Turning of the Stars Ch. 01

Anna spoke through fingers pressed over her lips, "Oh my gosh, I called it a list of demands. I called him a blowhard. I can't believe he let me say those things. Why didn't he tell me? He just stood there letting me make a fool of myself!" Her increasingly angry tirade was interrupted by the phone on Claudia's desk.

"Hello?" Claudia said into the mouthpiece. "Okay, point him toward the break room and we'll be there in just a sec. Thanks Jesse." She hung up the phone and looked at Anna. "He's here. Come on, let's go apologize," she said with a smile to soften the command.

Anna groaned inwardly, but followed her friend without argument. She knew there was no way she could leave with all these customers here and honestly part of her, the part that wasn't completely mortified, was aching to see him again despite the fact that it had only been about forty-five minutes since they'd parted ways in the grocery store. She took a deep breath as they walked up to the break room door.

Claudia turned and looked at her. "You ready?" she asked kindly.

Without waiting for a response Claudia opened the door and pushed Anna in, closing the door behind her. Anna turned and looked at the door in shock before slowly turning back around to look at Grant, who was sitting in a chair grinning widely at her.

"Figured it out, did you? I wondered if you would once you saw my name," he said with a chuckle.

Anna flushed beet red and could hear her pulse beating in her ears. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, embarrassingly near tears.

Grant jumped up and rushed to her, concerned. "Oh no, no no. Please don't be upset," he said, reaching for her and putting his hands on her shoulders. "Really, there's no need to feel bad. I thought it was funny."

Anna couldn't look him in the face. She kept her head down hiding behind a curtain of hair. "I am, though. I shouldn't have said those things, I didn't mean them." She paused before looking up into his face. "That's not true, I did mean them, but I would never have said them to you if I'd realized who you were."

"It's okay, really." He squeezed her shoulders in what was probably meant to be a reassuring way, but his firm grip sent a shiver down her spine. "I should have told you when I figured it out."

"Yes, you should have," she said reproachfully. "When did you figure it out?"

"When you handed me the list. I wrote it. I wrote it all by myself, even, so I get points for that, right?" He grinned that heart-stopping grin at her and dropped his hands.

"I called you a blowhard."

"Well, if you want to be accurate you called me a self-involved blowhard with an over-inflated sense of entitlement. That was my favorite part."

"Oh god," she whimpered, burying her face in her hands.

"Anna." She jumped at his warm fingers on her wrist, gently pulling her hands away so he could look her in the eye. "I am sorry. I should have said something."

"I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have been so rude and judgmental."

"So we're even?" he asked hopefully.

"Not exactly," she said with a tentative smile. "I still owe you for helping me in the grocery store."

"Oh yeah?" He took a half step toward her, suddenly filling the room with his presence. "You owe me for helping you find the most obscure groceries I could google and then demanded you buy for my personal consumption?"

Anna laughed and nodded. "You offered to help before you knew. It was really sweet of you."

"Well, in that case I won't bother to confess that I only approached you because I got all hot and bothered at the sight of a beautiful woman surrounded by exotic fruits. They may not be your thing, but they are very much mine."

She flushed and looked down again, smothering the second simpering giggle of the day. What was wrong with her? She peeked back up at him again to gauge whether he was teasing her or not. Though he was smiling, once again his expression belied his light tone. His eyes bored into her intensely and he seemed almost expectant.

Just as Anna realized that he might be about to kiss her there was a loud rap on the break room door. They jumped apart like two guilty school kids and Claudia came barging into the room.

"Hi, I'm Claudia Reynolds, I own this place" she said rushing in and shaking Grant's hand, all the while pretending not to notice the tension in the air. "It's so nice to finally meet you in person. Everything is all set up and ready to go, the only thing missing is you. And let me tell you, those natives are starting to get restless. You'd better get out there and show your stuff before they start tearing down walls looking for you."

Anna bit her lip to keep from laughing. Claudia had a talent for making even the most innocent statements sound vaguely sexual and Anna had yet to figure out whether she did it on purpose. At sixty-five years old she carried herself like a woman of twenty-five and was an unapologetic flirt so it was very likely she did.

"Should I undo my top three buttons to appease them?" Grant asked playfully.

