3. Gigi
3
GIGI
C'EST LA VIE
“All right, kid,” I said to Kai as I locked the door behind the last paying customer. “Good job tonight. You really made the tap your bitch.”
Kai puffed up like a proud penguin and grinned. “Thanks,” they said, shaking their bangs out of their eyes. “I only dropped two glasses.”
I clenched my teeth into something I hoped looked like a smile. It was four, but who was counting? “How about you start putting chairs up,” I said to Kai. “So we can start on the floors?”
Dante chuckled from somewhere in the kitchen. He’d pay for that later. Kai nodded and traipsed away. I shook my head. Kid had enthusiasm, that was for sure. I could only hope it’d carry them through what was looking to be a very steep learning curve.
Letting out a deep breath, I surveyed the empty bar.
Well. Mostly empty.
In the corner booth, one single soul still sat, head buried in a book as Elizabeth Bennett kept watch from her place on the wall. Smiling to myself, I reached beneath the bar and pulled a can of ginger ale from the fridge. Then, I poured it over ice and a shot of honey whiskey, finishing it off with a lime wedge on the rim. Once I finished making the drink, I headed for the booth.
“Oh.” Parker looked up from her book as I sat the glass on the table. “Sorry, I know you’re closed.” Even as she voiced the apology, she reached for her drink, a sheepish smile curving her lips. “Thanks.”
“No problem. You’ll make it up to me with free therapy someday.” I tilted my head toward her book. She was a grad student at Sutcliffe, and often stayed late, studying while we closed up shop. “You’re gonna save me so much money.”
“Of course.” Laughing, Parker closed the book in question, revealing the title: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. Yikes. “All the free therapy for my favorite bartender.”
Something twinged in my chest as she smiled up at me. I ignored it and pulled out the chair across from her. Kai would be a while as they sorted out the mop sink. “Where’d your buddy go?”
“Simon? Oh, he’s long gone,” she said with a wave of her hand. “He opens the coffee shop tomorrow, so he’s probably coerced my cat into snuggling him, and they’re both sound asleep.”
“Ahh.” I nodded. “Makes sense.”
Inwardly, I rolled my eyes. How had I ever functioned normally before this? Pretty sure I used to be chill. Pretty sure I had been capable of holding a conversation with Parker without getting sidetracked by her smile. But sometime over the last few months, sometime during her late-night study sessions at the bar, my brain had been taken hostage by infatuation. Parker had gone from my brother’s girlfriend’s younger sister, to Parker , the brilliant grad student who studied at my bar a few times a week.
I don’t know when it happened, or how. All I knew was that one day, I brought a drink over to her and she smiled up at me, and…
Welp. I was done for.
It was annoying, it was embarrassing. It was inconvenient as fuck. Her sister would murder me if she knew. Hell, I kinda wanted to murder me. Because Parker? She was way, way too good for the likes of me. She was going to a doctor, for fuck’s sake. Meanwhile, I was a failed musician and an even fail-ier human being.
I was yanked from the depression drain my thoughts had taken by Parker shoving her stack of books aside to make room for her elbows on the tabletop.
“Did you know,” she said, her blue eyes glittering at me, “that Cranky Carl has three grandkids?”
I opened my mouth, but shock had rendered me speechless.
“The oldest just came out as nonbinary,” she continued, undeterred by my silence. “We had a whole conversation the other day about how he’s trying so hard to get their pronouns right.” She shook her head, a little smile touching her lips. “Isn’t that the sweetest?”
“How…did that conversation even start?” I frowned across the table at this impossible creature. “I’ve known the guy nearly my entire life, and he’s only said maybe fifty words to me. Ever.”
Parker lifted a shoulder, one glossy curl falling forward. “I don’t know. I guess I just…have one of those faces.” She said it with a grin so overtly angelic that I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
“I gotta say, Samuels. If you can crack someone like Cranky Carl, you’re gonna be an excellent therapist.”
“Aww, thank you.” She beamed across the table and I clenched my teeth against the rush of warmth that smile sent through me.
“So.” Parker fixed her gaze on her glass, pushing an ice cube to the bottom with her straw. I tucked my chaotic thoughts away and refocused on the moment. “The band was good tonight.” She didn’t look up as she said it, instead watching as the ice cube floated back to the top of the glass. Beneath the light, I watched her cheeks pinken.
I straightened, narrowing my eyes. “They were,” I agreed slowly. “Usually are.”
She continued to toy with the ice in her glass, long lashes casting shadows across her flushed skin. “I saw you talking to them after their set. You guys seemed pretty cool.”
“Yeah.” I pulled my leg up, resting my arm on my knee as I catalogued Parker’s body language. The flushed cheeks, the lack of eye contact. The fidgeting. All of which pinged my brain in a way I hated. “The drummer and I went to high school together.”
At that, Parker’s gaze flicked up. “Halle?”
“Yeah. We met in detention and—” I stopped, the flicker of interest in Parker’s blue eyes like a neon arrow pointing to the answer. “Wait.” I dropped my foot to the floor and leaned in, leveling a hard stare on her face to disguise the wave of disappointment rushing over me. “Do you have a crush on Halle?”
