Chapter 9 Reva
CHAPTER NINE
REVA
If you want to survive, you learn fast. If you want revenge, you learn faster.
My first shift at Noir is a mess, no matter how much mental preparation I did over the last week. Memorizing the layout and routines and procedures. Studying faces. Assuring Shiloh and Ever I’m ready.
None of it matters when the door keeps opening and bodies keep pouring in.
The job isn’t theoretical anymore, an idea I was striving toward. It’s real, and it’s pressure.
I need this job. Maybe it’s not life and death the same way my EMT job was, but keeping it is the pivot point on which everything I want to accomplish either passes or fails.
Ever watches from behind the bar as I balance a tray of empty glasses in one hand, my wrist already aching with the unfamiliar weight and movement.
His attention isn’t loud or even obvious.
It doesn’t need to be. I can feel it in the gaze that glances over me, pauses, and returns for a moment before continuing.
Someone gets up too fast, knocks into me, and the tray tips.
“Motherf—”
The crash is sharp and immediate, no chance of halting it. Glass tinkling. Plastic bouncing. For a split second the sound seems huge—then the roar of voices swallows it whole.
I fling my arms out, my brain slow to react for a second. “Glass!” I bark, louder than I mean to, palms out. “Don’t step on the glass!”
It takes a second to shift from accident mode to waitstaff mode. I don’t need to worry about injury here, I need to clean this shit up. I need a broom. The brooms are in the supply closet. I saw them. I saw everything. So why can’t I make my body cooperate when it counts?
I can’t even manage to clear a table without fumbling. I blink back the hot sting of tears. I will not cry. I will not—
“Oh, sweetie.” Sonny’s maple-syrup voice belies the concern in her eyes when she catches my mistake. “You stay right there. I’ll get the dustpan. Make sure nobody steps on the glass.”
She says it like it’s happened before, like it’s no big deal. My mouth tightens anyway, humiliation hot in my throat.
Sonny is the poor fool suckered into training me, promised experience and handed…this. This spill is my second one of the night. I loaded the tray like it was going to save me time—one trip to the bus bin, one clean sweep, one tiny win.
Instead I’m standing guard over my own incompetence.
My feet ache worse than any shift I’ve worked before.
In the ambulance, pain is just part of the call.
Your body complains, and you tell it to shut up.
People are depending on you, and your aches and pains could be the difference between life and death.
Here, my body complains and it feels personal, like I’m being punished for pretending I knew how to do this.
Sonny returns with the dustpan and broom and starts sweeping fast. Efficient. No judgment on her face. Just motion.
“I’m so sorry,” I mutter, scrubbing my fingertips across my forehead. I legit don’t know what else to say.
“Don’t be.” She flicks her dark curls back, then nods at the bar. “Friday nights on Toulouse are baptism by fire. You just happened to get dunked twice. We’ll go out one night this week and celebrate your baptism, so you shake it off right now, umkay?”
When I don’t reply right away she peers more insistently up at me. “I said—”
“Yeah, yeah…shake it off. Thank you, Sonny.”
If my smile is a little wobbly she decides not to comment. Rising with dustpan in hand, she gestures toward a table of four men in the corner—two rounds deep into their pretzels and drinks and getting rowdier by the minute. “I got this. You take care of them?”
“On it. Thanks.”
I approach, pad and pen ready, smile strapped on like armor. “You guys ready for another round?”
They talk over each other, changing their minds mid-sentence. One reaches for my ass, while another pushes him back half-heartedly, reminding him of ‘his Jane’ at home. One says something I quite can’t hear over the TV and the laughter and the constant scrape of chairs.
I scribble as fast as I can.
By the time I make it back to the bar to give Ever their order, I can’t read my own shorthand. And I’ve forgotten what they said in the mosquito buzz of my brain.
This is much harder than I thought it’d be.
Physically. Emotionally. Mentally.
In EMS, your brain locks in. You don’t get to drift. You don’t get to forget. Here, the noise is constant and meaningless, and somehow that’s the problem. There’s no single emergency to focus on—just a hundred little demands clawing at you at once.
Through it all, Shiloh watches from his spot at the bar. Ever sees every mess I make, too—both of them too present, both of them too aware. Their attention threatens my control, especially when Ever gives a little sigh and shakes his head.
Forgetting the tab is humiliating. Delivering the wrong drinks to the wrong table is worse.
The look on the customer’s face makes my stomach drop. The look on Sonny’s—sympathetic and amused all at once—makes me want to crawl under the nearest table and die.
