36. Adrian
Adrian
By Wednesday of celebration week, the bar had stopped being a bar and become a logistics operation that happened to serve drinks.
I’d been in and out all week coordinating with Dona Carmen about the pastry delivery, finalizing my set list, and fielding texts from Benji about garnishes at hours that suggested he’d lost track of when normal people slept.
Wednesday afternoon was the first time I’d walked into the chaos of the entire gang assembled at the same time.
What I witnessed stopped me at the door.
Finn was balanced precariously on the top rung of a ladder adjusting string lights.
Benji stood behind the bar surrounded by forty small glass bottles, none of which appeared to be from our usual suppliers, a few even bearing taped-on labels with hand-scrawled names. Benji looked more like some medieval apothecary than a bartender.
Jacks was doing what Jacks always did, hauling cases from the back with muscles bulging and a goofy grin curling his adorably innocent lips.
Rod’s voice poured through the pass-through window at a volume that resolved itself into the word “guava” three times with increasing reverence, which told me his own pastry situation was proceeding correctly.
Dante sat by the door, facing the street while reading, entirely unbothered by the tornadic weather system brewing behind him.
I’d been there twenty minutes, trying to resolve a rosemary question that had become load-bearing for Benji’s entire creative process, when the front door popped open and Skyler Shaw strode in.
A first-time Barbacks visitor would quickly notice this very tall, very broad man with the physical grace of someone accustomed to being the most athletic person in any room.
Regulars, on the other hand, would key in on Jacks dropping an entire case of garnishes the moment said muscular mountain entered the bar.
“Sky!” Jacks said, a massive smile blooming, as the rest of him barreled toward Skyler.
“Surprise,” Skyler said, grinning back. The moment Jacks was in reach, Skyler pulled him into a hug that, to those who knew them, spoke of two people who had been apart because of a four-day road trip and were determined to make up for lost time.
Jacks’s feet left the ground as he laughed into Skyler’s neck like some love-drunk teenager.
Behind Skyler appeared Tyler Chen. Tyler was shorter, broader, and had the irrepressible energy of one of my Fantas that might have just received a Mentos donation.
Finally, moving with the deliberate, unhurried inevitability of a glacier that had broken free of its arctic home to drift toward the party, came Erik Lindqvist, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s six-foot-four Swedish defenseman.
Erik held what appeared to be a handmade sign rolled into a tube under one arm.
“What’s the sign?” Benji asked immediately, as Jacks and Skyler’s hug morphed into a deeply emotional kiss.
“A great contribution,” Erik said solemnly, his voice booming.
“To what?” Benji set a bottle down and stared at the Nordic giant.
“The occasion,” Erik said.
“What kind of contribution?” I asked, now curious.
Erik looked at Benji, then shifted his gaze to me with the patient solemnity of a man who had answered fully and completely and couldn’t fathom why we kept asking for more. “An appropriate one.”
Benji shot me a look. I cocked one brow and shook my head. We’d both known Erik long enough to understand that he would give us more information on his timeframe and not a moment before he was ready.
“Fantastic,” Benji said. “Thank you, Erik.”
“You are welcome, little man with the bright hair,” Erik said, and set the tube on the bar.
Tyler had already made it halfway around the room, shaking hands and slapping shoulders. He reached me and grabbed me by both shoulders.
“ADRIAN. Five years. This is a moment.”
“It really is,” I said, trying not to shrink beneath the brilliance of his sun.
“We wouldn’t miss this. Right, Sky?”
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Skyler confirmed from where he and Jacks had found a booth and were holding hands across the table. Jacks said something I couldn’t hear that made Skyler laugh, full and unguarded. It was the glorious laugh of a man who still found his husband funny after a year of marriage.
This was the scene Brendan walked into.
He stepped through the back at four with our headcount folder under his arm. He froze in the doorway, taking inventory before committing. I went to him before the room could reach him first. With Tyler present, this was always a limited window.
“Hey,” he said. “I brought the—”
“I know. Come meet everyone.”
I grabbed his arm, gave him a gentle squeeze, then steered him toward the bar. Benji watched our approach, a lion who’d just spotted his prey.
“You already know Benji,” I said.
“We’ve met,” Brendan said. “He gives me whiskey every Saturday, via Jacks mostly, but I know it comes from Benji.”
“Excellent whiskey,” Benji corrected. “There’s a distinction.”
“It is excellent,” Brendan conceded with an Edwardian nod.
“The tall one in the booth with Jacks,” I said, nodding toward our resident lovebirds, “is Skyler Shaw, captain of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Jacks’s husband. You might not’ve seen him much lately, not since the season started, but he practically lives here in the off-season.”
