Chapter 23
Chase
We had another mediation Monday. I needed to review the settlement proposal, prepare talking points, anticipate counterarguments. It was all standard Saturday work.
By eleven, I’d made it through two files and three more cups of coffee.
By noon, my phone was ringing.
Diego.
I considered ignoring it. I had work to do.
But I knew Diego would just keep calling. Eventually he’d show up at my office, and that would be much worse.
I answered. “I’m working.”
“You’re always working. That’s the problem.” Diego’s voice was slightly breathless, like he was already at the gym. “Get here. Now. Don’t make me come get you.”
“I have a mediation Monday—”
“And you’ll still have it after you work out for one hour. It’s one hour, Chase. I’m not asking for your whole day. I can’t let my bestie turn flabby. It wouldn’t be a good look for me.”
“For you—?”
“Yeah, walking through town with you looking all sloppy and out of shape? What would people think of me? I have a rep to consider.”
I chuckled. “You’re impossible.”
“Whatever. I’m already here, already on a treadmill with an empty one beside me. If you’re not here in thirty minutes, I’m coming to get you, and I will carry you out of that office.”
“You can’t—”
“Try me.” There was a pause. “Please? You need a break, and I need my best friend to remember he’s human.”
I looked at the files on my desk, glanced at the clock, then looked at my reflection in my computer screen. Even through the pixels, a pale, exhausted face stared back. My eyes held the kind of tiredness that even sleep couldn’t fix.
One hour wouldn’t kill me.
Probably.
“Fine. I’ll be there at twelve-thirty.”
“Thank God. See you soon.” He hung up before I could change my mind.
Diego was still on a treadmill when I arrived, running at a pace that suggested he’d been there for a while. He grinned when he saw me and slowed to a walk.
“You came. I’m shocked.”
“You threatened to come get me.”
“Empty threat. I was never getting off this treadmill.” He wiped sweat from his face with a towel. “How’s the caseload?”
“Insane, but can we please not talk about work?”
“Good idea.” Diego punched a button and stepped off the treadmill. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Dude, you’re working every Saturday and Sunday. That’s not fine.”
“It’s family law. Everyone works weekends.”
“Not everyone.” Diego headed toward the weight racks. “Have you texted your bartender?”
I felt my face heat. “His name is Finn.”
“I know his name. Have you texted him?”
“Maybe.”
A paternal warning tone entered his voice as he dragged out my name. “Chase.”
“Fine. Yes. We’ve been texting.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“And are you going to go on a date with him or just pine from a distance like a Victorian maiden?”
“I don’t pine—”
“You absolutely pine. The evidence is overwhelming.” Diego grabbed weights. “When’s your next day off?”
“Day off? I don’t know. Whenever the caseload lightens up.”
“So, never.”
“Diego—”
Diego’s sweaty palm found my shoulder. I resisted the urge to squirm beneath his slimy skin. “I’m serious. When was the last time you took a full day off? Not working at home, not checking emails, actually took time off?”
I thought a moment, tried to remember.
“Exactly.” Diego guided me from the cardio area into the section with free weights. “You need balance, man. Work is important, but it can’t be everything. You’re twenty-six and you’re already burned out.”
“I’m not burned out—”
“You fell asleep at our place during dinner last week.”
“That was one time—”
“Your head hit the table so hard your soup spilled. David took photos.”
I had no defense for that. They had evidence.
We worked out in relative silence—Diego doing his thing, me going through the motions and thinking about the files waiting for me at the office. Between sets, my mind wandered to Finn’s last text, something about interviewing bartender candidates today and hoping at least one of them was normal.
I was curious to know how the interviews were going but couldn’t remember when they were even supposed to start.
More than that, I just wanted to see Finn.
For once, I wanted to not be at the office.
“Go see him,” Diego said, reading my mind with the skill of a carnival fortune teller.
“What? Who?”
“Your bartender, Finn. Go see him when we’re done.”
“I have work—”
“You always have work. That’s my entire point.
” Diego set down his weights. “Chase, I love you like a brother, but you’re going to work yourself to death and wake up at forty realizing you missed your entire life.
Take a break. Go to the bar. See the guy who makes you giggle at your phone like a teenager. ”
“I don’t—”
“You do. David noticed it, too. It’s cute but also pathetic.” He grabbed his towel. “I’m not saying quit your job. I’m saying take one night off. It’s just a few hours.”
