He was running the bar.

It had to be him.

Granted, I hadn’t met anyone else besides Pearl. I had seen the schedule in the office and there were two more bartenders, a Roxy and a guy named Nick. Another server who worked only Friday and Saturday nights named Gloria, and then there was a Sherwood who worked in the kitchen with Clyde.

Maybe I was wrong and it was one of them, but I had a feeling I wasn’t, and I had no idea what to think about it. But I was curious. Why would he invest so much into Mona’s?

Out of my control, my gaze drifted from where his hair was trimmed neatly above the back collar of his shirt, down the length of his back, and then lingered on the well-worn, faded jeans.

God, he had a nice ass. A freaking work of art. Even though his jeans were nowhere near tight, but the general form—

Jax unexpectedly twisted his neck, glancing over his shoulder at me, and I was staring at him. Like totally staring at him.

One side of his lips curled up.

He’d caught me.

Heat swept over my face as I hastily looked away, stringing together a buttload of curse words. I wasn’t checking him out. I didn’t need to be checking him out. I mean, I spent a lot of time checking out guys, because checking them out never led to anything.

It never could.

“What’s next?” I asked, clearing my throat as I washed my hands before I ended up with lemon-juice-covered fingers all up in my eyeballs.

“We don’t have a bar back, so every day we’ve got to make sure the bar’s stocked. We also need to do a stock count. That’s already been taken care of today, but I can show you where it’s at. I’m sure it’s changed since you’ve been around.”

A lot of things here had changed since I’d been around. As I dried my hands off, I wondered if Mom had ever done a real stock count. “Who’s been running the bar?”

The line of his back stiffened, and then he turned fully toward me. “I need to show you where we keep everything. Beer is kept chilled, off the kitchen. Liquor is back in the stockroom.” He pushed off the bar top and headed out, leaving me no choice but to follow him down the hall.

As he stopped in front of the door near the office, I flipped the heavy length of hair over my left shoulder. “I know it’s not Clyde.”

He fished out a key ring. “Not sure what you’re talking about, hon.”

I frowned as he unlocked the door. “Who’s been running the bar? Keeping track of everything?”

The door swung open. “See this clipboard?” He jerked his chin at where it hung next to the stocked shelves. “Anything that gets taken out of here, gets marked. Anything. This is also the same sheet we do inventory on.”