Chapter 2
Brooklyn
A llison slid into the barstool across from me, and I leaned over the bar top, folding my arms and giving her a studying look.
“Can I see your ID, ma’am?”
“Ha, ha, ha, you’re so funny. A strawberry daiquiri, please. Virgin.”
“I assure you I’m not. Rough morning, huh?”
“Everybody who thinks money is a substitute for decency checking in today…” She shook her head. She was the youngest member of the concierge team, a college sophomore getting her degree in fine art and working here for the summer to help cover it. She’d worked here last summer, too, where I’d taken her under my wing and babied her, but now that she was here for a second summer, she got no such treatment, a full-on member of the club now. Including the dead look in her eyes after a Monday morning shift, otherwise known as arrival time for all the people rich enough to book an entire week but simultaneously cheap enough to think they’re getting a better deal if they skip one weekend. Still, she smiled. “Had a better interaction with this one girl right before clocking off, though, and it made things better.”
“Oh yeah? Picking up girls?”
She rolled her eyes. “Not everyone is trying to bang every person they see, BB. God. No, just her grandmother was trying to redeem Hilton reward points for an upgrade at our very non-Hilton resort and was acting like I personally was on a quest to ruin her vacation. So the granddaughter came in to send her very politely away, and she ordered some flowers and chocolate sent up to the grandmother’s suite so she could pretend we upgraded her, had it put on her account without the grandmother knowing.”
“Ha. That’s cute. Not often you see rich enough to order something without checking the cost alongside doing a random favor to help the schmucks at concierge. ” I slid her drink her way, and she snorted as she picked it up.
“Helping the schmucks at the bar is just normal, though. It’s called tipping.”
“Tipping is a payment for a service. The drinks cost money. Attention and pretending I like someone costs tips.”
“Pointedly angling your cleavage towards someone costs extra tips.”
I laughed, wiping down the counter. Quiet right now—Monday afternoon, even in resort land, wasn’t the most happening time at a bar, mostly because everyone here now was too busy enjoying the fact that they got to sleep in on a Monday. The cozy little cabana-style design of the bar, worked in along the massive pool—it was a good spot to rack up tips and enjoy the best weather in the world all in one go. A lot of hot people coming through did not make the job any worse.
Most of my coworkers were either passing through or miserable, and I couldn’t totally blame them—high-budget resorts meant people expecting perfection or they’d act like you were stealing their money personally and intentionally giving them a bad day. Me, though, I couldn’t think of a better job.
Helped that I always delivered perfection, so people didn’t have a lot to complain about anyway. Also helped that I was shallow and had a huge ego, so I liked the attention I got working here. Even if it was supposed to just be attention—sleeping with a guest was an absolute no-no that all of us here had done anyway. As long as it wasn’t at the bar, nobody really cared. Management knew the promise of potentially getting lucky with a hot bartender was part of the draw of the bar, so they pretended they didn’t see anything.
“You call it pointedly angling my cleavage, I call it strategically leveraging my assets for maximum return on revenue. Tomato, tomato. So, who’s this girl you like?”
“I’m not crushing on her, weirdo, she’s probably, like, your age.”
I was twenty-six years old. Leave it to a college girl to make that into a weapon like I was ancient and decrepit. “So, who’s this girl you like as a good customer?”
She laughed. “Ryan Bell, staying with her boyfriend in suite 36. I’m absolutely giving her preferential treatment if anything comes up. You’d better do the same.”
“Boyfriend, huh?” I clicked my tongue disapprovingly. She rolled her eyes.
“Now I see what it is. You were just scoping out if you had to fight past me to hook up with her.”
I laughed, glancing up as someone slid into the bar further down. “Hey, I’m just saying, you’ve crushed on a guest before, and you felt sad that you didn’t at least try once she left. So I’m hoping we’ve all learned our lessons. Now, I’m going to leave before you argue with me.”
