Chapter 9 Brighton
“How do you handle that?” Rhea asks, sitting at the bar, shoving sweet potato fries between her lips while she listens to music.
She pulls out one earphone, and the cord bounces on her shoulder.
The Hollow is shut down for the night, and I’m running through the closing chores while Boone cleans the kitchen.
“What?” I grunt, shoving a door closed with my boot. It’s becoming a consistent challenge to keep my eyes off her, but when she wears tight black pants and tiny fucking t-shirts, it’s impossible not to admire every sculpted curve of her body.
“The empty sound?” she asks when she’s finished chewing.
“Silence?” I furrow my brow at her. Only Rhea would find an issue with the quiet.
“Yeah, that.” She snaps her fingers. When I don’t respond, she takes it upon herself to fill said silence with her voice. “I won’t even volunteer for after-school activities because it’s scary. Makes everything feel haunted.”
I pause, stocking the new bottles of vodka. That we can agree on, when everyone is gone, and the Hollow is empty… It does feel haunted. It’s when the memories claw their way back into my skull and paint everything red.
“You’re afraid of the dark?” I ask her with a huff, trying to seem normal. No one needs to find the skeletons that clank around in my closet.
“Nobody is afraid of the dark, Brighton,” she scoffs.
It’s funny to see a woman so sure of herself pretend like she wasn’t afraid of the monsters under the bed.
She’s Rhea Drake, for God’s sake; people move out of her way when she moves through a crowd.
I’ve seen the tackles she makes; the monsters under her bed should be afraid of her.
“Bright,” I repeat myself for the hundredth time.
“People are afraid of what could be in the dark… It’s the lack of control—the endless possibilities.” She speaks absentmindedly as she picks up the burger and swallows tightly. I gaze down at it in her hands and notice Boone put tomatoes on it again, but I never hear her ask for it without them.
“Control the darkness.” I shrug like it’s a simple answer. “If you aren’t afraid of what will come out of it, then it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Oh yeah sure, good advice, Terminator.” She rolls her eyes at me, giving me a phony salute, and takes a bite, chewing slower than usual. It’s clear she’s struggling, but I’m not going to say anything about it. Fighting with her about tomatoes isn’t on my agenda tonight.
“What did you call me?” I pull out a few bottles, a piece of paper, and a glass, setting them on the counter. I still need to come up with the specials for next week before bed.
“You know, big as a black bear, cold as steel, meaner than a rabid animal, impossible to kill…” Her sentence trails off when she notices me staring at her. “I’m starting to feel like that’s a nickname Kaia gave you in secret.”
“Yeah,” I say in a clipped tone. It’s barely two minutes of silence before she’s asking ridiculous questions again.
“What are you doing?” she asks, setting down the uneaten half of her burger. I look up from the bottles of liquor to her and find those massive dark eyes staring back at me, the red lights from the Hollow glimmering around inside like stars.
I clear my throat. She’s your little sister's best friend, and these hot flashes are because you haven’t touched a woman in two years. Get it together. If I just keep reminding myself of that, it will be easy to get the rest of my body to fall in line.
“Changing the drink menu for next week,” I say to her, and she smiles.
“Literally the best day of the month is when you change the specials.” The way she blurts it out is endearing, and she pushes up, dropping her headphones onto the counter and slamming her hands on the bar top to see the piece of paper.
“This is classified information, Hellcat.” I hold the paper away from her and watch her cheeks turn pink as her eyebrow raises in question to the nickname.
"Mm," she hums.
"You know, a Hellcat. A bad-tempered, violent woman." I think she might snap at me, that the moment might be more heated than I meant it to be but she surprises me.
“I kind of like that." She shrugs it off and I realize that she's telling the truth.
You're a strange little thing. "And please, I work here now. That should give me some kind of special insight!” She grabs for the paper, leaning further now, and if she loses her balance, she’ll barrel roll into the back of the bar, so I move closer to get her to stop.
“It’s blank.” I show her.
“Do you decide on a whim?” She sounds excited.
“It just depends on how I feel, I guess…” I say with a shrug.
“Oh, the girls will get a kick out of this, straight and proper Brighton Black, creates the drink menus on a vibe!” She giggles.
“Hey. No.” I raise my hand to her, “What happens when we lock the Hollow up stays here. You can’t be spilling trade secrets,” I warn her.
