Chapter Two
Sam
She leaves, and I stay in the storeroom with the clipboard in my hand long enough to realize I haven't read the same line three times. I haven't read it at all.
Weeknights usually run like clockwork. Slow until seven, a rush around the first act, a lull, then the crowd that comes for Marisol and stays because they like the room.
I know which regulars want conversation and which ones want a whiskey and ten feet of space.
Most nights, I can move behind the bar without thinking much about any of it.
Tonight I put a Templeton in front of the wrong man.
He looks down at the glass and then over at me. "Not yours."
"Nope."
I move it one stool over, where it belongs, and go back to work.
A few minutes later Bex comes through the service station, and I put a water on her tray before she can pass me.
"I didn't ask for this."
"You never do."
"I also never drink it."
"And yet you always take it."
She takes it with her anyway.
Around eight, a guy points toward the top shelf and asks me something. I hear him clearly enough, but by the time he stops talking I couldn't tell him what he said.
"Sorry. What?"
He repeats himself. I answer him, pull the bottle down, pour his drink and take his money.
The room keeps moving. Nobody waits too long. Tabs close. Glasses make it where they're supposed to go, mostly. The only thing I can't seem to stop doing is looking toward the front door every time it opens.
Bex catches me sometime after nine while she's coming back for an empty tray.
"You good?"
"Yeah."
She pauses with one hand on the tray and looks at me long enough to make it clear she doesn't believe that. "Uh-huh."
Then she's gone again.
At ten, the door opens and Autumn walks in.
She's carrying the orange coat over one arm, cheeks pink from the cold, already talking to a woman near the end of the bar before she's made it more than a few steps inside.
My hand is on the mezcal before she reaches her stool.
She drops the coat over the one beside her and settles in. The glass is waiting when she looks up.
Her eyes move from it to me.
"Hi to you too."
"How was work?"
Her expression sharpens immediately. "I saved a man from himself."
"That sounds expensive."
"He's doing a podcast about accountability."
"Christ."
"Right?" She leans across the bar, pleased with herself. "I built it."
I laugh.
Someone two stools down raises a hand and says my name.
"Go," Autumn says, lifting her drink. "Your public needs you."
The public needs two old fashioneds, a beer and reassurance that a card hasn't been charged twice.
By the time I make it back to Autumn, she's in the middle of a conversation with the woman beside her.
"...because if a man says circle back during an argument, you are legally allowed to leave."
The woman laughs hard enough to catch on her drink.
"That's not the law," I tell her.
Autumn looks over at me. "You own a bar. Stay in your lane."
I'm about to answer when Bex calls my name from the other side of the room.
That becomes most of the night. I get a few minutes with Autumn before somebody needs a drink, a check, a bottle, a problem solved. I come back when I can, and usually find her talking to whoever happens to be sitting nearby.
Marisol comes offstage flushed and sweating beneath the rhinestones. She points toward the tequila as she approaches, but I already have the shot waiting.
"I love you," she says, taking it from me.
"You say that every Friday."
"Because every Friday you earn it."
She drinks and heads backstage while I'm already reaching for somebody else's glass.
By last call, the room has thinned enough that I can hear chairs dragging across the floor. I clear the last few tabs, lock the front door and bring up the house lights.
Autumn squints against them.
"Now you know why we keep them off."
Without the low lighting and a couple hundred people in it, Vibes shows its wear. Scratches run across the bar top, the green velvet has worn thin in places, and years of shoes have dulled the same stretch of brass rail.
Autumn is still on her stool, chin resting in one hand while she watches me wipe down the bar. She turns her glass slowly between her fingers. "You know what everybody needs before they ask for it."
"I'm observant."
"I've noticed."
There's a small smile in her glass when she says it.
I leave the towel on the bar and come around the end. Most of the time, being on this side means I'm clearing a table or walking someone out. Tonight I stop in front of her.
She follows me with her eyes.
"Sam."
"Yeah."
"Are you going to ask me something, or are we staying extremely comfortable for another hour?"
"I live upstairs."
"I'm aware."
"That's not what I asked you."
One corner of her mouth lifts. "You haven't asked me anything yet."
Right.
I take the glass from her hand and set it on the bar behind me.
"Come upstairs."
She's off the stool before I finish saying it.
I lead her through the narrow stairwell to the apartment. At the top, I turn and catch the beginning of a smile, her mouth already shifting like she's about to say something.
"Don't."
She stops.
"You've been on all night," I tell her. "You can put it down."
For a moment she only looks at me. Then the tension in her shoulders eases, softening her mouth with it.
"Okay."
I put my hand into her hair and kiss her.
Her hands catch in the front of my shirt as I walk her backward through the kitchen, and the counter stops her before I do. She makes a sound against my mouth when her hips hit it.
"Hi," she says.
I smile against her mouth. "Hi."
Her fingers tighten in my shirt. "So this is happening."
