Bottled Up: April Fools For Love by Roxy Mews Read Free Book Online Page A

baggy too. She obviously spent good money on her clothes, just in the wrong size.
    Ten minutes later and he had her at the register with a smile and a few accessories to go with her confidence boosting outfit.
    “Are you new here?” she asked once her bag was in her hand.
    “Yes, ma’am. My name’s Nate. Tell your friends to come back, and I’d be happy to get them outfitted in the very best too.”
    The woman grinned. “I’ll do that.”
    Nate felt damn good about himself, until the woman leaned in and whispered to his new boss.
    Once she was out the door, Nate had to ask Twila if he’d heard wrong.
    “You heard right,” Twila told him. “She was disappointed you’re gay. Can’t really blame her.”
    Nate was about to let his boss know he very much enjoyed spending his romantic evenings with women, but the butterfly went by the window again and he knew he’d lost her.  In fact, having his sexuality questioned was going to take pressure off of him. So he shrugged and went about putting away the garments he’d had his first customer try on.
    The front door bell jangled. Nate was about to greet the customer, when he realized he recognized the woman in the doorway with a nametag that matched his own.
    Angela Dennis shut the door with her foot and inhaled a deep breath before yelling, “Twila!”
    The shrill noise was enough to pull his boss away from the butterfly. “Angela, is it time for my break?”
    Nate was pretty sure the woman’s whole day was a break, but he kept that to himself.
    “Why is he in here with a name tag?”
    “He’s our new stocker. Luckily, he’s gay and fantastic with fashion as well as great with customers. His first sale was over five hundred dollars.” Twila looked at him. “You do get commission by the way.”
    He hadn’t known that, but damn , he could possibly make more money doing this than stripping if all his sales went like the first one.
    Angela looked at him as Twila went about straightening up the register. Then as their boss went about pulling out stationary that didn’t seem to have a purpose other than to be shiny, Angela grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the back room.
    “Do you think it’s wise to leave her alone with the customers? She seems a bit…” Nate searched for the most delicate way to say what he was thinking.
    “She’s a useless piece of fluff lately. She used to be able to sell the high-dollar clients everything, which is how she got to be the boss. This last month I think she has lost her touch.” Ang looked toward the sales floor like she was trying to figure out why.
    Nate cleared his throat. “Well, we should probably get back out there, then.” He wasn’t about to be alone with the woman who had hired him to strip two days ago. He had only been out of the stripping gig for forty-eight hours, but already it felt like a dream in his mind. It was a distant memory. Or at least, his brain was blocking it.
    “Are you gay? Is that why you didn’t call Betty?”
    “I’m not gay,” he sighed. “I just picked up a lot of fashion knowledge after being in the industry for so long. And I dressed a lot of my cousins for their big events. Not all of the trends translate into wearable fashion, and I tend to be really good at letting women catch onto that fact on their own. But definitely not gay.”
    Angela crossed her arms and kept him from going back through the door and onto the sales floor. “Then you have no excuse for not calling Betty.”
    “What was I supposed to say?”
    “I don’t know. Did you mean what you said about being sorry for leaving her hanging for a decade?”
    “I regret not trying harder, but I had myself convinced she wouldn’t want to talk to me after so long. I’m the idiot who listened to my friends.” Nate had to physically shake that thought from his head. He had to stop living in the past. “But who’s to say that would translate into anything now. And we didn’t exactly get the best start. I was just