Chapter 7 #3
We work steadily, Davis clearing plates and Ada waiting tables.
Usually that would be a PR disaster, but she’s on form tonight.
Maybe it’s the champagne, maybe it’s that she always thrives in chaos, but she’s smiling, bantering with customers and delivering Aggie’s pasta without complaint.
Her apron hugs her waist like it’s tailored, emphasising her hourglass figure, and male eyes are tracking her every move.
Davis says something to her as she passes, and Ada laughs—throwing her head back, all white teeth and Bambi eyes, her dark hair catching the light like a shampoo commercial.
Jealousy hits me, sour as the old champagne coating my tongue.
Ada doesn’t need a gold dress to shine. You could take any old picture of her, and it would come out looking like a Vogue spread.
Meanwhile, I need stilettos, synthetic lashes and a fashion handout just to feel like I might fit in at a high school reunion.
This is supposed to be my bar, and Davis is my bouncer and—
“Cee?” Cameron yells. “Could you please smash out some kiwifruit martinis?”
“Sure,” I say, in a tone so fake-cheery it could shatter glass.
Enough, Cecelia. Ada’s helping. Davis is helping. This isn’t a crisis. You’re just overwhelmed.
I refocus on the ever-growing backlog of cocktails; shake, pour, garnish, repeat. But each drink makes my mixer feel heavier until it’s like I’m stirring the full weight of my imposter syndrome in with the liquor.
Just keep going. One more drink. Then twenty. Then you can have your breakdown in private…
“Tables’ are done for now,” Davis says, appearing beside me again. “Need anything else? I can put on a real shirt and come behind the bar if you want?”
“No need,” I say, squinting too hard at the watermelon sour I’m making. “I’ve got this. Besides, I’m sure all the girls love your shirt.”
He raises an eyebrow, but mercifully doesn’t reply. I silently beg my mouth to stop improvising before it causes actual damage.
Davis clears his throat. “Ada says you guys were thinking of the promo pics for socials tonight?”
‘Oh, well, if Ada says so, then I guess we absolutely have to,’ a feral bitch in my head screeches. I drown her in my nearest mental ocean and force a smile. “Um, I don’t think we’ll have time?”
“We will,” he says with the unshakable confidence of the young and male. “Dinner’s nearly done. We’ll sort it out after that.”
He turns and heads for the kitchen, his inked back muscles shifting as he goes. By “we,” does he mean him and Ada? Or him and me?
Him and me. God, I hope he means him and me.
I press a clammy hand to my forehead, trying to wring sense back into my brain. I like Will. I want Will, and I am never, ever, day-drinking again… Except at Christmas. I’m not Supergirl.
I decide I need something to keep me going and pour myself a vodka cranberry.
As the crowd starts to thin, and the alcohol and sugar work through me, the gloom inside me lifts.
I let myself laugh along with Cameron as Krissy tells us about going to a queer poetry night and getting into a fight about whether rhyming a word with itself is a crime.
Ada’s finished serving and is drying clean glasses in an empty booth.
She’s not smiling anymore, though. Her face is blank, her dark eyes full of the sadness I’ve seen all too often since she’s come back.
I watch her polish a tumbler with a microfiber towel, and a cold wave seems to wash over me.
She wears her mask so well these days, it’s easy to forget she isn’t bulletproof.
“Hey, Addy,” I call. “Drink?”
She looks up, her mouth a flat line. “Sure.”
A shield, she once told me, is best made from material you already have. My best friend is tough and glamorous, but there are other parts of her, too. Softer ones that need protecting, just like everybody else.
She comes over and climbs onto an empty stool, watching as I shake her a margarita. I’ve just set the glass in front of her when Krissy lets out a little shriek. “Oh my God, I completely forgot, Ada! Someone left a present for you!”
“Huh?”
Krissy ducks under the bar and pulls out a small package, wrapped in lilac paper and topped with the glitteriest bow in existence.
Ada eyes the present like it might detonate. “Did the mafia stop by?”
“No, it came before you got here. Aren’t you gonna open it?”
I understand her hesitation. Her parents used to control her with presents; buying her hideous clothes and fancy pens when all she really needed was a break.
From playing the flute, from parenting her siblings, from holding up a household while her mum and dad chased gold stars and collected compliments about their ‘perfect family.’
“Want me to take it?” I ask. “You can open it upstairs?”
She shakes her head and peels off a small corner of paper like it’s a nuclear warhead. When she gets through the layers, her face loses all colour.
“What is it?” I ask. “A finger?”