Brendan glanced at the booth. “I’ve seen him once, I think, though I didn’t know who he was.”
“He doesn’t usually announce it. Sky’s surprisingly low-key for someone whose face is on a billboard on I-275.”
“I hate that billboard,” Skyler called from the booth without looking up.
“He hates the billboard,” Jacks confirmed, equally without looking up.
“The one currently reorganizing Benji’s bottles without asking,” I continued, “is Tyler Chen. He’s a left wing who actually found Barbacks on social media and brought others here the first time. That’s how Jacks and Skyler met.”
Tyler looked up from the bottles, two of which were now in different positions, and extended a hand to Brendan.
“Call me Ty,” he said. “I assume you’re the vet Adrian’s always talking about?”
“He talks about me?” Brendan asked as he shook Tyler’s hand.
“Oh, yeah,” Tyler said. “And with Adrian, that says a lot.”
“Ty,” I said, a warning note in my voice.
“Jesus, bro, I’m complimenting you both,” Tyler said.
Ignoring Tyler, I moved Brendan along. “And the giant Viking at the end of the bar is Erik Lindqvist. He’s the Lightning’s Swedish defenseman and one of the more, um, unique players you’ll meet. He brought a sign for the anniversary and won’t tell anyone what it says.”
Erik raised a meaty paw in greeting. “Erik,” he said with his usual verbosity.
“Brendan.”
“Good.”
“Yes,” Brendan said. A beat later, he asked, “What does the sign say?”
“It is grand contribution,” Erik said.
“To the occasion?” Brendan said.
“Yes.”
Brendan nodded once, accepting this completely.
Erik’s expression shifted, fractionally but visibly, in a direction I thought might be approval.
Brendan hadn’t pressed, which I assumed meant Erik respected his desire to reveal his contribution in his own time.
He could’ve also simply spoken past his daily word quota. With Erik, it was hard to tell.
“He passes,” Benji whispered, a note of awe threading his words.
“I heard that,” Brendan said.
“You were meant to,” Benji said.
Introductions complete, the commotion resumed around us at full volume, the real madness starting when Tyler announced that he wanted to perform a guest set with me at the anniversary event.
“It’ll be great,” he said. “You’ll do your thing, I’ll come out halfway through, and we’ll do something together. I’m not scared of bumping sausages for the cause. The crowd will go insane.” He paused for effect. “I already bought a Speedo.”
The bar went quiet. Even Jacks and Skyler looked up.
“I’m sorry,” Benji said. “You bought a what?”
“A Speedo,” Tyler said. “To show off my abs. And”—he gestured downward—“my massive hockey stick.”
Jacks put his face in his hands.
Skyler looked at the ceiling.
Benji made a sound that was either a laugh or a cry.
Finn climbed down from his ladder and leaned against the bar, a shit-eating grin now playing at his lips.
“Tyler—” I started.
“I’ve also been working on some moves,” he said, thrusting his hips in ways that would get him arrested on most American streets.
“Tyler—” I tried again.
“I have a playlist.”
“You can’t perform at this event,” I said.
“I respectfully disagree.” He put both hands on the bar and leaned in. “I’m a professional athlete, have exceptional body awareness and above-average rhythm. My abs and ass are hot enough to make up for any moves I might miss. In a gay bar, that’s what matters, right? I’m so ready for this.”
“Skating is not dancing,” Jacks said from behind his hands.
“The fundamentals—”
“No,” Jacks said.
Tyler turned to Erik. “Back me up.”
Erik had been listening intently, his expression that of a mildly impressed boulder.
“I have seen you dance,” Erik said. “At Kowalski’s wedding and team Christmas party—and once in Carolina when you believed no one was filming.”
“And?” Tyler said.
“You should not perform. You dance like drunken flamingo, all legs and wings but catching no fish.”
“That’s . . . that’s not backing me up,” Tyler sputtered, then turned to Skyler, who was still staring at the ceiling.
“Sky, Cap, bro, help me out here.”
“I’m not part of this,” Skyler said to the ceiling. “Not even a little.”
“Your refusal is not accepted.” Tyler pouted.
“It doesn’t require your acceptance,” Skyler said mildly. “That’s what makes it a refusal.”
“He’s been married a year,” Tyler told the bar, “and now he talks like that.”
“Tyler,” Skyler said calmly. “What if instead of performing, you came as a fan? Loud, enthusiastic, fully yourself, but in the audience?”
“I could be as loud as I want?” Tyler asked.