"I think shirtless is the way to go. That's my general rule for life at any rate." Claudia replied, winking at him shamelessly. "Now let's get this show on the road."

Despite Claudia pushing him out the door, Grant turned and pointed to Anna. "You still owe me," he said threateningly. "Don't you go anywhere."

...

Anna collapsed on the old dusty couch in the reading area and closed her eyes. The books had been signed, the star fruit with mango orange sauce prepared, the author photographed with flocks of swooning women. Claudia was thrilled with the turnout as well as the sales and was currently helping Jesse ring up the last few stragglers while Anna took a minute to put her feet up before starting cleanup. The bounce of the worn springs jolted her as someone sat down next to her on the couch.

"That went well, right?" a male voice said, sounding too close to her ear.

Anna's eyes flew open to see Grant leaning back with his feet propped next to hers on the table.

"I mean, it was my first book signing so I don't have anything to compare it to, but it seemed like it went well." Though he sounded confident, Anna noticed that he glanced at her nervously as he asked the question.

"Absolutely," she assured him. "It was great, the food was wonderful. You were very entertaining and you, um, have a lot of ardent fans."

She smiled in delight at the blush that crept up his neck.

"Nah, they were just here for the food," he said with a smile to cover his embarrassment. "Speaking of which, I'd really like it if you guys would come out to the restaurant this evening for dinner. It would be on me, of course, as a thank you for having me."

Anna looked over at Claudia, who was standing behind the cash register watching them with a huge grin on her face. When she noticed Anna looking she held her hand up like it was a phone, theatrically mouthing, "Give him your number" while Jesse, the cashier, tugged on her sleeve frantically to try to get her to stop. Anna bit her lip to keep from laughing.

"I'm sure Claudia and Jesse would love to go. I'm supposed to close tonight. I don't work in the morning so I don't want to dump the cleanup on somebody else."

"I'll help you clean up."

"What? No, I-"

"I don't want to have dinner with Claudia and Jesse. I want to have dinner with you. They're just a convenient excuse."

Her heart thumped, "Oh-"

"Hold that thought." He jumped up off the couch and walked over to talk to Claudia who smiled, then nodded. Grant turned to look at Anna with a mischievous grin.

"Anna!" Claudia called across the store. "Let's just do a quick cleanup tonight. I can get the rest in the morning."

...

Grant rushed in the back door of the club and headed to his office, hoping not to run into anyone before he got there. He'd taken the entire day off to go to the book signing so they weren't expecting him, but he knew if anyone saw him he'd be called away to put out some fire or another and he didn't have time for it.

Fortunately he made it safely to his haven and quickly stripped, glad to be free of the constricting clothes. Dress clothes always felt like a costume, a false front, and while he could be a master of false fronts when he had to be, he still hated the way it made him feel. Fake. Dishonest. He grabbed a clean pair of jeans from his closet and barely had them pulled up when the door to his office flew open and a young woman with short black hair barged in.

"I thought that was you I saw trying to sneak in the back," she said as she barreled into the room.

"Jesus, Corie, don't you knock? Two seconds earlier and you'd have gotten the full monty," he said as he buttoned his pants.

"Oh yeah, like it's my fault you're prancing around naked in your office. Lock the door if you're gonna pull some freaky shit like that."

"I should never have installed those security monitors behind the bar. You were looking for me weren't you? That means there's something wrong," he said as he pulled a dark green t-shirt on over his head. "Look, I'm kind of in a hurry-"

"I know it's your night off. I'm not gonna hold you up. I just wanted to tell you we didn't get our delivery tonight. We're completely out of Amber Bock now."

"That shit head, he's late again? I'm heading over to the restaurant in just a sec, I'll send someone back with a keg."

"Thanks. Hey, how'd the book thing go? Was it as horrible as you thought it would be?"

"No, it was good. It turned out to be a lot of fun, actually. Very...productive," he said with a crooked smile on his face.

"Well, that's good. I guess," she said, shrugging. "Alright I gotta get back to the bar. Don't forget the beer."

"Later," Grant said absently as he started transferring the contents of his pockets from his discarded pants to his jeans.

