Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [75]
NINETEEN
Music throbbed in the thick, smoky air of the underground bar, loud and nasty and utterly exhilarating. Miranda was shocked at herself for finding it all so exciting—but heck, she was pretty shocked at everything she did lately.
For once, though, for once ever in her life she was going to live in the moment and not second-guess every damn thing. Somehow she suspected this cramped dive bar had seen more than its share of rebellious moment-to-moment-living devotees.
“Earlier, I thought you said something about going to chapel,” she shouted in Adam’s ear.
He bent closer so they wouldn’t have to scream the whole conversation. “Chapel,” he clarified. “It’s the name of the bar. We came in the back way, so maybe you couldn’t tell, but we’re actually in the basement of an abandoned church that was turned into an avant-garde theater decades ago.”
“A theater, huh? We must be at least thirty blocks from Times Square.”
“Yeah.” Adam laughed. “It’s way Off Off Off Off Broadway. The director’s a real nutbar, has the actors do stuff with bats and glassblowing and feathers onstage.”
“Really?”
“It’s not as kinky as it sounds,” he assured her with a grin.
That smile of his, those deep dimpled creases in his cheeks—Miranda had to firm up her knees. It was ludicrous, she wasn’t some swoony teenager.
“And I suppose no one here got the memo about New York’s new smoking laws?”
The bar smelled like . . . well, like a bar. The way they all used to smell before New York outlawed smoking in public places. Miranda didn’t smoke, had never smoked, so it had really surprised her how much she’d missed that tobaccoy taint when out at night. It just didn’t feel like a bar without that haze of blue-gray stinging her eyes.
Chapel was a serious bar.
And apparently very well known to the entire kitchen and front-of-house crew, every single one of whom had taken Adam up on his offer of a free round. She’d lost Jess the instant they arrived. She thought he was up near the stage someplace with the other servers and a few of the cooks.
“Does it look like anyone in here is about to call the cops?” Adam asked, gesturing to the eclectic bunch of patrons propping up the bar.
“If I were a cop, I’d be scared to come down here,” she shot back.
“Aw, we’re not that bad,” Adam protested. “This is our place, we don’t let shit get too out of hand. But it’s a true after-hours joint—no one even shows up to unlock the door until around eleven. Isn’t that right, my man?”
He reached over her shoulder to bump fists with the bartender, a compactly muscled man with shoulder-length brown hair and denim-blue eyes.
“Miranda, meet Christian Colby, the owner of this fine establishment. Chris, this is Miranda. My new kitchen slave.”
Christian looked her up and down. “Nice work. And Temple’s right. This place ain’t no tourist attraction; nobody comes here but folks crazy enough to be getting off work right about now. Cooks, actors, reporters, musicians.”
“Sounds very . . . artsy,” Miranda said.
The bartender smiled, wide and white against his tanned skin. “ ‘Artsy’? With that racket onstage?”
He shouted that last loudly enough to be heard over the din of a drum solo that seemed to involve a very excited bald, shirtless man banging away at his cymbals with more enthusiasm than musicality. Frankie was up there, too, she noticed. Playing bass and grinning like a maniac.
“Brought your whole brigade tonight, huh?” Christian asked casually, his intense blue eyes on the crowd by the stage.
“Every last one, so be nice,” Adam said.
“I won’t rile Grant, so long as he doesn’t rile me.”
Before Miranda could ask what that was all about, the barman changed the subject with a breezy: “So you want a drink, or what?”
“Gimme something with gin,” Adam said. “The good stuff. And Miranda likes . . . actually, I don’t know. What’s your drink, sweetheart?”
“Don’t call me sweetheart,” she said automatically.