“You’re always loud. That’s not a choice, but yes.” Skyler finally shifted his gaze from a tile to Tyler.
“Fine,” he said. “But the Speedo is still happening.”
“The Speedo,” I said, “is not happening.”
“The Speedo is a personal choice,” Tyler said. “Besides, it can be a big reveal. I’ll wear a trench coat and—”
“Oh, God, he wants to become a gay flasher,” Benji spat. “Please let him. My Insta will never be the same!”
“The Speedo,” Erik said quietly, “stays home.”
Tyler closed his mouth.
“Tyler,” Skyler said, drawing every baffled gaze away from the Swede. “You know what would actually be great? If we showed up Saturday and just supported Adrian. Just that. Showed up as the people who love this bar and cheered, like these people do for us at our games.”
Tyler’s lower lip pooched a little. For the first time since knowing him, Tyler looked vulnerable and cute rather than mischievous and hot.
“Like fans supporting the bar,” Skyler said. “Instead of a guest appearance.”
“I could do a guest appearance as a fan,” Tyler said. “As a fan who—”
“As a fan,” Skyler said. “Full stop.”
“Fine,” Tyler said, his head lowering in resignation.
Benji looked at Skyler with open admiration. “How do you do that?”
“Years of practice,” Skyler said.
“Can you teach me?” Benji said. “I have Jacks situations occasionally.”
“Hey,” Jacks said.
“You’re wonderful but occasionally need a redirect,” Benji said.
Jacks considered this. “That’s fair,” which was so Jacks that the whole bar softened.
Finn, who’d apparently slipped into the back at some point, appeared from the storage room with his clipboard.
He looked at Tyler, then at the bar, then at his clipboard.
“The guest set is not happening,” he said.
“We’ve resolved that,” Skyler said.
“Good.” Finn made a note. “Headcount?” He looked around. “Where’s the headcount?”
“I have it,” Brendan said, and held up the folder.
Finn turned to Brendan, seemed to remember that Brendan was here, in his bar on a Wednesday helping with logistics, and that this was simply a fact of how Barbacks now operated.
“Good man,” Finn said, took the folder, handed it directly to Mark, and kept walking.
Mark took it without looking up. He opened the folder, and his lips moved.
“Conservative,” Mark said to the booth and nobody in particular.
“He means the headcount,” I said to Brendan.
“I understood,” Brendan said.
“He’s adjusting the projection.”
“I assumed.”
“He does that.”
“I’m beginning to see the shape of him,” Brendan said, which was such a Brendan thing to say that I had to look away for a second.
By six o’clock, planning had resumed around the hockey players, who had absorbed into it with varying degrees of usefulness.
Skyler had moved every table that needed moving twice, because Finn had changed his mind about the configuration. Skyler had simply moved them again without comment.
Tyler submitted his lighting opinions to Benji in the form of a voice memo that Benji listened to once, implemented one suggestion from, and declared resolved.
Erik had unrolled his sign.
It turned out to be a hand-lettered banner in both English and, in smaller text below, what appeared to be Old Norse runes, but possibly Elvish from The Lord of the Rings.
Erik installed it above the bar with a level and two carefully placed hooks he had apparently also brought with him, because Erik did not attend events without the tools required to contribute properly.
The banner read, FIVE YEARS. THE HALL STANDS.
“What does the Norse say?” Benji asked.
“The same thing,” Erik said.
“Why both?”
“Context,” Erik said.
Benji squinted at it for a long moment.
“I love it,” Benji said, and meant it completely.
“I thought you would,” Erik said.
Dante came inside for a moment. He read the banner once, nodded once, then went back to the door. Erik watched him go.
“He approves,” Erik said to no one in particular.
“How do you know?” Tyler said.
“He nodded,” Erik said.
“He nods at everything,” Benji said.
“He nods differently at different things,” Erik said. “You have to learn to read the nod.”
Tyler stared at him. “There are different nods?”
“There are many nods,” Erik said.
“How many nods?” Benji asked.
“I’ve identified seven,” Erik said. “I suspect there are more.”
Tyler turned to me. “Did you know about the nods?”
“I knew there were different nods,” I said. “I didn’t know there were seven.”
“There may be eight,” Erik said. “I am still learning.”
Mark, from his corner, closed his laptop. He looked at the banner. His lips moved, then he opened his laptop again and resumed typing. Benji watched this, produced his napkin, and added something to it.
Brendan’s hand found my back, and his thumb did that circling thing that always made me feel safe. I turned and pressed my lips to Brendan’s. When we pulled apart, his eyebrows asked, “What was that for?” Without answering, I released a contented sigh and turned back to the bar.