He was looking forward to dinner with Anna. Her coworkers too of course; Claudia was a riot and Jesse seemed like a sweet girl. But mostly he couldn't wait to see Anna again. He grinned at himself and tried to remember the last time he'd felt this strange combination of anticipation and nerves.

The closest thing he could remember was the nanny he'd had a crush on when he was thirteen years old and just starting to get interested in girls. To his eternal surprise she'd responded favorably to his clumsy attempts to come on to her and ended up being his first sexual encounter.

She'd also been his last nanny, fired when his dad came home early one night and discovered them together in the swimming pool. Naked. It was less than a month later when he'd sent Grant off to boarding school rather than hire a new nanny. That was when he began to suspect that his dad had been less concerned about his 'lost innocence' than he had been that Grant had gotten to the girl first.

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the negative feelings. This was nothing like that, anyway. That had been childish infatuation and this was much more. He could hardly look at Anna without wanting to touch her. Her intelligent brown eyes were in a near-constant state of twinkling amusement at whatever secret thoughts were going through her head and her full red lips were just begging to be sucked and nibbled. In fact he could think of several of her body parts he'd like to suck and nibble.

He gave himself a mental whoa-there-big-fella. That train of thought was dangerous and he couldn't very well walk in the restaurant with a hard on, no matter what kind of hurry he was in. He ran his hands through his hair and looked around to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything and then peeked out the door to make sure no one was in the hallway before sneaking stealthily out the back, across the alley, and into the back door of the restaurant's kitchen.

The bustling atmosphere calmed and energized him at the same time and he had to suppress the urge to take charge and ask how things were going. He knew he didn't need to; he had total faith in his head chef and manager to run things properly. Instead he waved casually at the busy kitchen staff and walked out into the restaurant where the low murmur of voices and tinkling of silverware told him things were going just fine.

The dining room was dim, with orange lights hanging low over the dark wood tables, meant to mimic candlelight in a rustic atmosphere. He'd initially been going for a casual feel for the place, but the food was so upscale that the clientele it attracted ended up giving a much more fancy air to the room especially when it was busy, which it definitely was right now. He smiled when he saw one of the booths at the edge of the room available and quickly went to ask the hostess to hold it for him.

"Hi Melinda, have you assigned table fourteen yet?" he asked the well-dressed older woman at the front door.

"Well hi there, I thought you had the night off, what are you doing here?"

"I came to see you of course," he said with a wink.

"Oh stop it," Melinda said with a laugh, waving her hand dismissively.

"I'm also treating a few friends to dinner. Can you hold fourteen for me? I'm expecting three ladies to show up soon."

"Sure thing."

Grant thanked her and rushed over to the bar before he forgot to send Corie her beer. Of course once there the new bartender, Eric, had a million questions for him about the liquor inventory and he got wrapped up in business, looking up only when he heard Claudia's now-familiar raucous laugh.

...

Anna had to admit that it was probably one of the best meals she'd ever had, which wasn't surprising given that it was probably the nicest restaurant she'd ever been to. It was certainly the most expensive and she would have felt woefully underdressed compared to the rest of the diners if she hadn't been sitting with the owner, who was himself dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

When she'd seen him walk out of the back of the restaurant in his casual clothes she'd practically drooled all over herself. Apparently it wasn't the pants that had made his butt look so delicious earlier because it was just as appealing in jeans.

For the first time she was able to see more of the tattoo she'd had a peek of earlier and it was a real beauty. The tribal flame pattern started half way up his forearm and stretched to just above the neck of his t-shirt, but instead of being filled in with solid color it was filled with intricate fine lines in swirls and geometric shapes. Her eyes were drawn to the unique design and she had to keep reminding herself not to stare too hard.

To her relief Anna made it all the way through dinner without making a fool of herself by using the wrong fork or spilling her wine. She even felt something like relaxed as they teased Grant about the woman at the bookstore who'd handed him a thong and asked him to sign it.

Just as Anna ordered another glass of wine, Claudia stood and announced it was time for her to head home. She shot a significant look at Jesse, who immediately jumped up claiming that she, too, was out past her bedtime. They both thanked Grant for a wonderful meal and before she realized what was happening Anna found herself alone in the booth with him. There was no escape, having just ordered another drink, so she smiled nervously and complimented him again on his restaurant.

