Chapter 6 - Tyler's True Colors
Cut off from the apartment, rejected by Rachel, and facing looming legal investigations, Emma did what every cornered opportunist does: she sought immediate shelter from the next available target.
She hailed a cab and had the driver take her directly to Murphy's Bar, arriving just as the afternoon shift was setting up the taps.
The bar was quiet, smelling of citrus cleaner and stale draft beer.
Tyler was behind the counter, wearing a faded band t-shirt, cutting lemons with a serrated knife while music played through the overhead speakers.
When the bell above the door chimed, he looked up, flashing his rehearsed, charming service-industry smile.
"Hey, we're not quite open for another twenty minutes, folks—"
He stopped mid-sentence as Emma marched up to the mahogany counter, dragging her largest suitcase behind her, looking frantic and disheveled.
"Tyler," she breathed, placing both hands on the bar, trying to summon that intoxicating, flirtatious gaze that had worked so well twelve hours earlier. "Thank God you're here."
Tyler blinked, lowering his knife, his posture instantly shifting from welcoming bartender to guarded stranger. "Uh... Emma, right? From last night?"
"Yes! Emma," she said, letting out a breathless, dramatic sigh. "Listen, things got completely insane after you left. My ex... he went totally ballistic. He locked me out of our loft, threw all my clothes into storage, and cut off all our accounts."
Tyler stared at her suitcase, then back to her desperate face, his charm evaporating like morning mist. "Damn. That sucks, girl. Sounds like a toxic situation."
"It's horrible," Emma continued, leaning closer over the bar, her fingers brushing against his bare wrist. "He’s a monster. But honestly, it made me realize how miserable I was with him anyway. Meeting you last night was like a sign from the universe."
Tyler pulled his hand back smoothly, using a bar towel to wipe down the stainless steel drain board. "A sign? Whoa, slow down there, Emma."
"I was thinking," she said, her voice dropping into a soft, suggestive whisper, "I need a place to crash for just a couple of nights while my business funds clear from my corporate accounts. You mentioned last night you had an apartment in the Arts District?"
Tyler let out a sudden, incredulous laugh that pierced the empty bar like a gunshot.
"A place to crash?" Tyler repeated, shaking his head with a bewildered grin. "Are you out of your mind?"
Emma froze, her smile turning brittle. "Excuse me?"
"Lady, I was flirting with you for tips," Tyler said bluntly, tossing the wet rag into a bus tub beneath the bar. "You were buying forty-dollar craft cocktails and flashing hundred-dollar bills. My job is to smile, make you feel hot, and get a thirty-percent tip on the credit card slip."
Emma gasped, her face draining of all color. "You... you gave me your personal phone number!"
"I give my number to half the women who sit at this bar on a Friday night," Tyler shrugged, utterly unbothered by her outrage. "Half of them are looking for party favors, the other half just want someone to text when their boyfriends get boring. I don't run a women's homeless shelter, and I definitely don't take in random chicks with three bags of luggage."
"You texted me when he left!" she yelled, slamming her hand onto the counter. "You called me gorgeous!"
"Yeah, when I thought you were a rich downtown girl looking for a fun night," Tyler shot back, his eyes narrowing into cold irritation. "I didn't sign up to be dragged into your domestic war. Look at yourself—you've got crazy written all over your face."
Tyler pointed his paring knife toward the exit door.
"Get your luggage off my floor before the owner walks in, Emma. Or I'll have the bouncers carry your bags out to the alley."
Emma stood there on the beer-stained wood floor, looking at the handsome bartender who had represented her freedom the night before.
In an instant, she realized the devastating truth.
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Outside the gilded cage of luxury and security I had built for her, she wasn't a coveted queen.
She was just an unemployed, thirty-year-old woman standing alone in a cheap dive bar, unwanted by the stranger she had traded her entire life to impress.