I keep one hand against her lower back and wait until she's looking at me. "Do you want me to run this?"
She stills beneath my hand. "What does that mean?"
"It means you don't have to decide what happens next. If you want something different, you tell me. If you want me to stop, you say it and I stop." I keep my eyes on hers. "You don't have to make it sound good."
"That's it?"
"That's it. I'm not taking anything you don't hand me."
She watches me, quiet now.
"I'm very in charge of things, Sam."
"I've noticed."
"All the time."
I lean in close enough that my mouth brushes the shell of her ear. "That's why you looked tired of carrying it."
Her breath catches with a laugh in it.
"Okay."
I move back enough to see her. "Tell me."
"Yes." She holds my eyes. "Run it."
I reach for the hem of her shirt and pull it slowly over her stomach and ribs. She lifts her arms for me, and when the shirt clears her head I drop it beside us.
Her hands go behind her to brace against the counter while she watches me. Her eyes keep moving, from my face to my hands and back again, trying to stay ahead of me.
I touch two fingers beneath her chin.
"Stop planning."
Her brows draw together. "I'm not."
I look at her.
She exhales.
"Fine."
"Nothing in this room is your problem."
I leave my fingers beneath her chin until her eyes settle on mine. The grip she has on the edge of the counter loosens first. Then she sighs deeply and finally relaxes.
I kiss her again before she can put any of it back.
By the time I tell her to go to the bedroom, she goes without another joke.
When I follow, she's sitting on the edge of the bed in her jeans, hair loose around her shoulders and her hands resting in her lap.
"Lie back."
She lowers herself onto the mattress.
I open her jeans and pull them down slowly, taking her underwear with them. She lifts her hips to help me and lets them fall again when I'm done.
I settle between her knees and look up at her.
"If you need something different, you tell me."
"I will."
I put my hands against the inside of her thighs and open her for me.
The first pass of my tongue pulls my name out of her.
After that she talks for a while. My name again, a yes, half of something else when I do it the same way twice. I keep my hands firm against her thighs and work slowly until the words start breaking apart.
By the time I push two fingers into her, there's nothing left but her breathing and the sounds she makes when I curl them.
Her back lifts from the mattress. I put my forearm over her hips and hold her there while her hands find my hair.
She comes hard enough to pull.
I keep the same pressure until her thighs stop shaking around my shoulders and her body settles back into the bed. Then I ease off, slower and lighter, until she pushes at my forehead with the heel of her hand.
"Okay," she says, trying to catch her breath. "Okay."
I lift my head. "Good?"
"Shut up."
"Out loud."
"It was amazing, Sam." Her eyes open halfway. "Life changing."
I move up over her and she reaches immediately for my shirt. Her fingers miss the first button twice, so I catch her wrists and put them beside her head.
"Leave them there."
Her eyes stay on mine while she does.
I take the shirt off myself.
Her gaze moves over the ink on my arms and chest, slow enough that I feel it.
"Can I touch you?"
"In a minute."
"Sam."
"In a minute."
She lets her head fall back against the mattress. I laugh under my breath and slide my hand between her legs.
Her mouth opens, but the argument doesn't make it out.
I push two fingers inside her again and work them slowly while my thumb circles close enough to keep her hips moving. She tries to chase the pressure for a while, but her wrists stay where I put them.
When I finally give her what she's been reaching for, her whole body tightens at once.
The second orgasm catches her faster. She clenches hard around my fingers and presses her head back into the mattress while I keep my hand steady until it's over.
I strip off my jeans while she catches her breath and reach into the nightstand for a condom. She watches me roll it on, her chest still rising fast, hair spread across the pillow.
When I come back over her, her legs open for me.
I push inside slowly.
Her breath leaves in a long exhale and her legs come around my hips.
"Look at me."
She does.
I pull back and press in again, keeping the pace slow enough that I can watch her face change with each movement.
"Move with me."
Her hips rise to meet mine.
I keep the rhythm steady until she finds it with me, her body moving instead of waiting for what I'll do next. Her mouth finds the side of my neck, and she says my name there once, quiet enough that I feel it more than hear it.
I move faster.
Her nails catch my back. I tell her to bring her legs higher and she does, the new angle pulling a gasp out of her. A few strokes later I feel her tighten around me.
She comes with her face pressed into my shoulder and both arms around me now, shaking hard enough that I have to brace myself over her.
I don't last much longer.
Afterward, Autumn ends up on her stomach across my bed with her hair everywhere and one cheek pressed into the pillow. I clean up, come back and lie beside her.
For several minutes she doesn't say anything.
"Hey."
"Mm."
"Stay tonight."
Her eyes stay closed. "Wasn't going anywhere."
She rolls toward me and fits herself against my side, face settling into my shoulder. One hand comes to rest on my chest.
I expect her to say something else.
She doesn't.
Within a minute, her breathing slows and her hand goes loose against me.
The club is quiet below us. Autumn sleeps against my side.
I keep my arm around her.