Chapter 2 Adam
TWO
ADAM
Adam Lark had never dreamt of becoming a bartender. He changed the channel when Cheers came on and preferred to share a drink with a friend at his place, or by someone’s grill. He was an early-to-bed kind of guy.
Or, he used to be.
Outside the office door, the sounds of his late brother’s bar swirled. They always had sports on the TVs, and the lively chatter of groups of regulars, arguments between whoever was currently playing darts together, and the background of music over the speakers created a specific rhythm.
On his computer, his accounting software was staring him down. It had been nearly ten years since his older brother had died in a car accident and Adam had taken over the bar. The bar was willed to Grace, Adam’s niece, but Grace had been a teenager when Heath died.
When Heath had made his will, Adam had agreed to keep the bar alive until Grace could come into her inheritance, if Heath died before she turned eighteen. Adam never thought he would have to fulfill that duty.
Grace was twenty-four now, and every time Adam broached the topic of handing over the day-to-day operations to her, she skirted around the subject.
Adam didn’t press. If he stepped down from operating the bar, he would have to move out of the apartment above the bar. He would have to get a new job and stop lying to himself about being too busy to date. He would have to put roots down in Iowa, and something about that was too real for him.
Instead, he would open QuickBooks every once in a while and spiral over how the bar was, once again, hanging on by a thread. Every month, they managed to get by just by the skin of their teeth. He wasn’t sure how much of a future the bar had left.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then over his short beard. He rolled up the sleeves of his button-up to his elbows because there was something stressful about having the cuffs of long sleeves on his wrists.
It was five past five, and Tanner was late.
Willa had just clocked out, and Grace was tending bar alone, so Adam got up to face the music and help her out.
When he opened the office door, there was Tanner, a big smile on his face that Adam could never be mad at.
Tanner charmed patrons of all genders, and Adam knew there were people who came to this bar just to flirt with him. He could be five minutes late.
While he could never be mad at Tanner, he was alarmed to see his arm in a sling.
“What the hell?” Adam asked good-naturedly. He knew Tanner would read it as concern and not frustration.
“Skateboarding accident.”
“Aren’t you an adult?” Who skateboarded anymore?
“I’m a fun person, which you wouldn’t know anything about.”
Adam had to give him that. “Can you work? Or do you need to go home?”
“I’m going to try.”
“If it’s too much for you, give me a call and I’ll take over.” He didn’t want to close the bar, but he’d rather Tanner heal up quickly and get back to work than aggravate his injury and be out for longer.
He checked in with Grace, who was easily handling the small early-evening crowd by herself, and headed into the storeroom to replenish the supplies Grace was running low on and count the number of frozen pizzas they had left.
They served pretty much any alcoholic drink you could ask for (that wasn’t blended), and either a cheese or a pepperoni frozen pizza.
There was no kitchen, just an electric pizza oven at the end of the bar.
Heathens had never been a fancy place.
Grace and Tanner would be behind the bar for the rest of the evening, with a security guy who would show up around seven and stay until the bar closed.
There wasn’t much else Adam could do. He grabbed his laptop from the office, then let Grace know he would be right upstairs if she needed reinforcements or if Tanner needed to head out.
He slipped out the back door of the bar, jogged up some stairs, and went directly into another door.
Just above the bar was the apartment Heath used to rent out for some extra income. When Adam took over all those years ago, there hadn’t been a tenant for a while. It was easy to move into the empty apartment so he didn’t have to bother Grace’s mom for anything.
Not that he would have been bothering a grieving widow.
Heath and Lori had never gotten married.
They had never even dated. He’d knocked up a local during a one-night stand in college, then stayed to do right by his kid.
While Lori wasn’t cruel-hearted and hadn’t celebrated Heath’s death, she was not shy about her joy in dodging the bullet of having to run the local dive bar.
The apartment was small—a one-bedroom with a tiny galley kitchen and a cramped living room.
He’d had Heath’s furniture moved over when he cleaned out his apartment.
The place wasn’t perfect, but when Adam thought about trying to find something new, he couldn’t figure out how that would benefit him.
First, he couldn’t afford it. And second, this was plenty of room for one person.
He slipped out of his shoes and unbuttoned his Heathens flannel as he headed into his bedroom. The shirt had the bar’s hellfire logo embroidered over his chest. The dress code at Heathens was casual. He left his jeans on and pulled a hoodie over his t-shirt, then went to make himself some dinner.
Ten years ago, he had a freezer full of microwave meals and a cupboard full of boxes of cereal and cans of chili.
Signature bachelor-fare. In the years that passed—and due to a good amount of bullying from his niece—Adam started focusing on his health.
Grace said he needed a hobby, and he had to eat three times a day.
He may as well develop an interest in it.
He was no five-star chef, but he grilled up a chicken breast and assembled a chicken Caesar salad in the large salad bowl he got in a box of random kitchen stuff he bought on Craigslist. The only upgrade he’d made from a stranger’s kitchen odds and ends was a nice set of knives, mostly because he’d cut himself more than once on the dull, shitty knives he’d started with.
He brought his bowl into the living room, sat down on the only square of his couch he ever sat on, and flipped the TV on.
Normally he wouldn’t worry about Grace calling him for anything, but he wanted to be available if Tanner needed to leave.
He would watch TV until he was too tired, then fall asleep to the sounds of the bar that he tried to drown out with white noise, phone volume on high just in case.
And then he’d wake up in the morning to do it all again.