Parker’s cheeks burned hotter. “What?” She waved a dismissive hand, sinking back in her seat. “No. Don’t be ridi…pssh.” Her eyes avoided mine. “Can you imagine? Me?” The laugh that left her was shrill and unnatural. “Don’t be silly.”
I folded my arms across my chest and waited. She’d run out of steam eventually.
“I’m too old for crushes,” she went on, unknowingly slinging stones my way. If she was too old, at twenty-six, what did that say about me at thirty? “Way too old. That’s just…it’s just absurd. So absurd. I haven’t had a crush in years. Years! The last time I had a crush, I—” Catching sight of me watching her, not believing a word she said, she exhaled, shoulders dropping. “Fine.” She wrapped both hands around her glass and averted her gaze. “Yeah, okay. I’ve got a crush.”
“On Halle.”
She nodded, and somehow her cheeks burned even brighter. “Well, well, well,” I started, keeping my tone light, despite the battle raging within me.
She’s not straight! one voice sang, the revelation a spark of hope I hadn’t dared let myself have. It was immediately extinguished, however, by the realist inside me. But she’s into someone else.
“It’s ridiculous, I know.” She glanced up, chagrin on her lovely face. “ I’m ridiculous. I just…” She trailed off, wiping her thumb across the condensation on her glass. “She’s so…you know? And I’m…well, not great at this stuff.” She gestured at herself. “Clearly.”
I laughed, even as something hot twisted in my belly. “It’s alright. It happens to the best of us.”
She cocked her brow. “Even you?” Her eyes flickered over me. “I somehow doubt you’ve ever been bad at this stuff.”
“Oh, my god.” I laughed again, this time more genuine. “You have no idea. Me, in high school? A disaster.”
“I don’t believe you. I’ve seen you in action. You’re so… good at the whole flirting thing. Meanwhile, I can’t even say hi to someone I like.” She shook her head, a lock of dark hair falling over her shoulder. “Poor Simon. He’s come to these shows with me so many times, hyping me up. And I just…don’t do it.”
That warm thing in my chest grew. Just a titch. She was so cute. I wanted to reach across the table and run my hand over her shiny hair. Tell her it was gonna be okay.
“Probably doesn’t help,” she went on, “that all my experience in this department has been with guys. They’re easy. Easy to read, easy to talk to. Women, though.” Her eyes widened, hands twisting on the tabletop. “They’re scary.”
“Oh, we’re not so bad.” I threaded my fingers together on the table to keep from reaching for her fidgeting hands. “Just start with hello.”
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” A self-deprecating laugh left her. “For months, man. Simon’s gonna kill me if I keep dragging him out on work nights only to watch me chicken out.”
I watched as she took the lime from the rim and squeezed its juice into her glass, then licked the juice from her fingers. Static filled my brain, drowning out whatever she was saying as my every neuron zoomed in on the pink of her tongue and the paler pink of her nail polish against it.
I gave myself a hard mental shake. No, I told myself. Not the time. Not the place.
Not the girl.
Nothing about this…attraction, or whatever, was convenient. I had too much going on right now to get distracted. Especially by the perfectly perfect sister of my brother’s girlfriend. She might as well have off-limits tattooed on her forehead.
Lifting her drink to her lips, she took a sip. As she put the glass back down, she seemed to be mulling over something. “What if,” she started. But then she shook her head. “Never mind.”
“What if, what?” Behind me, there was a cacophony of sound. Probably, Kai spilled the mop bucket on their way back. I winced.
Parker glanced behind me, worry creasing her brow. “Should you go check on that?”
I waved her off. “Nah, I’m sure it’s fine. The new kid’s finding their footing.”
She huffed a quiet laugh. “They’re cute, at least.”
“At least,” I agreed. “Anyway. What if, what?”
Her gaze met mine, and I could see her wavering. In her own head, trying to decide if she wanted to voice whatever thought had taken hold. “Out with it, Samuels.”
“Okay, fine.” She inhaled, and then she let her question go in a rushed exhale. “Can you maybe introduce me to Halle?” Her lips twisted with chagrin. Shaking her head, she sat back, eyes squeezed shut. “Never mind. Forget I asked.” Opening her eyes, she met my gaze. “God, I’m ridiculous.”
“You’re not.” I looked her over, sympathy warring with something else I didn’t want to give life to. Well, not any more than I already had. Instead, I focused on the facts: I’d been in her shoes before. I’d been her . Anxious and unsure. Nervous to take the first step. Afraid of rejection.
I didn’t want her to feel that way.
She shifted under my gaze, and I blinked myself back to the moment. “Sure,” I said before I’d even registered that I was speaking. “Okay.”
“Sure?” Parker repeated, brows lifting. “Okay?”
I laughed and pushed my chair away from the table. I had to get out of here. Before I changed my mind. “Next weekend.”
“Thank—”
“Just an intro,” I interrupted, more gruff than I meant it to sound. “Everything else is up to you, Samuels.”
Parker nodded, lips pressed together in a barely-contained smile. I smiled in return. I couldn’t help it. She was adorable. “Now, get outta here and get some sleep. It’s past your bedtime.”
I walked away, feeling her stare after me. Something niggled at the back of my mind, but I didn’t have time to poke at it. I had a disaster human in the back to train.