BARTENDING IS NOT FOR THE WEAK
BELLA
A fter responding to the text from Matthew, I shut off the engine and got out of my car. Fiddling with my keys, I walked up the stairs toward my apartment, groaning with each step. My feet were killing me, and all I wanted to do was soak them in a bucket of ice with some Epsom salts. There was something about the freezing cold water that helped ease the aches and pains the following day. I definitely noticed a difference when I iced them versus when I didn’t.
When I reached 3A, I turned the door handle, assuming it wouldn’t budge, but it turned all the way around, and I walked inside. My best friend and roommate, Anna, sat on the couch in her pajamas while some reality show played on the TV in front of her. Her blonde hair was pulled into a high ponytail on top of her head, and it bopped around recklessly as soon as she turned to face me.
“Oh! You’re back. I couldn’t go to sleep until you came home and told me all about it.” She jumped up from her seated position and ushered me toward where she’d just been and practically shoved me down.
“Why are you—” I started to say, but she interrupted me with a loud shush before sweeping into the kitchen.
She returned with an ice-filled bucket and a towel, and I couldn’t help but grin as I unlaced my shoes.
“You prepped my soak for me?”
“Of course I did,” she said as if she did this sort of thing all the time.
Side note: she did not.
“You want something.” I cut to the chase.
She dropped to the floor in front of me and folded her legs underneath her body. “I already told you, I want to hear all about the wedding. Was it romantic? Over the top? Just top enough? Who was there? Those O’Gradys are so private. Were there a lot of people, or was it small? What were their colors? Oh, what kind of flowers did Brooklyn choose? How did Matthew look? Did he harass you? I bet he did.”
She fired off what felt like a thousand questions, and honestly, I wasn’t even sure I could answer them all. I’d been so focused on the cocktails I’d created for the occasion and doing my job that I hadn’t really paid attention to all the minute details.
But, of course, her questions about Matthew were the ones I focused on. I shook my head and almost started laughing at the way she was looking at me. Her eyes were wide, and her cheeks were all rosy. She reminded me of the little girl I’d met all those years ago in elementary school. We were in the same class and played together at recess, and that was all it took. We’d been best friends ever since.
Even when Anna had left Sugar Mountain to go to college for four years, we’d stayed in touch and remained close. Once she graduated though, she came right back home and insisted we move in together. I’d complained for all of five minutes before realizing that if I didn’t move out of my parents’ house, I’d most likely be living with them for the rest of my life.
Rent was expensive. Having a roommate made it feasible.
“Why aren’t you answering me yet?” She looked downright exasperated.
“I don’t know where to start,” I said before blowing out a breath. “It was a really nice wedding. Pretty. Simple. Sweet. I don’t know.”
“Ugh,” she groaned. “I knew you’d be no help. Fine. Was Matthew there?” She wagged her eyebrows at me.
“Of course he was there. He was in the wedding.” I made a face that told her that particular question was dumb.
“Did he talk to you?”
I shot her another look. Anna knew all about my feelings for Matthew. She’d been with me through it all. It was embarrassing how many tears I’d cried over that man and how often she’d had to hold me and tell me it would all be okay.
“He talked to me,” I said, dragging out the words that let her know there was far more to the story.
“I always told you he’d regret it one day,” she said with a smug grin on her face. “He’s definitely regretting it now.”
She used to say that Matthew would rue the day he hurt me at some point in the future. That he’d realize I was a catch and it would be too late because I’d be over him and onto someone else. They were the kinds of things that one girl told another in order to make her feel better, to empower her and give her strength. I wasn’t sure I’d ever believed her words, but I had to admit that they’d helped at the time. Even if it was just a little bit.
“He wants me to take him to look at houses,” I said with a frown before pulling my feet out of the freezing water and putting them on the waiting towel. I quickly wrapped it around my feet and wondered when I’d feel my toes again.
“He wants to go house-shopping? With you? Why? We’re bartenders now.” She smiled as she proclaimed her latest occupation, and I rolled my eyes.
“I’m a bartender. You’re temporary,” I reminded her because while, yes, I had hired her to work at Addi’s new barbeque restaurant under me, I knew this wasn’t her life goal.
“You never know. I might love it.” She offered me a shrug before pulling her feet out from under her. “My leg is asleep,” she said before rubbing it with her fist.
“I’m sure you didn’t go to college for four years, only to end up slinging drinks in our hometown,” I said, and she cocked her head to the side to glare at me. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I just don’t see you doing it long-term.”
I wasn’t trying to be offensive to her or the many bartenders of the world. Hell, I was one, and I absolutely loved it. But the service industry was tough. You needed thick skin to deal with the variety of personalities that walked through the door. Anna might be great with that part for a little while, but I knew she’d eventually grow to hate it, as so many others had.
“No. I went to college for four years to study child psychology, only to realize that I want absolutely nothing to do with child psychology.”
We’d talked about this subject a million times since she’d been back in Sugar Mountain. Anna still had no idea what she wanted to do for a career, and she felt like a failure somehow because of it.
“I think most people don’t know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. And if they do, that’s really rare.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.” She shrugged her shoulders and looked sad. “I mean, everyone acts like I should have it all figured out. Just because I graduated college doesn’t mean that I suddenly know what to do with myself.”
“That’s why you’re trying new things. To see what you love and what you don’t. You’re only twenty-two.”
“You’re twenty-two, and you know what you want to do,” she said in a serious tone.
“I mean,” I tried to argue, “not really. I just went through all of that shit to be a real estate agent, and I don’t even enjoy it.”