“Jerk,” she laughed after me as I slid down the bar to greet the older couple sitting down at the end, and I smiled and laughed with them over little things as I prepared them a couple of drinks. Older couples went one of two ways: the kinds that grew together, or the kinds that grew apart and just never considered divorce an option. In a world of too many of the second kind—passive-aggressive comments about each other, cold gestures in front of each other—it was always the sweetest thing getting to see one of the couples that were blissfully in love into their seventies, giggling together like little kids. I stuck around for a little while listening to them talk about vacation stories, and I was a little more lighthearted once I was at the other end of the bar and my manager Greer caught me, a tall Black woman with serious all over her features, which did not accurately represent her personality at all.
“Brooklyn,” she said lightly. “Going well?”
“Couple down at the end of the bar right now were just telling me about their goldendoodle called Nachos, so all in all it’s a perfect morning.”
She looked down at her tablet. “Okay, well, now I want nachos, so first of all I’m blaming you for that. I know you were supposed to finish at seven today, but apparently a group is coming around to pack in the place right before seven, so do you think I could convince you to stay an extra half an hour?”
“Depends. If you’ll agree to look the other way while I take a shot of cachaca, then absolutely. If you’ll look the other way while I drink an entire caipirinha, I’ll stay an extra hour, no complaints.”
She tapped her screen. “Take the caipirinha, then. Based on what I’ve heard about this group, you might need it… sorority party, and a rowdy one at that. I’ll put you down for an extra hour. You’re the best.” She paused. “If you’re going to run off with one of the sorority girls, I’ll pretend I don’t see that either as long as you do it after your shift ends.”
“You think I’m that simple?” I put a hand to my chest. “Honestly. It’s like you just dream of going around insulting your best employee.”
She put her hands on her hips. “I’m just calling it as I see it, Miss. Now, back to work with you.”
Honestly, unbelievable. Making an accusation like that of me? Just because it was true? Really, what gave her the right?
The bar picked up a little bit, and I moved between customers, between the middle-aged women who saw me as a cocktail machine and didn’t acknowledge my existence past that, the middle-aged men who saw a cocktail as an excuse to hit on me, and my personal bugbear, the people who snapped their fingers to get my attention—wasn’t the perfect crowd, but at least Allison hung out at the bar talking with the front desk supervisor Gavin, both of them clocked off from a morning shift, and I got to complain to both of them about customers in between making ten drinks at a time. It was once it quieted down a bit that Allison asked me for just a glass of sparkling water with lime this time, and I slid it across the bar top to her, where she nursed it slowly.
“I would do it again, you know,” she mumbled. “If I had a crush on a guest again, I wouldn’t go for it this time either.”
I studied her for a second before I arched an eyebrow. “Oh, you’ve premeditated backing out, huh?”
“I’m not like you,” she said. “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with being like you. You’re probably the only person I’ve seen who’s really happy being here,” she laughed, but her expression fell again, looking down at her drink. “I just… don’t know how to have a casual connection with someone and leave it at that. If I like someone, I really fall for them hard and I’m all in, everything. I can’t just be with someone for a week, or… or even just a weekend.”
I leaned against the bar, cleaning a shaker—not really like it needed cleaning, just for something to do with my hands, thinking it over before I said, “Have you tried?”
“Tried what?” She raised her eyebrows at me, and I shrugged.
“Tried being with someone just for a week.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I just told you, I can’t do that kind of thing.”
“How many girls have you even been with?”
There was the critical blow. She withered a little, hunching her shoulders, a little color spilling into her cheeks. “Does that matter?”
“Is it zero?”
“It’s not zero!”
“Is it one?”
She looked away. “It’s more than one…”
“Two.”
She mumbled something. I laughed.
“You’re young. Two’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Anyway, I’m guessing both of them crashed and burned spectacularly and left you broken inside and hollowed out forever.”
“I thought bartenders were supposed to talk to you and make you feel better, not worse.”
“Just saying.” I set the shaker aside, leaning over the bar towards her as a breeze came rustling through the pavilion, tasting sweet with the ocean air. “You try to get it perfect and find the one without any missteps along the way, it’s going to fuck you up. Trust me. You might not believe me, but I made that same mistake.”
She gave me a look that was exactly as skeptical as I’d expected. “You? Overly romantic?”
