Caught Up in You by Sophie Swift

One
    She was wearing red.  Which should have been my first clue. Aren’t there about a million songs warning men about women in red? But did I listen to a single one of them?
    You tell me.
    There was nothing especially different or remarkable about her. Had the course of my life not been completely altered by her existence, she would have just blended in with all of the other rich, Manhattan housewives who wander into this restaurant in Eastbrook Connecticut and sit at the bar, looking for a temporary distraction while their emotionally distant husbands are out playing golf and smoking cigars.
    These women had become my bread and butter.
    Because I’ll tell you something. Rich, bored housewives tip. Like ...well . Especially if you’re a smart enough bartender to give them that little extra splash of attention that they’re so desperately craving. You know, let your hand linger a little too long after dropping off their drinks, let your eyes linger a little too long on the low cut of their dresses. A wink here, a smirk there, and voila, your tip instantly triples.
    I may not have been very good at math in high school, but that kind of calculation I can do.
    But I never took it any further than a flirty banter. At least not with the married ones.
    That’s what bartenders do. We flirt. They might as well have a class for it at bartending school. “How to Effectively Relieve a Woman of $100 Using Only Your Charm and a Slightly Too Tight Pair of Jeans 101.”
    Hell, I’d ace that class.
    The only ace I would have ever gotten in my life.
    But when this particular woman said she was divorced, that’s when things got interesting.
    Bored, lonely and still married? Off limits.
    But bored, lonely and recently divorced? Well, that’s another story.
    How was I to know how fast things would get out of hand?
    She sat her hot 40-something, pilates-sculpted ass down at the bar and gave me some sob story about how her husband used to take her up here to this “cute little town” when they were first married and how romantic it had always been. Now he was taking some other hot piece of ass to some other “cute little town” while she drank here alone.
    I felt sorry for the woman. I really did.
    Hey, I’m a sensitive guy, okay? Bartenders can be sensitive. In fact, it can really help with tips.
    Well, it turned out the “other hot piece of ass” part was true enough—her husband had been cheating on her with some young college intern from his office. But the “divorced” part was a little less than a fact.
    We talked, we flirted, I passed her a free drink. They love when you pour them free drinks. They act like you just opened up a blue Tiffany box with diamond earrings in it. If only they knew it cost me about three dollars and fifty cents to give them that drink. A small investment for a double—sometimes triple—digit tip.
    Then she left. And I thought that was that.
    Until I found her at the front door thirty minutes after the restaurant had closed, wearing a trench coat.
    She’d claimed to have left her phone on the bar, but I knew it was bullshit. I’m a bartender. I can spot an “I just came back here to fuck you” lie from a mile away. And the “I think forgot my cell phone” is as classic as apple pie.
    Especially when you change out of your red slinky dress (which trust me, was plenty sexy enough) and change into a trench coat. Without bothering to put anything on underneath.
    Sure, it was cliché but who was I to complain? I’m a bartender who sleeps with divorced cougars. I’m a walking cliché. As soon as I let her inside and she allowed the fabric ties of the coat to unravel and fall open, revealing just how little she was wearing underneath, I was no longer worried about originality.
    It didn’t take long for her to kiss me. That’s pretty much rule number one. You let them kiss you first.
    For starters, it’s way hotter.
    But mostly, it’s a rule because there’s a fine line between flirting and