I went back to the office after the gym and worked through the upcoming mediation file, made notes, and sent emails. By 6 p.m., my stomach was growling and my eyes were starting to cross.
I could order delivery. Eat at my desk. Keep working.
Or maybe Diego had a point. I could take an actual break.
I grabbed my keys and headed out.
The French crepe place on 7th Avenue was busy but not packed. I got a table by the window and ordered my usual—a sausage and brie crepe with caramelized onions. It arrived in ten minutes, hot and steamy and perfect. I ate slowly, watching people walk by outside.
Ybor at night was a different world than Ybor during the day.
The streets came alive with music spilling out of bars, people laughing, and the unique, carefree kind of energy that Tampa specialized in.
I used to be part of that energy, back in law school, back before the Morrisons’ firm and the seventy-hour weeks and the slow realization that I’d traded my life for my career.
When had that happened?
When had I become the guy who worked every weekend and fell asleep in soup?
I finished my crepe, paid, and started walking back toward my car.
Which was parked near the office.
Which was four blocks from Barbacks.
I could see the glow of the bar’s windows from here.
My phone read 7:47 p.m.
I had more work to do. Files to review. Prep for Monday.
I should go home.
I kept walking toward my car.
Got in.
Drove home.
By 10 p.m., I’d exhausted everything decent on Netflix, scrolled through every other streaming service I had, and was staring at the ceiling wondering why I was the way that I was.
Diego’s words kept echoing in my head.
“You’re going to work yourself to death and wake up at forty realizing you missed your entire life.”
My phone was on the coffee table, taunting me.
I could text Finn. I could ask if the bar was busy, see if he wanted company.
Or I could just . . . go.
I could show up and take a chance.
The spontaneity of the idea made my skin crawl. I wasn’t sure whether that was an OCD reprimand or excitement born of hearing an Irish accent again. Both felt foreign.
“Fuck it,” I said to my empty apartment.
I changed out of my work clothes.
“Goodbye, dress shirt. Hello, skinny jeans.”
I laughed at myself. Talking to clothes . . . I was losing my mind.
I grabbed a tight black T-shirt that Diego had told me made me look “like a person who has fun sometimes” and looked at myself in the mirror.
I looked ridiculous.
Like some party gay headed to a bar.
Which, I supposed through another sardonic laugh, I was.
I grabbed my keys before I could change my mind.
I could hear Barbacks before I could see it.
Not the music or call of a game or the general bar noise I’d gotten used to.
Singing.
Loud, enthusiastic, off-key singing.
I crossed the street, pushed open the door, and stopped dead.
The bar was packed.
Wall-to-wall men, all of them facing toward the bar, were singing at the top of their lungs.
Les Misérables.
They were singing Les Misérables.
At a sports bar.
At 10 p.m. on a Saturday night.
Standing on a bar stool—actually standing on it—was a guy with neon pink hair holding a bottle of vodka like a conductor’s baton while leading the entire bar in the song with the enthusiasm of someone conducting the New York Philharmonic.
The crowd was into it—like seriously into it. No one was even watching the hockey game playing on every television in the city.
Every single person was singing. Some had their arms around each other. About half were swaying in time with the music. One guy was crying.
The pink-haired conductor was flailing the vodka bottle with dramatic flair, occasionally taking a swig mid-verse.
I stood in the doorway trying to process what I was witnessing.
This was a gay bar, sure, but it was a gay sports bar.
And everyone was singing musical theater.
The pink-haired guy spotted me, grinned, and pointed the vodka bottle in my direction without missing a beat of the conducting.
The song ended.
The bar erupted in cheers and applause.
Someone was whistling.
The crying guy was being hugged by his friends.
The pink-haired conductor took a theatrical bow and hopped off the bar stool with the grace of a ninja who’d just killed all his enemies.
I finally spotted Finn behind the bar. He was making drinks with a bemused expression that suggested this was either normal or he’d given up trying to control his staff.
Our eyes met across the crowd.
He smiled and raised one hand.
I pushed through the crowd—“Excuse me, sorry, excuse me”—until I reached the bar.
“Hi,” I said, shouting to be heard over the noise.
“Hi,” Finn said back, still smiling. “You came.”
“I—yeah. I was in the neighborhood.”
“At 10 p.m.?”
“I live in this neighborhood, remember? Besides, I couldn’t sleep.”
“So you came to a bar that’s hosting a musical theater sing-along?”
I looked around, one brow raised. “Is that what that was?”