Chapter 2 Henri
Henri
Iknow I’m late, but I have a caramel mousse with your name on it!” I call out to Jimmy, Fender’s owner, who’s working behind the bar that’s dimly illuminated with tangled multi-colored Christmas lights as I rush to the break room that’s at the back of the long room.
Fender caters to the nine-to-five happy hour crowd in FiDi and isn’t packed today, but has a generous amount of people around tables sipping on drinks.
It has a manufactured divey feel, with pool tables, wood paneling, and a collection of old neon signs, but our clientele would probably walk out of an actual dive bar with a broken nose they absolutely deserved for saying something stupid.
In the break room, I quickly change out of my dress and into the dark-wash jeans and black shirt I keep stashed in my locker for my shifts.
I’ve been working all day, but the exhaustion has yet to catch up with me.
Sure, I’ve spent that time sitting on my ass eating fancy food, but there’s an emotional toll.
It’s like the moment I stop moving my bones start creaking, warping back into the shape that is uniquely Henri, the way werewolves do in movies, contorting and twisting until they’re panting and tired.
And if I’m being honest, I prefer to put that transformation off as much as possible. It’s easier to play pretend than to be myself. Though, if you asked, I’m not sure who Henri Elm is beyond a workaholic with champagne taste.
For the next thirty minutes, I help with a wave of customers, going through the automatic motions of grabbing sticky syrup bottles, smacking the shaker with the heel of my hand, and shaking until my arms are numb.
“Whatcha doing back there on a holiday?” asks a guy wearing a standard issue finance bro quarter zip. He’s slurring slightly as he speaks.
I cut him a smile over my shoulder as I pour him the dark stout he ordered. “Making sure good people like you get to drink.”
“Parents dead or something? Hot girls like you always have trauma and are great in bed,” he drawls. Has this ever worked for him? Oh to be the broken girl coveted by a lackluster man, because when he inevitably ends it, he doesn’t feel guilty because she’s already busted up and it’s not his fault.
Cute.
“Nah, my dad’s in jail and my mom is spending the holiday on her six-month-long honeymoon.” I slide the pint to him, smile firmly in place. I’ve found that seeming okay with my trauma tends to make people uncomfortable enough to shut the hell up.
The truth is, we never do Thanksgiving together.
Mom knows this is my busiest season and she’s supportive of what I do for work.
After Dad left us high and dry we learned how to survive together.
She went back to teaching high school history while I transferred to an online college to finish my degree while working as a bartender at our local Chili’s.
Being a bartender is how I learned how to shift—be the person someone wants me to be.
Usually, people just want someone to listen and really be heard, to validate the way they feel so they feel a little less lonely.
The tips I got from laughing at bad jokes and talking to divorcees are what paid for groceries.
The mass-produced finance clone smirks, grabbing his drink. “If you need company—”
“She has me,” Iris interrupts as she takes the seat directly in front of me.
“And based on the fact you’re dressed like five other guys I walked by on my way in, I’m more interesting and won’t give her an STD.
Something about you screams pubic lice.” Iris waves her hand over the lower half of the guy and it takes everything in me not to let loose a snort of laughter.
“There was that one time . . .” I say, raising my brows suggestively as I grab the copper mug for the Moscow mule she always loves after getting off a ten-hour shift as an ER nurse.
Even after what was guaranteed to be a grueling day—family time and alcohol make idiots of us all—her brown hair has stayed put in its slicked-back ponytail.
With her height and fine bone structure, her hoodie and curve-hugging jeans make her more like a model than someone just trying to be comfortable after a long day.
“That was mono,” she corrects with a dismissive flick of her fingers. “And you’re the one who didn’t want to get your ass up to get your own spoon. Technically mono isn’t an STD, it’s an STI.”
“I’m going to go.” The man takes a step back and hooks his thumb toward his friends.
“Good riddance,” Iris says, then swivels in her stool to face me. “What would you do without me?”
I pluck mint from the julep cups we use to store garnishes and thwack it against my palm before tucking it along the edge of the drink. “Get better tips but have to put up with more assholes?”
“Fair trade-off.” She shrugs and takes a sip, her blue eyes rolling back as she releases a low, satisfied moan.