I lock my jaw and power through it. I’ve survived worse. Seen worse. Held worse in my hands.
Somehow Sonny’s good-natured civility and concern hits me harder than Ever’s blunt irritation ever could.
She’s absolutely adorable, raking in the tips with her huge green eyes set in a heart-shaped face and compact, curvy body.
I’d be jealous if she wasn’t a genuinely sweet person and I didn’t realize I needed a friend. Badly.
“Hey.” She scrubs a soothing hand between my shoulder blades, grounding me. “It’s okay. I was pretty bad my first time too. And trust me, Friday nights are the worst shift to get. They’re the best if you want to make money, but in terms of stress? It’ll test your multitasking skills.”
Serving tables shouldn’t be this hard.
“I should be able to do this,” I say, and the frustration comes out sharp. “I used to be an EMT. It’s not like I can’t handle pressure.”
“Yeah, well, I should be able to pay all my bills on time.” Sonny snorts. “Sometimes things are out of our control. It’ll get easier.”
I lift my head on my weary neck. “How long have you been here?”
“I’ve lived on Toulouse Street for five years, since I was eighteen,” she says.
“And I’ve been at Noir for two. It’s decent once you learn the rhythm.
And hell, girl—at least you’ve got the best of them to train you.
” She puffs out her chest. “I might be on the newer side of staff, but I work circles around the other girls. Justine is lazy.”
“It’s going to get easier,” she says again, rubbing my back, fingers finding the protrusions in my spine where I hunch forward. “Trust me.”
I huff out a breath and straighten. “Thanks.”
Sonny nudges me. “Go. Table by the window. Easy ones. Try again.”
I try again, wondering as I do which table Midnight claims as his when he’s here? Does he have a favorite server? Does he come in alone or with people? Does he sit with his back to the wall?
It’s going to take more than one shift to get a handle on anything, but hell—I’m here. It’s a step.
I slide an order to Ever and wait for him to fill it, one soft sole of my flats tapping a harsh staccato against the floor.
Ever glances down at my handwriting and pauses, snagging on something. “Gin. For table five.”
It’s not a question.
“Yes, gin. Neat. That’s what he said.” My voice comes out defensive before I can stop it.
Ever’s gaze flicks from me to the table, eyes narrowing to a thin, disbelieving line. He’s been quiet all night—capable, controlled, moving between tasks slow and methodical.
Now he shakes his head once, sharp.
“Not gin,” he says. “Alex is allergic to juniper berries. He would’ve asked for Jinro.”
Not gently. Efficiently.
My spine goes rigid as adrenaline floods my mouth with the taste of copper.
“No, I—” I swallow. “I was sure he said gin.”
“Jinro,” Ever repeats, already reaching for the bottle. “Served neat. It’s an export from Japan.” He pours without measuring. “Smooth. Hint of sweetness.”
“Like you, Reva.” Shiloh appears at my shoulder, nudging my arm with the point of his elbow.
Heat blooms across my cheeks.
“She could’ve killed him,” Ever says, lifting his gaze to Shiloh. Not to me.
“You caught it. Go easy.”
I hate being saved. Again. And he’s right—if I’d served the wrong thing to a patron with an allergy, it wouldn’t matter that I know what to do in an emergency. It would still be on me.
“No, he’s right,” I say, snatching the filled glass the second Ever sets it down. “It won’t happen again.”
I pile the drinks on the tray, ignoring the heat. Ignoring the way both their gazes needle into my skin and somehow burrow beneath it without touching me.
They’re dangerous. Especially when they’re right. Flushed, I carry the drinks to the table, throat tight the whole way.
Fuck Shiloh and his flirting, even though I know why he does it. He breathes sin and charisma constantly, but it’s dual-purpose—disarms patrons, smooths tension, oils the gears.
When he focuses on me, though, it feels like something else. Like he’s keeping me within arm’s reach. Like he wants me aware he’s there.
Hungry.
Which means I need to get my answers before his effortless charm wears me down again. Before I start mistaking attention for safety. Before I forget why I came.
Teeth grinding, jaw clenched, I cut back through the room toward Sonny, who greets me with two thumbs up.
“Girl, keep your wits,” she says, jerking her nose toward Shiloh. “I see him looking. He’s a pirate, that one. And who the hell cares, because he’s damn fine to look at.”
I sniff. “He’s looking but I’m not looking back.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Don’t shit where you eat,” Sonny says. “Or don’t get your honey where you make your money. Whatever version you like.”
“Either works,” I mutter. “I prefer the first.”
It gets the job done in simpler terms. I spare another look at Shiloh and find him watching me.