“Worse.” She holds up a sandstone-colored novel. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, Ada’s favourite book in high school.
“It’s a first edition,” she says darkly.
“Jake?”
“Has to be.” She flips the book open, and a card slips out, a hand-drawn depiction of a dark-haired woman holding a flute by a stream.
“Is that supposed to be you?” Krissy asks.
“Euterpe,” Ada replies in a monotone. “The muse of poetry and music. Credited with inventing the flute.”
I lean over the bar and wrap an arm around her, trying to make sense of what Jake’s just done.
This isn’t a pen, and it’s not flowers or jewellery.
It’s not just expensive, it’s personal. A gift from someone who’s paid attention.
Someone who knows Ada and isn’t afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve.
Jake Graves-Holland didn’t just drop money.
He’s used the days since we spoke to track down a first edition novel. He dropped proof.
My phone buzzes. I glance at it, already sure who’s reached out. As expected, it’s a message from Jake:
Did she get it?
I ease away from Ada and type back:
Yes.
I pray he doesn’t ask what she thought, because honestly? Ada’s just staring at the book like she’s forgotten what a book is. But all he says is:
Good.
Then there’s another ping. This text is a screenshot of a Spotify profile. The familiar green and purple graphic says Adalasia Renaldo has been Jake’s number one artist for five years running. A second text arrives:
Didn’t have my own Spotify before that. Used to listen to her on YouTube. Hope this shows I’m in this for the right reasons. I like that you’re looking out for her.
I slip my phone into my pocket with a smile. I told Jake to prove he really likes Ada. Well, he’s done that. A warm glow bubbles in my chest. I’m clearly not the only person circling back to an old classmate for love this year.
Ada runs a finger across the cover, a faraway expression on her face. She likes Jake back. She must. If she wasn’t at least a little charmed, that book would already be listed on a secondhand site with a caption like, ‘First edition, pretty cursed.’
I sat on my hands when NFR was wearing her down, but now, the least I can do is help her be with someone like Jake.
A guy who not only sees her brilliance but wants to hold it gently.
I’m going to do everything I can to give him a chance.
Not because he’s asking for it, but because she deserves it.
Plus, Ada and Jake’s history will make a killer Maid of Honour speech.
“Hey, bar girls? Waiting on beer over here?”
I jolt to attention. Krissy moves toward the guy in a navy suit, but I grab her arm. “I’ll go.”
The dude waves a fifty at me like I’m about to climb the stripper pole. “Yeah, you’ll do. Six Stellas, Princess.”
The crowd so far has been pretty good-natured, but the rounds are clearly catching up.
“Sure,” I say, going to grab the glasses.
“What are you doing? They’re the ones in the bottles.” Suit Bro points to the bottom fridge where the Stellas are stacked.
Shit. He’s right. I lean down to grab the beer, and he whistles. “I get why they hired you, now. That fucking ass.”
I spin around. “Hey—”
“The fuck did you just say to my girlfriend?” Davis demands.
Suit Bro takes one look at the man who’s materialised at his side. Davis doesn’t often use his height to intimidate, but he is now. Suit Bro swallows hard. “Ah, nothing, man.”
“Apologise. Now.”
“Yeah, look, right. Sorry.”
“Not to me, dickhead. To her.”
I can’t help smiling as Suit Bro cowers, unable to meet my eyes. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Good,” Davis says. “Now get out of here before I crack your skull.”
The guy stumbles away, head down.
“Asshole,” Davis mutters, his eyes flaming as he watches him go. “Sorry, Cece. Should’ve had my eyes on him.”
“That’s okay,” I squeak.
Davis turns to me, and my cheeks burn. I know why he just called me his girlfriend. He’s never used that approach with a customer before. “Um, thanks. Can I, um, get you a Coke Zero or something?”
“Sure.”
I pour his drink and watch, transfixed at the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows.
“Thanks.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his free hand. Errant soda droplets cling to his skin, and I wonder how I’ve never noticed that his upper lip is almost as full as the bottom one.
It’s fine. I’m just looking. Girls look at Davis all the time.
True, but the vodka keeps my gaze on his mouth for a little too long.
He leans forward across the bar, the holes where his sleeves should be gaping, and I see his tattoos end on his broad chest. Everything below that ink is pure, untouched, olive skin.
“You shouldn’t let customers talk to you like that,” he says. “Even if they’re wearing suits and spending money.”
“I don’t let them. It comes with the gig. And I was about to say something to him before you showed up.”
“So, I should have left you to it?”
“No, but I would have handled it. And anyway, don’t you wear a suit to work?”
He gives me a look.