“I’m sorry, okay? I’m hungover and grouchy. Can we please get out of here and go get some food?”
“There’re only a few more rooms.”
We walk through two more bedrooms and a formal sitting room. Jarrett pays for his treasurers that he’ll no doubt take back to his shop, paint outrageous colors, and sell for three times what he just bought them for. His store is hugely popular around here and the hippie makes a killing.
We eat lunch at Comida’s. Fernando’s younger brother, Ricky, greets us as we enter. And I use that term loosely because the seventeen-year-old is a psychopath in the making. He exudes angry vibes and I can’t imagine why. But whatever. Teenagers.
Luckily, the lunch rush is over, so Fernando is free to sit and eat with us. I order the largest plate of huevos rancheros they sell and large iced tea.
“You eating for two?” Fernando jokes.
“Eating away a hangover.” I clarify.
“I heard what happened with Sara. That’s sad.”
I look over at Jarrett, who’s staring at the ugly drop ceiling. After an uncomfortable amount of time passes, he finally makes eye contact. “What? You took two hours to get ready.”
“So you called everyone we know to tell them?”
“Not everyone, just him.” He motions to our friend.
“I should’ve just gone right to Paul and had him print the whole story, that way everyone would all know at the same time.”
“Eew. Don’t even joke. Besides, that homophobe wouldn’t run anything if it’s attached to one of us,” Jarrett says.
“True that.” I gulp down my tea, hoping it’ll give me the energy to get through the night.
“Did you hear Dante moved in with Jax?” Fernando asks nonchalantly, like he didn’t just drop a bomb.
“Seriously?” My jaw drops and my eyes roll.
“I overheard them talking about it while having lunch a week or two ago. I guess things must be growing serious between them.” Fernando jumps up. “Be right back. I’ll go grab our food.”
“You okay, sweetie? You’re not blinking. It’s a little weird.” Jarrett rests a hand on my forearm. He’s sixteen years my senior, so he wasn’t around when I was going through shit with Jax, but I’ve told him about the whole ordeal.
“Fine,” I mutter.
“It’s not like you’re still into him, anyway.”
My shoulders slump. “It’s nothing like that. I don’t want him, I just have these residual feelings of not being enough. I gave my tender teenage heart to him and he stomped on it over his family. And oh my God, it’s happening all over again.”
“What’s happening all over again?”
“Jax put his family’s welfare over mine and now Archer’s doing the same damn thing. Why does no one consider my feelings? Why am I not enough for someone to put me first?”
“I mean, it is his sister who is clearly battling mental illness. You can’t expect him to turn his back on her.”
“No, of course not. That’s not what I mean. What I mean is, he asked me to put my future at risk for his sister’s. Why didn’t he consider me before asking that of me? And with Jax, he didn’t even try to make things work.”
“You’re right. But you realize it has nothing to do with you, right?”
“Doesn’t it, though? If you were in Archer’s situation, would you ask me to not fire her?”
He thinks about that for a minute and his face falls. “No.”
“See? And you’re a friend, I didn’t even give you my ass.”
“This conversation took a turn,” Fernando says, placing plates in front of us. Suddenly, I’m not so hungry. I’m sad.
We eat lunch in relative silence, Fernando and Jarrett trying to cheer me up and make me feel better, but I’ve already been sucked into the deep emotions. The rehashing of old insecurities that spill into your life years after you thought you were over them.
I’m a whole ass adult still fretting over pain from my adolescence. Ain’t that some shit.
I say goodbye to my friends and walk across the street to Focus, where Keith is waiting for me. I asked him to meet me here so we could talk about him working at Focus temporarily. He was the one who I’d bumped over to Blur when Sara came to work for me, so he was the obvious choice.
“Thanks for coming in early,” I say, unlocking the door.
“No problem. Everything okay?” He drags a hand through his shaggy, blond hair. Keith is my only straight, male employee.
“Let’s sit.” I gesture to a table.
“That sounds ominous.”
“I don’t know if you heard what happened with Sara, but she won’t be coming back for a little while. She has some personal stuff to take care of.”
“I heard about last night.”
“Figured you did. Anyway, that opens the position up here and I’m hoping you’ll come back.”
“It wouldn’t be my first choice. My tips doubled when I moved over to Blur,” he says.
I was surprised when he applied to work for me, but it all made sense when I saw how my customers reacted to his all-American, boy next door, mixed with California surfer good looks.
“How about I give you five dollars more an hour? I know it won’t make up for it, but it might help.”
“I guess I could go for that. Give the other bartenders at Blur a chance to make some money for a change.” He flashes me a blinding smile, his blue eyes twinkling with mirth.
“Thank you.”
“It’s not a problem. It’ll be nice not to have my junk pawed at for a while.”
“I’m pretending I didn’t hear that so I don’t have to hire security.”
“Probably best. Our tips would go way down.”
“I didn’t hear that, either.”
Keith motions like he’s zipping his lips and throwing away the key.
This is my life. Ignoring the safety of my staff because my head is too full of personal shit. How did things get so complicated?
Oh yeah. Archer Warren.
Archer
I expected Sara’s sudden reemergence into the land of the living to be short-lived, that I would find her in bed when I woke up, buried under blankets and a pile of tissues next to her pillow. That’s not what I find when I enter the kitchen groggy-eyed and in need of coffee.
Sara’s in front of the griddle, flipping chocolate chip pancakes, humming a song I don’t recognize. After months of her being a shell of a human, it’s almost bizarre. It’s like watching her rise from the dead, but not in a good way. In a scary movie way where zombies claw their way up from the grave. It’s fake and makes me uneasy.
I can’t say that, though. She does truly look different. She’s calm. At ease. I don’t want to bring anything up that will set her back.
“Good morning,” I say. “Kind of early for pancakes.”
“I’m getting a head start. I have a bunch of errands to run today, so I’m making breakfast before I shower and wake the kids.”
“What errands?”
“I’m meeting with that lawyer at nine this morning. Which reminds me, do you think I could stop at the docks and have you sign some things for me during your lunch?”