"Thanks, it kind of morphed out of the club. I opened that side of the business first and had the food as an afterthought. But I really got into developing a unique menu and then people started showing up earlier and earlier in the night to eat so it seemed like a good idea to just go ahead and do a restaurant too."

"Well, it's definitely something you should be proud of. It's really quite an accomplishment."

"Oh," Grant said, pleased. "Thank you. No one's ever put it that way before, but I guess I am pretty proud of what we've done with the place." His look of gratitude that made her blush and she covered by taking a large gulp of wine.

"Would you like to see the club? It's right next door."

"I'd love to," Anna said with a smile. "Can I bring my wine?"

"Of course."

Grant rose and took her hand, holding tight as he lead her through the restaurant and out the front door, waving goodbye to Melinda as he went. There was already a line on the sidewalk outside the club, but they walked past all the people and right up to the door. A tall black man stood by the entrance. He had the broadest chest Anna had ever seen, tightly encased in a black t-shirt with the words 'Dark Side' across the front in gray. The man nodded at Grant and they clasped hands in a brief shake.

"What's up, G?" he said in a gravelly voice.

"Hey Brody, how's it going?"

"Can't complain."

"How's Marie and that precious baby?"

"I don't think I'll ever sleep again, but other than that we're good."

"Brody, this is Anna. Anna, my friend Brody. He's worked here since I opened the place and we like to say that we don't need security because we have Brody."

The man looked at her and nodded politely. "Hi there, Anna."

"Nice to meet you Brody," she said and held out her hand. He took it with surprising gentleness and one corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile as he shook it.

"L-1, alright man?"

"Yep," Brody said as he opened the door to let them in.

The music hit Anna like a wall as they walked into the darkness. There was a short corridor opening right onto the dance floor where a couple dozen brave souls were moving to the beat. Another large man, this one with pale freckled skin and long red dreds, but in the same black t-shirt, stood at the end of the hall collecting the cover and checking IDs.

"Hey, Derek."

"Hey, boss."

"L-1, got it?" Grant said as they walked past.

"Sure thing, man." Derek nodded and glanced at Anna as he stamped the hand of a buxom brunette wearing little more than a handkerchief over her chest.

As they came out of the hallway Anna could feel the bass thudding in her chest. It was dark, with lights scattered around the edges of the room and a low stage at the opposite end where a DJ stood in a small booth. They walked along the edge of the writhing dance floor and through a wide stone archway into a smaller room, the main feature of which was an enormous L-shaped bar.

Grant looked around, taking stock as they crossed the room. There were people scattered in booths and at tables; a group in the far corner playing pool. The girl behind the bar gave Anna the impression of an unusually cute porcupine with her spiky black hair and multiple facial piercings. She popped open a beer and set it in front of a man sitting at the bar, then turned and smiled at Grant as they approached, the smile wavering when she glanced at Anna.

"Back so soon?"

"I was having withdrawals. How's it going?"

"Not bad for a Thursday."

"Did that delivery show up?"

"No, he called again and said he'd be here in half an hour. That was about an hour and a half ago."

"That asshole. It's almost 10 now, I guess he's not gonna make it tonight. I'll have a talk with him when he shows up tomorrow. Hey, this is Anna. Anna, this is my friend Corie. She helped me get this place up and running and now she's my right hand man."

Anna smiled and said hello, noting the way Corie's jaw tensed at that last bit.

"Can I get you something to drink?" Grant asked.

Anna held up her empty glass and said, "Another one of these? It was some kind of white wine. I have no idea what, but it was good."

Grant's face brightened. "I've got something I think you'll like. I'll be right back." He turned and walked around the bar and into the cooler set into the wall behind.

"So, where'd ýou meet Grant?" Corie asked her with a flat expression.

"At the grocery store, of all places."

Corie raised one eyebrow, a thin red hoop rising with it. "Uh huh."

Anna was trying to figure out an appropriate response to that when Grant reappeared with a bottle in one hand, grabbed her hand with the other, and said, "Come with me." He dragged her away turning suddenly and pointing the bottle at Corie. "Hey Corie, L-1."