“I know. I was awful, too. Got all up in other people’s business telling them if you’re not dating for marriage, you’re dating for heartbreak. Totally looked down on anyone who dated a bunch or who ended multiple relationships. I guess one thing that never changed was me being a busybody.”
“I really have a hard time picturing that…”
“Well, picture harder, because it’s true. But now I think I’ve matured a bit, and… well, dating’s just like everything else in life. You have to mess up a bit, here and there, before you get it right. And going into it with the intention to make it work doesn’t have to mean hinging everything on it being your one true love. Same as anything else. If you’re new to painting, you go into a painting trying to make it good but you let go of the results and accept it’s probably not going to work.”
She chewed her cheek. “Are you saying I have to practice falling in love? That sounds weird.”
“Just saying to take the pressure off having the perfect setup for the perfect relationship with the perfect woman. Sometimes it’s good to have a low-stakes environment to test in and see what happens. Or just to try something even if it’s not a perfect forever love story, just to enjoy the time with someone.”
She scowled. “I’m still not dating a guest. That’s bad policy.”
“Ah, no one cares. Besides, just because it’s temporary doesn’t mean it can’t become forever. It’s really easy to stand on one side of the ocean and think the water goes on forever, but we can’t see forever. Trying to think of forevers gets us all in trouble and has us making promises we can’t keep. So, all that is to say,” I said, standing up, “if there’s another hot girl around, you should absolutely hook up.”
“You just always have hookups on the mind.”
“Hey, so what? You saying you wouldn’t at least think about it?”
She huffed, looking away, as if I couldn’t see her blushing. “ Thinking about it is different than doing it. Especially with straight girls, closet cases…”
“Uh-huh.” Of course, I got it, kind of. Hooking up with a guy was easy—I did it all the time. Hooking up with a girl, here with her parents, who she wasn’t out to—that was trickier. When it was about more than just hooking up? God forbid. I didn’t think anything in the world could persuade me into that.
“I hear there’s a rush coming through soon,” I said, pushing away from the counter. “Better get a move on if you don’t want to get crushed by sorority girls. From what Greer said, seems like they’re graduates, so not only are they old and decrepit like me, they’re also the type to still do sorority trips after graduating college, so double whammy. You’ll have to look for those cute closet-case girls somewhere else.”
“I’ll throw my drink on you,” she laughed, but she’d threatened that a lot of times and she’d only done it once, so I was good with taking my chances.
Turned out the crowd wasn’t as bad as Greer made it sound—they were clearly just getting warmed up, everyone on decent behavior for now, conversation still a little stilted and awkward in places between them as they loosened up, and the people you could obviously tell had issues with someone else in the group were being polite about it for the time being. They skimped out on tips, but they behaved okay, kept me working at a brisk pace for the better part of the evening without sweeping me off my feet, and it left me a little exhilarated by the time it was settling down and I had another half hour left in my shift when a man slid into a more covered, shaded corner of the bar with a sly smile on his face that said he liked what he was seeing.
Frankly, he wasn’t too bad, either. I’d seen him earlier in the day too, hanging out at the bar with a few others, and we hadn’t talked, but he had that bad-boy stubble and troublemaker’s gleam in his eyes, and I couldn’t lie—it was kind of my weakness. Guess I was simple, because I was all too happy to walk up to him and lean against the bar, kicking one foot up over the other.
“What can I get you?” I said, and he smiled slyly.
“Depends. What’re you offering?”
“Mojito’s a pretty popular one tonight.”
“Mojito’s a bit of an odd name, but it’s a cute one. Suits you.”
“Ha.” I folded my arms on the bar, leaning towards him. “Just for that, now you don’t get to know my actual name. Guess I’m Mojito for tonight. And that makes you?”
He smiled wider. “Jack,” he said. “Jack Daniel’s, if you want to use my full government name.”
“Mojito and Jack Daniel’s. There’s a risky combo.”
“I’m a risk-taker.”
Maybe he was. Maybe I was into a risk-taker. “Well, Mister Daniel’s, do you want a drink, or just to push your luck and see where it can get you?”