“You made that sound kinda cool, so I’m not going to argue, but just know it’s adorable that you do it,” she says, a little softer. The teasing in her voice is neutral as I back away from the bar top again.
“Do you want to help?” I ask her. I shouldn’t ask her.
“Unless you want to kill customers and have to buy new glasses, I should probably stay on this side of the bar,” she says, patting it gently and sinking back onto her stool.
“There’s no one here to poison, Rhea,” I say, and I can see the gears turn over as she considers it.
“It’s probably not a good idea.” She gives her head a shake and turns back to her fries, but it’s pretty clear that she really wants to try.
“Don’t be a chicken,” I say to her.
Her eyes snap to meet mine, “I’m not a chicken.”
“You’re acting like one. What's the worst thing that can happen? You break a glass?” I scoff. “Sunday breaks two a night.”
Rhea’s teeth sink into her bottom lip. I flex my hand at my side to keep from reaching out to stop her from doing it, but she rises from the stool and takes a deep breath. I don’t say a word as she rounds the bar and comes to stand next to me.
“What’s the drink you made me the other night?” She asks after a moment of weird silence.
I run my hand over my mouth and try to think.
I know exactly what I made her, but saying it quickly would be an admission of my scattered, lingering, and very inappropriate thoughts of her.
It’s also not a drink that suits her; it was just fruity with too much vodka to make her brain foggy enough to forget her bad day and smile… but I know which one will suit her.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, and don’t wait for a response before I’m moving toward the kitchen. Boone is moving around, scrubbing down the steel tables with a rag in a sleeveless Hollow shirt with his headphones on.
“Hey!” I bang my hand on the end of the table, and he jumps out of his skin.
“What?” He slips the headphones off in a clumsy panic, and I realize that I’ve scared him for a different reason. He thinks something’s wrong.
“Shit.” I pause, breathing in. “Sorry. I just need you to turn on the espresso machine for me.”
“You really need to work on your entrances.” Boone finally takes a breath. “I’ve taught you how to use that more than once.” He points to the giant brewer with a sigh. “It’s also two a.m.,” he adds, but moves around the table to the second counter and puts his hand around the back to flip it on.
“I’m just running through the tests of this month's specials,” I say. “And that thing has a mind of its own.”
Boone stops to give me the ‘you’ve been to war, and the espresso machine scares you’ look, and I scowl deeper at him. He raises both hands and goes back to making the espresso for me. Before long, the entire kitchen smells like coffee.
“Two shots,” I say to him, and he narrows his eyes on me. “I’m teaching Rhea.”
“Oh, you’re teaching Rhea," he mocks. “That’s the second time this week that you're entertaining one of Day’s friends after close.”
“She was eating dinner and asked to help,” I say.
“Sure,” Boone smiles, “does she need a drive?” He asks.
“No, you just finish up here and get home." I can see from his expression that he wants to comment again, but instead he sets the cup on the counter in front of me and waits, watching my hands.
“They’re getting worse,” he says. “The tremors, why?”
The anniversary is coming.
“I don’t know,” I hold out my hand, and it’s shaking again.
“Go plan your drinks, but I’m taking you to the doctor—”
I open my mouth to argue that I don’t have the time for that, but Boone glares me into submission and points to the espresso shot.
I nod, only noticing then that he’d put it in a taller glass, and even though my hand shakes, I don’t spill anything as I wander back out to Rhea.
She’s staring up at all the booze with her arms crossed, but she hasn’t moved an inch.
“Did you just stand here the entire time?” I ask her, coming around and setting the shot down.
“You said you’d be right back.” She shrugs and leans over to smell it. “Is that espresso?”
“Did you even taste the drink I gave you, or just—” I joke.
“No way you made me something else.” She cuts me off with the sweetest smile. “It was pink, and…” she stops to think about it, “...blended! I wasn’t that drunk!”
“Right,” I say, reaching out around her to grab two glasses from the top shelf between my fingers.
She stills as I move, and our faces get close again as I slide them off the hook and bring them back around.
This whole time, I’d thought her eyes were brown, but they have soft speckles of green mixed into the chocolate tones.
“Mm,” I hum, turning away from her and setting the glasses down.
“What else was in it?” She leans against the counter with her nose in the cup.