Chapter 28 #2
“Too sad.” Mark shook his head. “The Irish Prig. No, too angry. Finn’s Emerald Isle.”
“Too weird.” Jacks frowned. “Finn’s Pot of Gold.”
“I love that!” Mark said. “He’s definitely doing it.”
“You two are ridiculous.”
“We’re supportive. There’s a difference.” Mark finally released me, walked around the bar, and went back to organizing bottles. Thank God, his tone returned to some semblance of normal, not-teasing inquisitiveness. “So? How was it? The breakfast, the night, all of it?”
I tried to keep a straight face. “It was good.”
“Good?”
“Fine. Really good.”
Jacks had walked away to retrieve another case, but his voice drifted from the back, “On a scale of ‘pleasant’ to ‘life-changing’—”
“Can we not do this right now? We have a watch party to prep for—”
“The watch party can wait. This is important.” Mark leaned against the bar. “I need to know if this is a one-time thing or if you’re dating this guy, because you’ve been texting him for a week and now you’re doing the walk of shame—”
“It wasn’t a walk of shame—”
“—and I need to know if I should be preparing for you to be distracted and useless for the foreseeable future.”
“Yeah. We’re—yeah. We’re going to see each other again.”
“Officially?”
“Officially,” I surrendered.
“Excellent.” Mark grinned. “I’ll ease up—for now. Just know that I expect regular updates.”
“You’re worse than Priya.”
“Priya and I have been texting about this all morning, actually. She’s thrilled. She’s also concerned that you’re going to self-sabotage, but mostly, she’s thrilled.”
“Why would I self-sabotage—”
“Because you always do when things are going well. You get nervous and start overthinking and—” Mark waved a hand. “But we’re not doing that this time. This time you’re going to let yourself be happy and see where this boyfriend thing goes.”
“He’s not my boyfriend—”
“Yet.” Mark winked. “He’s not your boyfriend yet.”
Jacks laughed—a big, genuine sound that bounced around the room like a massive ping-pong ball. “Man, I love this. Boss is getting his life together. Opening a bar, dating a hot lawyer. Living the dream.”
My phone buzzed.
Mark and Jacks froze. And stared. I don’t think either of them breathed.
Reluctantly, I pulled it out of my pocket and flicked the screen to life.
Chase: How’s prep going?
Me: Being interrogated by Mark and Jacks about last night.
Chase: Oh God. What did you tell them?
Me: That the crepes were really good.
Chase: Just the crepes?
Me: I love sausage.
Chase: Oh, I know. I’ve tasted yours.
Me: Now I’m blushing again . . . in front of the enemy.
Chase: You’re welcome.
Chase: I should get back to work. Was just thinking about you.
Me: I might’ve been thinking about you, too.
Chase: Of course you were. You want my tongue again.
Me: God, I hate all of you.
Chase: Maybe, but you love my tongue.
Me: Going now. Bar to run. Hate lawyers. Blah, blah.
Chase: LOL. Have a good day. Good luck with the game.
I looked up from my phone to find Mark and Jacks still staring at me. Neither had moved. I was fairly certain neither had breathed.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re doing it again,” Mark said.
“Doing what?”
“The face thing,” Mark said.
“I am not—”
“You are, boss,” Jacks added, grinning. “It’s cute, though. Don’t stop on our account. Get that big D, man.”
“For the love of . . . I hate you both.”
The Lightning scored three minutes into the second period, and the bar erupted.
Literally erupted. I was pretty sure the windows rattled.
“THREE MORE VODKA SODAS!” someone shouted over the noise.
“COMING!” I shouted back, already grabbing bottles.
Next to me, Benji was making four drinks while also explaining the history of the Moscow Mule to a customer who absolutely did not care but was nodding along because Benji’s energy was impossible to resist.
“—invented in 1941 at the Cock ’n’ Bull pub in Hollywood, and fun fact, the copper mug isn’t just aesthetic; it keeps the drink colder.