He chuckled. “Let’s do a mojito, then. In your honor.”
“Aren’t I flattered? One mojito for Mister Daniel’s, coming right up.”
We went back and forth flirting a little bit—didn’t really say much about himself, but I wasn’t looking for a connection. Clearly, neither was he. Guess it was a red flag when a guy wouldn’t even tell you his name, but it felt a little different when I was the one who started it. Made small talk—asked him how long he was staying, where he was coming in from, and he asked me how long I’d been working here, what it was like working a resort bar. Standard issue questions. He navigated them like a pro, though, just enough sly comments and clever looks worked in to keep me hooked, and not to big myself up, but I think he was pretty solidly pulled in as well. Man looked at me like the building behind him could have collapsed and he wouldn’t notice.
So once my shift finished and I clocked out, and when I found Mister Jack Daniel’s leaning against the bar with that bad-boy smile trained on me like we were the only two in the resort, I didn’t need much convincing.
“Done so soon, Mojito?” he said as I pushed out of the door and onto his side of the bar, and I shrugged.
“Bar’s getting a bit stale. Could use a change of scenery. Anywhere good you have in mind?”
He smiled wider. “Aren’t you the resort staff? Pretty sure you’re the one who’s supposed to have the recommendations in mind.”
I glanced down at my fingernails. “Don’t know if you’ve tipped well enough for that. Might have to ask front desk.”
“And share you? Not feeling it. Let’s go somewhere you can get a drink too.”
I laughed. “Maybe a shot of Jack’s. In your honor. Fine then. Let’s get out of the resort and hit up Casablanca. Club pretty popular with visitors just up the way a little.”
He didn’t lay up on the charm, either—we slipped out of the resort grounds together and headed up to where Casablanca was quiet right now, Monday evening just a bit after opening not exactly its peak hours, and the bartenders here knew me well enough to give me space when I walked in with someone. The flirtation got more overt as the evening went on, sly comments turning into dirty jokes, and I was only two drinks in by the time his hand rested casually on my ass and our lips met, as risqué as we could get away with in a club before it was even ten o’clock.
Figured I was in for a good night. Spirits sailed high and crashed hard when we got back to the resort, barely keeping our hands off each other on the trip back, and I sobered up instantly at the sight of the number 36 on his suite door as he fished his keycard from his wallet, swiping it at the door.
Allison’s little friend—what was her name? Ryan Bell. Staying in suite 36, with her boyfriend.
Son of a bitch. Guy was always going to give me a fake name. To be fair… I couldn’t give myself too much credit, because I waited until he opened the door, part of me wondering if I was getting invited to a threesome that I would not have said no to.
No such luck. Empty room besides Jack Daniel’s—two sets of bags, squashed in together so it looked like it was all one pile of his stuff. Men’s care products scattered over the bathroom sink to make it look like it was just him. Guy had done this before.
“Doing okay?” he said, pausing in the room, looking back at where I lingered in the doorway. The drinks were suddenly miles away, my head perfectly clear as I worked out what to say here—wasn’t my first time finding out someone was trying to cheat with me, but I hated when it did. Never knew the safest way to handle it.
“Not… strictly,” I said. “Think I’m feeling a little sick.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Drink not settling right? Come in and sit down and I’ll bring you a glass of water, something—”
“Probably more urgent. Just threw up in my mouth a little.”
He cringed. Being gross always worked—make them want to leave with as little to do with me as possible. “Do you… need the bathroom?”
“I’ve got medicine back at mine… let’s hope I make it that far without throwing up altogether. God, I shouldn’t have ordered a milk drink, I’m going to be puking all night.”
He wrinkled his nose, and I stepped back.
“Sorry, Jack,” I said. “Tonight was fun, though. See you around.”
He didn’t stop me, letting me shut the door and pitch convincingly drunkenly towards the corner, and I stepped into a staff entrance at the side of the building once I was out of view, leaning back against the wall inside a storage room with a sigh, eyes up towards the ceiling.
The resort bar was a ton of fun. Hookups were great. But everything great had its catch somewhere.
I hated this part.