of water, and made my way back upstairs, going through the kitchen instead.
    It was quiet and immaculate, with long stretches of stainless steel. The guy who would manage the back was doing some inventory stopped to thump me on the back in greeting. We were making small talk about where I’d lived in Michigan when I heard Kat start laughing out in the bar, which I could see through the kitchen window.
    I nodded my farewell and walked through the galley doors back into the bar area, taking in the massive space with no small sense of awe. The bar itself was almost an oval shape, dominating the center of the room, placed in a way that no matter where someone would take their seat, they’d have a perfect view of any one of the ten giant screens braced on all four walls. High top tables, large booths set in each corner, and square tables took up the rest of the space. The same metal light fixtures hung above the booths and the high tops, keeping the room looking warm and oddly intimate, despite its massive size.
    Feeling the responsibility of my new job, I blew out a long breath. This job was definitely a bigger one than the one I’d left at the Bombay, seeing as the Bombay was roughly half the size of this place. Kat was talking to a young-looking guy in thick-framed black glasses, who weighed about as much as she did, and they were both polishing glasses and straightening liquor bottles.
    She stopped and aimed a remote toward what must have been the sound system, and as soon as she waved it with a flourish, the speakers started pounding with Who Run the World (Girls) .
    Now, some guys might have been loathe to admit that they knew every word of that song. But not me. I had a younger sister and had worked at bars for the last ten years, so I knew my way around Beyoncé. What was new though was the jerky,