3. Bone-tired

Jodie

I am tired, too Goddamn tired the moment I reach my room. It is almost dawn when I finish with my shower and slump to my bed. It feels like I have only closed my eyes for two whole minutes when Mom wakes me up, telling me to get my sister to school.

I groan when my eyes feel so dry. I want nothing more than to go back to sleep and hide under my pillows.

"Jodie, honey...I have your coffee ready. Come on, take your sister to school then you can get back to sleep again." Mom shakes my shoulder, but I am finally up when Miley jumps onto my bed giving me her sunny smile.

My kryptonite. Argh...

"Okay...okay, I'm up. Oh...God, my eyes. I can't keep them open." I grumble, groaning lowly while Miley giggles but keeps on jumping on my bed until I eventually sit up.

Washing my face turns out to be a bad idea when I stumble and my big toe hits the sink. Then...I'm really wide awake, with a throbbing pain in my toe.

"Damn it!"

"Mom! Jodie just cursed!" Miley giggles from my room and I sigh when I continue to splash my face with the cold water.

With coffee in one hand and a list of groceries in the other, I step into my fifteen-year-old car and drive my sister to school. I am in my jeans, a ratty T-shirt, and a pair of comfiest old Converse.

My beehive hair is tucked high above my head. This is me at my best Monday morning after going through the fantastic morning traffic that people are so excited to go through every damn week. Maybe I should find one of those nine-to-five jobs, work like normal people, get a normal job, and live a normal life. But I know there's nothing normal about our family. Not since Dad disappeared and left us with no income and lots of bills to pay.

Mom is a trooper, she disguises her feelings well. Too well sometimes. I hate when she believes that Dad is going back soon and we have nothing to worry about. Um...yeah, that was two years ago. I was supposed to go to college, instead here I am two years later working more shifts than I could handle in a bar, as a guy.

But, I always think about the bright side, we have a roof over our heads, food, and money, though barely enough to get by. Once I get half the groceries and tuck in the rest of the money to pay for the overdue electricity bill, I go back home already thinking about going back to sleep. Before repeating the endless cycle all over again.

I am tired, too Goddamn tired that I missed breakfast and lunch. Mom wakes me up for my shift, I don't feel so good, but we need the money. This is not my first time forcing myself to go to work, bone-tired. Mom makes sure I eat something before I go. A banana was all I had time for since I slept throughout the day. She did pack me dinner in my pink food container.

I feel a bit lightheaded when I get out of my car. "Jordan, my man, you look horrible." Billy greeted me the second I entered the employee lounge to put my dinner and get a can of soda from the fridge. I need the sugar, but there's no more energy drink in there.

"Thanks, boss. Just the encouragement I need to start the night." I groan when my body feels like I am about to drop dead. I put on my fake smile before walking out and heading to the bar. It is a slow night, and I am glad for it. A couple of hours towards the end of my shift, my body feels feverish and Billy is fussing me about taking a break, saying I look pale.

"I'm okay, I have less than two hours left on my shift," I tell him though I want nothing but to do as Billy tells me to. But the big boss is present on the floor, he is entertaining a woman, who looks like she wants to drag him into her bed.

I sigh thinking of course he will get more than enough beautiful women to fill his weeks, while some people ie. me have to slave for money and don't have time to even consider looking for a sexy man. Well, that's not true cause I did fake-date Billy and appease Mom for the next few months, or at least before she starts poking at my single life all over again when Billy fake-dump my sorry ass. Well, maybe I need to create a better reason for ending the fake relationship between Billy and me.

I take a good look at Douglas Easton from afar, and the man makes my insides feel like goo. I remind myself that he is off limit and I look like a dude in his eyes. Yep, not going to happen. Not in my lifetime. Oh, how I wish to get a re-do on life. Maybe I can be the woman sitting with him and talking and flirting with him.

"You don't look so hot, Jordan." Billy decides to rudely interrupt my daydreaming. Wait, it's dark already...so, evening dreaming?

"Mhmm...not your first time pointing it out tonight, Billy, you are really persistent, aren't you? Well done in making a guy feel attractive. Right, Zak?"The man flusters and nods his head. His cheeks blush and just like that, I manage to get Billy's attention away from me cause the man is smitten by the younger guy though he won't admit it.

I am about to move to the other side of the bar where a group of guys wave for my attention when Kirk, the bartender who always comes and goes as he pleases shoved my shoulder unintentionally, I assume so anyway. Because of that, I let myself get pushed aside and since I am too tired to stand on my two feet, I fall and make a scene.

Yup, an hour to go and I fall to the dirty floor behind the bar and take a tray of dirty glasses down with me when my hands instinctively reach out for something to hold.

"Shit! Jordan! Are you okay?"

"I...I'm fine," I groan feeling like my head was about to explode when my head hits the under-the-counter glass rack when I fall.

"No, you're not. You're fucking bleeding."

Oh...there's the low sexy voice that I long to hear. The deep rumbly gruff mountain man-like voice that haunts my dreams just last night. Not that I ever met a mountain man. But yeah, don't judge me for it. I am a weak woman, disguised as a feminine man who was right now being a total klutz and just jeopardized tonight's tip by sending the glass onto the floor. In ruins.

"Bleeding? Um...I will be fine. I just..." I pause as Doug the big boss helps me up, but he doesn't stop there when he ushers me towards the employee lounge, but not before telling Kirk to clean the mess and Billy to help Zak handle the bar.

"Look, let me just help you. Stop being difficult."

"But, ah...you're on a date."

"I am not. Wait, have you been watching me?" The surprise in his voice is too obvious and I have to remind myself not to be stupid and just let the man help and get it over with.

"I watch everyone, actually. It's a slow night. Maybe that's why I didn't see Kirk." It was a lie obviously, everyone knows that Kirk is connected to Doug through his sister.

Billy told me that Kirk is the baby daddy. No wonder he has the attitude to be such an ass to everyone by messing up their shift, at the last minute. Though I never have any problems with that, since I live and breathe the bar.

I need the money, so I never complain. Maybe when Miley is eighteen I can stop working at the bar. Or maybe by then, I have moved on to work at a better-paying job. Yeah, as if...

"Well, Kirk is an ass. You should watch your step when you're around him. But seriously, are you okay? You look paler than usual?"

"Oh...have you been watching me?" I reply smartly and he laughs. And damn it, he sounds hot, a very sexy rumbling laughter that just feeds my soul.

Oh. My. God. I'm in so much trouble. But suddenly, my vision gets blurry, and in seconds I am out like a light.