Hopeless (Chestnut Springs Book 5)

Rhett: Thank you for coming to the wedding.

Beau: Of course. Where else would I have been?

Rhett: Great question. No one knows where you hang out anymore. Only that you disappear and talk to no one.

Beau: I talk to people.

Rhett: You can talk to me too. You know that, right?

Beau: Of course. I know that. Congratulations, the wedding was beautiful. I’m very happy for you and Summer.

Rhett: Thanks. Love you, Beau-Beau. You doing okay? Like really?

Beau: Yeah, I’m great.

“Have you ever had anal sex?”

As Bailey’s sugary voice cuts through the loud music at The Railspur, I spray hot tea from my mouth. My attempt to cover it with my palm only results in me getting soaked. Hot water drips down my forearm and lands on my lap. Pretty sure my eyes have popped right out of their sockets onto the wooden bar top that separates me from sweet, quiet little Bailey Jansen.

Sweet, quiet little Bailey Jansen, who I now spend a good three to four nights a week around.

Sweet, quiet little Bailey Jansen, who just asked me about anal sex like she was asking about whether I take cream in my coffee.

She tosses a rag onto the bar. “Clean that up.”

Only Bailey would tell me to clean it up rather than do it herself. That’s what I’ve come to realize about her on these nights I’ve spent sitting at her bar.

That’s what I like about her.

She’s not a kiss ass, she’s not a pushover, and she doesn’t tiptoe around me.

She also might not be as sweet and quiet as I thought.

In a world that feels horribly boring and mundane, Bailey Jansen has proven to be incredibly interesting.

That’s why I keep coming back. It’s more than just worrying about her being alone.

“Why are you asking me about anal sex?” I mumble as I wipe the bar top and dab off my arm. “And so loudly. People are going to get the wrong idea.” I turn, looking around to see if anyone else heard.

Her lips twitch where she stands at the tap pouring a pint, those dark chocolate irises slicing my way from beneath the fringe of her lashes. “People already have the wrong idea about me, Beau.”

She turns away, walking down the narrow space behind the bar to the red-haired guy who sits at the opposite end, phone in his hands, eyes down. “Here ya go, Earl,” Bailey announces, tossing down a coaster and then the beer on top.

He glances at her but doesn’t say thank you. And it irks me.

When she turns back to face me, her eyes are wide, lips drawn back in a cringe. She walks straight at me, holding my gaze, her hips swaying.

She and I have fallen into a comfortable rhythm in the last couple of weeks. One where we talk while I pretend I don’t notice how fucking beautiful she is for fear of becoming the weird old creeper who sits here all night.

She props her forearms against the bar right in front of me, a conspiratorial grin on her face. I try not to stare at her breasts pressed against the thin cotton of the frilly off-the-shoulder peasant top she’s wearing. But the shimmer in her eyes or the gloss on her lips aren’t any less distracting.

“Earl only comes in now and then,” she says, flashing white teeth as she peeks back over her shoulder. “But when he does, he always watches porn on his phone. And it’s always anal. I just wasn’t sure how common it was. You know?”

“He does what?” Alarm bells sound in my mind. I do not know how she can joke about this asshole.

“You heard me.” Her lips roll together like she’s trying to bite back a laugh, and my eyes follow the motion.

“That’s not funny, Bailey. He’s watching porn and looking at you. In public.”

She rolls her eyes. “As opposed to in private?”

“He’s looking at you.” The muscles in my back tighten. “Thinking about you.”

She shrugs. “Probably.”

“How can you possibly be okay with that?”

“I don’t usually ask a person’s permission before thinking about them while I masturbate.”

To cover my shock, I just glare at her.

Bailey sighs and pulls away just a bit. “Listen, I didn’t say I was okay with it. But it’s kind of funny, or at least I have to roll with it being funny. Because I don’t get to pitch a fit every time something makes me uncomfortable.” Her fingers tap the bar top. “Welcome to being a Jansen. No one cares if I’m comfortable or not. And if I’m anything short of pleasant, I’m just like my brothers.”

The smile she gives me now is full of you’re-adorably-naive vibes and I hate this for her. I hate that a town that’s been so good to me and my family has been so hard on a girl who didn’t ask for the hand she’s been dealt.

Beyond her, I see Earl’s eyes lift and rake over Bailey’s ass.

I guess that’s why I find myself up off my stool. Walking down the length of the bar.

Right toward Earl.

He’s so engrossed he doesn’t even notice me standing behind him. I don’t bother looking up at Bailey, because I know she’ll be silently begging me not to do this, and I don’t want to see that expression on her face.

I don’t give a fuck what her last name is.

I clamp a hand down on Earl’s scrawny shoulder as I peer down at his phone. Sure enough, there’s some blonde down on all fours taking it in the ass with a lot of bright lights and perfect angles.

He startles and clicks his screen off. “Shit! Jesus.”

“Earl, I’m Beau.”

He licks his lips nervously as he looks back up at me. “Yeah, I know. Beau Eaton.”

Bailey snorts a laugh from behind the bar, and from my periphery, I watch her walk away.

“Cool. Great. So, no more porn in public. Yeah?”

“I wasn’t—” I cut him off by squeezing my fingers tighter on his shoulder. Hard enough that I hope it hurts.

It feels good.

“You were. I saw. Your lovely bartender saw. We’re not going to do that anymore, you got me? You come in for a beer, that’s fine. But you’re gonna keep your eyes off of her”—I point toward Bailey, who is pretending she’s oblivious to what I’m doing—“and your hands where everyone can see them.”