” He slid all four drinks across the bar without looking.
“But most people don’t know that the vodka used was Smirnoff, which was struggling in America until this drink made it popular—”
“JACKS, TABLE SEVEN NEEDS WINGS!”
“ON IT!” Jacks appeared from nowhere, grabbed a tray of wings from the pass, and disappeared back into the crowd like a golden retriever on a mission.
The energy was infectious.
Electric.
Frenetic.
It was the kind of chaos that made you forget you’d been on your feet for three hours straight.
Mark appeared at my elbow, grinning. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“We’ve already beaten last week’s Lightning game take . . . and it’s only the second period.”
I nearly dropped the bottle I was holding. “What?”
“We’ve banked two thousand three hundred dollars in two hours.” Mark’s grin was blinding. “Finn, we’re killing it.”
“That’s—how is that even possible?”
“Word of mouth, social media, Benji’s TikTok following. Probably all of it together.” Mark gestured at the packed bar. “We’re becoming a destination, just like we hoped.”
I looked around, taking everything in for the first time since the rush had started.
Every seat was full.
People were standing three-deep at the bar.
The noise level was somewhere between “concert venue” and “airplane taking off.” TVs showed the Lightning dominating on ice.
Rod was sweating through his chef’s coat in the kitchen, but the food kept coming.
This was success. Like seriously, a massive success.
“Finn, I need two Pirate’s Pucks and a—what’s that blue thing?” A customer was pointing at someone else’s drink.
“Gay Agenda,” Benji supplied without missing a beat. “It’s got vodka, blue curacao, pineapple, and gay rights. Very popular and fruity, just like me.”
“I’ll take one of those, too.”
I got back to work, mixing drinks, pouring beer, and keeping up with the endless stream of orders. The second period wound down—Lightning up 3 to 1, the crowd getting louder with every minute—and finally, finally, there was a brief lull as people headed to the bathroom or outside for air.
I leaned against the back counter, catching my breath, wiping sweat from my forehead with my bar towel. Benji kept filling glasses and chatting with the enthusiasm of a teenage girl who’d just been introduced to social media.
That’s when I looked up.
And saw Chase.
He was standing near the entrance, scanning the crowd, and when he spotted me, his face broke into that smile—the genuine one, the one that made my chest do the complicated thing—and he waved.
It was that same dorky, enthusiastic, Disney princess wave from this morning, except this time it was over the heads of approximately thirty drunk gay men.
I felt my own smile spread across my face. It was impossible to stop.
Jacks materialized next to me, following my gaze. He elbowed me—not gently—and grinned.
“Yo, boss,” he said, loud enough to carry. “Your man is here. You should take a break.”
“He’s not my—”
Benji looked up from the drink he was making, following both our gazes to Chase. His eyebrows went up—way up—and a slow, knowing smile spread across his face.
“Ohhhhh,” Benji said. “The lawyer!”
My face burned with the heat of a thousand suns.
I looked at Chase, who was still standing there, still smiling, waiting. Then I looked at the bar, at Jacks and Benji, who were both giving me encouraging nods.
And I made a decision.
Tossing my towel on the counter, I darted out from behind the bar, weaving through the crowd.
“Excuse me, sorry, coming through—”
Chase saw me coming, and his smile widened.
I didn’t stop to say hello.
I didn’t stop to ask what he was doing here.
I just grabbed his wrist and started pulling.
“Finn—” Chase started.
I pulled his hand in answer.
“Where are we—”
“Move!”
I tugged, navigating through the crowd, past tables, past the bathrooms, past the kitchen where Rod was likely wondering what the hell I was doing, all the way to the very back of the building.
Into the office.
Our tiny, cluttered, barely-organized office that contained little more than a metal chair, a metal desk, and a filing cabinet someone had abandoned right after World War II.
I jerked Chase inside, slammed the door shut, and turned the lock with a loud click that seemed to echo in the sudden quiet.