Blue balls, courtesy of your family. That’s some shit I’m going to need a therapist for, no doubt.
The place is packed, as usual, and the crowd in front of the main bar downstairs looks like it’s about to crush Cici and Cam. The newest bartenders, from what I gathered from my conversation last month with my father, they don’t seem to have matured well behind the bar in the past few weeks. She looks practically dumbstruck trying to serve the next customer, and he appears to have a single speed.
Slow.
Like turtle slow. In a club like this one, that shit doesn’t play. Not for long, anyway.
I see the legendary Stefan March come out of his office, look around, and set his eagle-eyed gaze on me, and I know he wants to talk. He always wants to talk. You’d think my interest in getting behind the bar to help his newbies would overrule his need to lecture me about being late, but I can tell by the disgruntled look on his face as he weaves through the crowd that he’s in a talking mood.
Or maybe a yelling mood.
“Cade, I want to talk to you,” he says when he gets about three feet away from me.
I point toward his hapless workers and say, “Can we do this after I rescue those two? They’ve got a line three people deep and ten people long wanting drinks. Who’s setting up your shifts here these days? Whoever it is, they need to be retrained or fired.”
His eyes narrow at my attack on his scheduler, who I know is him. It’s always him. He likes being a hands-on kind of owner, and while that’s not a bad thing, he’s slipping if he thinks these two are up to the job of the main bar.
“Maya is on her break. They’ll be fine once she gets back,” he says defensively, and I know I’ve struck a nerve.
“Then I’ll take over until she comes back from her break. I’ll come to see you in the office then,” I call back as I stride away toward the bar.
I know he hates that I just basically dismissed him, but what he hates even more is the idea that his bar isn’t being manned properly. I can fix that, at least. Everything else between us tonight will go to hell pretty quickly once I step into his office, but at least I can get his main source of income here straightened out in the meantime.
As I come around the corner of the bar, I flash a blond in my way a smile and announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, what are we all drinking?”
They all call out drinks and I laugh that no one got the joke. Okay, I guess it was an inside thing. Cici and Cam look at me like they aren’t sure if I’m there to help or cause a hassle, so I call them in toward me.
“Cici, take the end of the bar down there. Don’t get flustered. Just do one drink at a time, and do it as fast as you can. Cam, you do the middle third, and I’ll do this end down here. Don’t worry about how many people there are. They all want drinks, so they’ll wait a minute. Just don’t make them wait two. Okay, let’s go!”
They scurry away to where I’ve told them to go, and I turn to see the pretty blond giving me the eye. “What can I do for you tonight, beautiful?” I ask and get a sexy smile in return.
“Moscow mule. I’m Kirsten. What’s your name? Superman come to save the day?” she yells over the crowd cheering about something a few feet away.
I toss her a smile and nod as I begin to pour her drink. “Feel free to call me Superman. Give me a few seconds and I’ll have you taken care of.”
“Are you the man in charge?” she asks, and I shake my head.
“Not me. I’m just some off-the-street guy come to do a little bartending. The guy in charge is wearing the black suit and green tie and looks like he doesn’t know what a good time is,” I say, leaning over to place her drink in front of her.
She slides me a twenty and a piece of paper before flashing me another smile. “Well, Superman, keep the change and give me a call sometime. I’d love to see what kind of other superhero feats you can perform.”
I could explain to her that I’ve got someone, even though I’m not sure that’s the God’s honest truth about what Hailey and I are doing, but what’s the point? This is a bar, the blonde wants to flirt, and I’m a bartender whose job is to make customers happy. So I smile and give her wink.
“Time for me to go save more citizens of Metropolis.”
With that, I make my way to the cash register and give the mighty Stefan March his take and pocket the ten I made with just a smile and a little sweet talk. It’s too bad I hate doing this job. It’s not hard and I could probably haul away half a grand tonight, if my father hadn’t scheduled Maya too. Why does he insist on having me come in if he doesn’t need me?
Well, he needs me, but that would mean sending poor Cici and Cam home. But my father has other plans for me, I’m sure.
Twenty minutes later, my third of the bar has more people than the rest of it because my two co-workers took my pep talk and disregarded every word. I’m halfway to what I might have made all night because of them, so I guess I can’t be too disgusted with how bad they are at this job.
I’m not the one who’s in charge of who works and who gets fired here, but if I was, they’d both be gone.
“Stefan Junior,” a voice says behind me, and I turn to see Maya back from her break.
She knows I hate that little swipe she takes at me every time we meet up. One month of working together and she thinks I’m as bad as my father. I’d get rid of her too if this was my place, but not because she’s shitty behind the bar. She isn’t. In fact, she’s been known to be damn good sometimes and the customers love her.
I’d get rid of her because she insists on calling me that little name.
“Maya, how great to see you again,” I coo, obviously not happy to see her. “Taking half-hour breaks now? Seems pretty early in the night. Boyfriend couldn’t wait?”
And that’s my swipe back at her. I know her boyfriend broke up with her last month. My father had to babysit her weepy ass for a week because she couldn’t keep it together. Yours truly got to fill in for her then too and got to have the privilege of seeing how kind the great Stefan March could be to someone who isn’t me.
Maya’s green eyes open wide at my insult. “Fuck you, Cade! Get out of my way. This is my bar tonight.”
Taking a fifty from my final customer, I head toward the register and get him his change. When he kindly leaves me a ten for a tip, I pocket that and look over at her.
“Then act like it so I don’t have to come in here and clean up your fucking mess. You used to be good behind the bar. Maybe you could try to be that again.”
Before she can clap back with some attempt at a witty retort, I slide around the edge of the bar and head into the crowd. Not two steps toward the stairs, I see my father wave me over toward him as he stands outside his office.
So much for getting away unscathed.
By the time I reach him, my stomach’s in a knot and I’m preemptively hating the conversation we’re about to have. He gives me a scowl and heads into the office with me following.
“I see you and Maya haven’t made up. I thought you two would have been able to get past what happened last summer by now. It’s been nearly a year,” he says as he walks over to his chair behind his desk.
“Well, she’s the same person she was, and I’m the same person I was, and the problem is still there, so I don’t know why you would think we’d get past anything by now, Dad.”