“Listen, man, I—”

I drop my voice dangerously low to silence him. “And when you get home and rush to your bedroom to fuck a sock, you’re gonna keep her body out of your head and her name out of your mouth. You got me?” I take my hand off the guy and prop my hip against the bar, staring at him to make my point.

“Dude, she’s a Jansen. Nobody wanks to a Jansen.”

I want to hit him. I vibrate with the itch to shut him up. But that itch … is a feeling. And I haven’t felt shit in months, which means this feels good.

“Pay and leave before I do something I’ll regret.”

He fumbles with his wallet, tosses a twenty down, and stares at it almost regretfully.

“No change. That’s her tip for even tolerating you.”

His pale cheeks turn bright red as he stumbles away from the bar. I keep my glare on him as he hustles toward the door with his head down, fingers clasped tightly around his phone.

Fucking pig.

He’s gone and I’m still staring. I turn only when I sense Bailey coming up from behind me.

“Ahh,” she says, arms crossed under her breasts, the white cotton of her shirt making her tan skin glow. “The Eaton effect.” She gives me a smug smile. “If I had that last name, people would ask me how high when I said jump too.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

She whips the half-empty pint glass off the top of the bar and turns away. With a shy peek over her shoulder, she adds, “Thanks for what you did back there. It means a lot.”

I don’t know why such a simple sentence hits me so hard. Her bluntness, her gratitude. I feel like a kid. I almost want to blush.

“It was nothing.”

She laughs, soft and melodic, all feminine and amused. “Okay, soldier. Whatever you say.”

I’m not a soldier, but I don’t correct her. That sense of purpose—even just for a few seconds—felt too fucking good.

So I just drop my head and smile.

“Stop stewing.” Bailey doesn’t even glance at me as she tips over a spouted bottle of bourbon to fill a shot glass.

“I’m not stewing.”

“You are.”

I don’t feel like arguing with her. To make matters worse, she’s right. I am stewing. Stewing over what she said about The Eaton Effect. I don’t want her to be right. I’ve always liked Bailey, but over the past several weeks, she’s become something of a comfort blanket. A friend even.

She doesn’t pester me. She doesn’t fawn over me. She makes me tea and lets me be, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for the rest of the people in my life. Namely, my family, who’ve made it their job to overstep and inquire about what I’m doing, how I’m doing, and what I’m planning on doing with mind-numbing regularity.

So it irritates me that Bailey can be this fucking great and people can still be so fucking shitty to her.

It even irritates me that part of the reason I sit here four nights a week is because I’ve developed a totally inappropriate crush on my bartender, like I’m a fucking twenty-year-old bro waiting to make his move.

“Think Earl is rubbing one out right now?” Her lips curve up as she uses the soda gun to fill the rocks glass.

She knows she’s pestering me, and it works.

“Bailey.”

Now her head inclines in my direction, one eyebrow quirking up. “Beau.”

“Don’t.”

“Just trying to give you something to stew about if you’re gonna sit there all quiet and broody.”

I scoff and cover my smirk behind the rim of my mug.

This girl.

It’s with that mug up over my face that I hear a raucous group of people just outside. A quick glance at my watch tells me it’s 12:01—one minute past last call. A glance over my shoulder tells me the only patrons left are a table waiting on their last drinks.

She’s walking those drinks over when three men enter, and I can feel Bailey freeze on the spot before I even turn to look at her. All traces of playfulness on her melt away, the angle of her jaw changing as she sets it.

“Little sis!” Aaron Jansen calls out as he pulls a seat up at one of the round high tops just beyond the bar. “Get us a round on the house.”

Bailey keeps her distance but gives her head a little shake, as though that could clear the tension from her body. “Sorry guys, I’ve already done last call. It’s past midnight. That’s the rule.”

“Come on. What’s the point in having a sister who works here if we can’t get some special treatment?”

I drop my head low, trying to blend in as an unsuspecting regular. I don’t want to start more shit for Bailey, and her brothers and I are not on good terms. Not from when we were younger, and not from the time I recently took part in toilet papering their tractor with Cade and Rhett.

It rained that night, and I imagine picking wet toilet paper off of their tractor wasn’t a good time. Still, they deserved it. And that was fun.

I smile at the memory.

“Sorry, guys.” Bailey approaches her brothers’ table with caution, like she doesn’t want to get close to them but also doesn’t want a scene with the other patrons in the bar. “Not tonight. Management has set later hours for Thursday through Saturday, so try back then.”

The oldest Jansen brother, Lance, tips his head back with a groan. “Bailey, come on. We even brought a friend from out of town. Told him you’d take care of us tonight. Seth, this is our little sister, Bailey. Always a bit of a stick in the mud, if you ask me.”

My spine straightens, and I glance over my shoulder. The third guy is leering at Bailey in a blatant and unsettling way.

At least I leer at her subtly and beat myself up about it afterward. This guy has no such boundaries.

“Come on, honey. You take care of me, and I’ll take care of you.”

My heart rate ratchets up a few notches as I continue appraising the situation out of the corner of my eye. The other table of four is pretending not to watch, but it’s quiet in the bar tonight, so it’s a hard confrontation to miss. When the Jansens roll past, everyone stares because there’s usually some sort of spectacle not far behind.

I shift on my stool and use the mug as cover to take another long look at what’s unfolding at my four o’clock.

But I freeze at the top of that motion because whoever the fuck Seth is has taken the liberty of sliding his palm over the curve of Bailey’s ass, fingers curving inward below her cheek.

I promised her I wouldn’t make any more scenes at her bar.

But I’m about to break that promise.

Because gawking at her while watching porn is bad enough. But laying a single fucking finger on her without her consent?

That’s a death wish.