She barked out a laugh. “That does kind of suck.”
“I wouldn’t have known though if I hadn’t at least tried. I’ve always liked bartending, but I think the saloon tainted it more than I’d realized,” I admitted, and she sighed.
“I love that damn saloon. I wish we could still swing on the rafters.” She sounded almost smitten, like being a prostitute back in the day was some kind of romantic notion.
The glass ceiling, where the women had swung from and tempted the men, was still visible to this day. And the photographs from those times lined the old wood walls, showing off the history. It was kind of neat to look at, but hard to imagine it being real.
“Swings might have made it more fun,” I agreed with a laugh. “But Barry would still find a way to ruin it somehow.”
“Ugh. Barry blows.” Anna stuck out her tongue.
Barry was the longtime owner of the Sugar Saloon and was very stuck in his ways. He didn’t like change. It had taken me almost a year to convince him to let me create a seasonal drink menu. And once I finally had, he’d complained the entire time, making me feel like my idea had been stupid somehow when I knew it was the exact opposite.
Only once Addison had moved back into town and decided to open up a fancy barbeque joint, with a stand-alone bar, did things start to look up. She offered me the bar manager position and gave me full rein on whatever kind of cocktails I wanted to create and to hire whoever I wanted to as well. I wasn’t even working for her yet, but I already felt appreciated and excited. I’d quit the saloon the next day. Barry hadn’t even seemed to mind.
“Wait,” Anna said, breaking me from my thoughts. “Back to this Matthew house-shopping thing. You hate real estate, but you’re still going to do it for him?”
“He said I was the only one he could trust.” I repeated his words for her to decipher.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
Guessed she was about as good at reading Matthew’s mind as I was.
“I have no idea.”
“And you didn’t ask?”
“No.”
“Okayyyyyy.” She dragged out the word dramatically. “So, did he sulk around your station tonight, like he always had at the saloon?”
I reared back. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know exactly what I mean,” she said as she pushed up off the floor. “My butt’s killing me.” She moved back onto the couch. It dipped as she sat next to me, her body angled toward mine.
Blowing out a breath, I pretended to be unfazed as I delivered this next tidbit that I knew would send her into a tizzy. “He hung around a lot, yeah. And he asked me to go home with him.”
Anna screamed, and my eyes grew wide as she slapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry.” She dropped her hand. “But he asked you to go home with him?” She laughed loud. “I knew it. I knew this day would come. Matthew O’Grady is rueing the day he ever let you go!”
“We were never together,” I snapped in response.
“I know, but he wants to be,” she added with a giant smile.
“He was drunk,” I said, hoping that little nugget of information would bring her back to reality.
“You know what they say.” She blew out a breath, and I knew exactly what was coming next. “Drunk mouths are truth-tellers.”
“You know I don’t believe that,” I argued because I didn’t.
Everyone loved to say that the bitter truth came out when people were drunk, but I never agreed. Add alcohol to a sad person, and their sadness raged to the forefront. If a person wanted attention or affection, they’d say the things that would get it. What they said didn’t have to be the truth at all; it just needed to get them the result they had subconsciously been seeking in the moment.
“So, you don’t think he really wanted to take you home to pound town?” She gyrated her hips like a madwoman, making the entire couch bounce up and down.
I laughed and begged her to please never do that again. “He might have meant it. Who knows? But obviously, I turned him down,” I reminded her because, otherwise, I wouldn’t be sitting here on this shitty couch with her.
“Only because you don’t want him to be your first.” She pursed her lips as she delivered that statement like she’d pulled it out of a book of facts or something.
But she wasn’t wrong. I didn’t want Matthew to be my first. Or my any.
“Oh my gosh. Do you think he knows?” she asked.
My cheeks heated with the thought. “That I’m a virgin?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“Yeah?”
“How would he know that?”
“I don’t know. Guys, like, know things.” She stumbled on her words, and I suddenly grew anxious, thinking she was keeping something from me.
“Anna,” I growled.
She put her hands in the air. “I was just asking. I swear.”
“Well, unless you or someone else gave him that information, I don’t know how he would know something like that.”
I found myself getting angry. For what reason, I had no real idea. Apparently, I didn’t want Matthew to know I was a virgin. It wasn’t any of his business. He had no right to know something that personal about me. No one did unless I chose to share it.
“I would never do that,” she said softly, and I felt like a jerk for even thinking she might.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” She was suddenly back to her happy self. “So, when does the house-hunting start?”
“He wants to go tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? That man is wasting no time.” She clapped her hands together like she was in on some sort of master planning session with him.
“It works out since we open the restaurant in a few days, and then I’ll be too busy.”
“Think we’ll have to reserve a stool for him at the new bar?”
I rolled my eyes. “I think Addi might kick him out if he tries.”
I had no idea if that was true or not, but I couldn’t imagine Addison loving the bar turning into some kind of hangout the way the saloon was. Then again, as long as we were making money, she might not care. Guessed I’d find out soon enough.
“Will you be disappointed if he doesn’t show up there?”
That was the real question. Did I want Matthew to keep making appearances at my work each time I had a shift, or would I be fine with him never showing his face again?
“I’m not sure,” I answered honestly.
“This ought to be interesting then.” She tried to laugh, but it quickly turned into a yawn. “I need sleep.”
“You and me both.” I found myself yawning as well.
It was true what they said—that yawns were catching.
“Night, Bella,” Anna said before stumbling off in the direction of her room.
I heard her door close before I even said good night back to her.
I understood though. I was exhausted, too, and if I was meeting with Matthew tomorrow, I needed all the sleep I could get.