I met Iris in Philadelphia three years and seven cities ago.
She was a guest at one of the first weddings I was hired to plus one for.
I hung out with my date until he left with a bridesmaid.
Iris was the one who told me I was probably being cheated on and I explained the whole deal to her.
We got to talking about how both of us move from city to city every few months, her as a travel nurse and me with my work because the longer I stay somewhere the riskier it is that my clients will overlap, and by the end of the night we were set to be roommates.
She is also the only person I can call my friend.
I used to have more—people I’d known my entire life, Kurt and Laura.
We went to the same schools from daycare, fed with silver spoons, through college, where we’d bailed each other out more times than I could count.
But the moment the news about my dad went public, they wanted nothing to do with me.
Call me picky all you want, but you sure as hell can’t tell me I don’t have a reason to be. Trust is earned, and Iris is the only person who has managed to win me over.
Another customer bellies up to the bar, and I take care of their order of five tequila shots and a cosmo. When I get back to Iris, she’s done with her first drink and I make her a second.
“Someone better be paying for those,” Jimmy says as he walks behind me, carrying a bucket to get more ice. He’s a stocky man with a dash of grey striking through his nearly-black hair, who, like me, is working tonight so the staff with family plans could have the evening off.
“How many burns did you have to treat tonight because of idiots deep frying turkeys?” Iris asks.
Jimmy cocks a thick brow. “Zero.”
“Wow, what a coincidence! That’s how much I plan on spending tonight.” A hand flies to her face in faux shock. “If it makes you feel better, call it a health-care-worker discount.”
“You’re a menace, Iris.” Jimmy shakes his head as he opens the ice machine and starts to fill his bucket.
“He says it like it’s a bad thing,” Iris says.
“You know, one day he’s going to make you actually pay your tab,” I tell her.
“If I keep flirting and you work the shifts no one else wants, I doubt that. It also helps that you bribe him with leftovers. Speaking of which . . .” She pauses and flutters her lashes. “Did you bring me rolls? I’m starving.”
“Break room,” I say.
Iris goes to retrieve them from my bag while I help a new batch of customers. By the time I get back to her, she’s tearing off pieces of bread and popping them into her mouth.
“Which one is that?” I ask.
In answer, she holds out a piece for me to take a bite. Even hours old, the bread is soft and the piney taste of rosemary blooms on my tongue.
“Bide,” I say. “Just wait until you get to the cheese rolls.”
“So the Spitfire list lived up to expectations?” she asks, taking a sip of her drink which does nothing to conceal the smirk capturing her mouth.
“Come on, I haven’t talked about it that much.”
“If you say so,” she chimes. “Are you going to compare notes when the updated list comes out tomorrow?”
And to think I had almost forgotten the freckled and flustered highlight of my day. “Yeah, probably not going to happen since I accused the guy writing this year’s reviews of stalking me after I helped him get a cab and changed in front of him.”
“Shut up.” Her jaw unhinges for a moment before her eyes sparkle with excitement. “Do you think he could be L. Hughes? Did you flash your celebrity crush?”
“I didn’t flash anyone. He saw me in a bodysuit and leggings.” I groan. “God don’t make me think that it could be him. Also, L. Hughes is not a celebrity.”
I like his writing. It’s refreshing to see a man engage in traditionally feminine topics without bashing them. Simple as that. And yes, maybe I’ve commented on a few articles, but that’s normal.
“Please tell me he’s hot because if it was L. Hughes and he wasn’t, you’ll have nothing to masturbate to anymore.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “Oh my God. I tell you I accuse him of stalking me and you ask if he’s hot?”
“So you do get off to the idea of him?” Her smile tips into a self-satisfied, almost feline, smirk.
Okay, sure, she’s right, I’ve thought about a man who could be L.
Hughes. I think competence is hot. Why would I be into a loser?
But it’s not like I have a reference since, unlike the other writers, there’s no picture of him to accompany his byline.
“Not the point.”
“Being vigilant as a single woman is smart, though I think confronting him isn’t great. But you hang out with strangers for a living; I can only expect so much from you.”
“Your faith in me is always appreciated.”
“So,” she says, waving her hand in a circular motion, urging me to answer.