“Ha,” he answers me, voice dripping with sarcasm. “She doesn’t put up with my shit. Apparently I wanted to wait for her after the place closed, but she put me in an Uber and told me the bar was better off without me.”
“Harsh.”
Dylan just grins. “She’s a sassy one. I like that.”
The hostess seats us at our table, and Dylan lunges for the pitcher of water already set out.
“I’m telling you, I just can’t drink like I used to. One day you’ll understand what it’s like to be an old man.”
I scoff. “You’re, what, twenty-nine?”
“And not getting any younger. Don’t waste your youth, Zachary. That’s all I’m saying.”
“You’re an idiot, you know that?”
“If I don’t know it, Renee will tell me.”
I pour myself a glass of water too. “Cheers to that.”
The waitress stops by to collect our order soon after. This is where we usually meet up on the rare occasions we’re not hanging out at Taverne Toulouse, so neither of us even needs to look at the menu.
“So how are things with you, my friend?” Dylan asks after she leaves.
I pause and think for a moment. “Favourable.”
He chuckles. “Haven’t heard that one in a while.”
My parents have this dorky thing where they try to answer ‘How are you?’ with a different word every time someone asks. My sisters and I all do it too. I get teased enough about it at the bar that I should probably stop, but I think the habit’s too ingrained to kick.
“Your family doing all right?” he asks.
“I just called my younger sister before heading over here, the one who’s at school in Halifax. She’s as crazy as ever.” I chuckle at the thought of Hope, my most exuberant sibling. “She’s visiting in a few weeks, actually. Emily’s still living in Toronto. Mom and Pop are well as far as I know.”
“And how’s the ecommerce thing going? I still don’t really understand it.”
I have to laugh at that. “I’ve explained it to you about fifteen times.”
Dylan shrugs. “It mystifies me.”
“To be fair, it mystifies most people I talk to about it, but it’s going well.”
Dylan leans in closer. “Give me the run down again. Maybe this time it’ll stick.”
I laugh again before launching into an explanation. “Okay, so, basics of drop shipping: I build and market an online store. The items I sell in that store are produced and housed by a supplier. When a customer orders an item from my store, I forward that order to the supplier, and they ship the item out to the customer. I don’t actually make or ship any of the stuff I sell.”
“I think I’m following. So what are the items you sell?”
“I have three different stores going at the moment. One is for watches, one is for novelty socks, and one is for giant pool floaties.”
Dylan tilts his head to the side. “You sell giant pool floaties?”
“It’s all about market research, as well as trial and error,” I explain. “Pool floaties came out on top when I was considering things that would be profitable. Here, this is my store.”
I feel like a kid showing off a science project, but that doesn’t stop my chest from puffing up a bit when Dylan’s eyes get wide after he takes my phone out of my hands to look at the webpage.
“You made this? Holy shit. This is legit, man.” He scrolls around for a minute and then passes the phone back. “You’ll be a mogul any day now. Monroe’s going to kill us both for leaving the bar.”
I laugh and take another sip of water. “I don’t think she’ll have to worry about me leaving any time soon. With the gaping management hole you left in the staff, it’s been all hands on deck for the OG employees while she gets Lisanne trained as manager. Ecommerce is kind of taking a back seat.”
Instead of laughing along with me, Dylan frowns. “Excuse my ignorance, but if your business is picking up speed, don’t you want to be, uh, jumping on that? That’s why you went down to part time at the bar, right?”
It is why I stopped working full time, and it’s also why I turned down Monroe’s original offer to co-manage with Dylan, along with her recent hint that I’d be perfect at co-managing with Lisanne. The staff is getting large enough that we could use a kitchen manager and someone for the front of house, but I promised myself this job was only going to be a stepping stone back when I first took it. My focus was always supposed to be on my business, on building something and bringing it to life. Slinging fries and pulling pints was only meant to be a way to get there.
What I didn’t know is that slinging fries and pulling pints would end up being so fun, or that the people I did it with would come to mean so much to me. No one’s kidding when they say working at Taverne Toulouse feels like being part of a family.
And you don’t say no to family.
“Monroe needs the help,” I answer Dylan as I shrug, “and god knows she deserves it.”
He throws a mocking smile my way and puts an exaggerated country twang into his voice. “Oh Lord above, god knows she deserves it.”
“Connard,” I grumble.
“But seriously, if it’s affecting your business, you should tell Monroe. She’ll understand. She’s a business owner too.”
I shrug and tell him it’s not a big deal, even as I think about all the tasks that have been sitting on my to-do list for weeks. I shift back in my seat and wince as the scrape on my back rubs up against the booth.
Dylan doesn’t miss it. “What’s up with you? Got too wild on the dance floor last night?”
Yeah, so wild I almost kissed DeeDee.
I don’t remember seeing Dylan dancing last night. I’m pretty sure he was over by the bar the whole time, downing beers and flirting with Renee. He can’t have seen what happened. I’m not even sure what happened, but my face starts feeling hot all the same. I gulp down the rest of my water and start blurting out the story of my fall, just to get off the subject of dancing.
“Actually, I kind of fell over and scraped up my back this morning. DeeDee was sitting on the couch, and she sca—”
“DEEDEE WAS IN YOUR HOUSE?” Dylan pounds his water glass on the table, oblivious to the dozen or so heads that turn our way. “THIS MORNING?”
“Yeah, she—”
“DUDE!” Before I can get another word in, he’s jumping up from his side of the booth and coming over to give me several bone-rattling claps on the shoulder with his beefcake hand. “Dude, finally! Holy shit! Oh my god, I can’t believe this. Finally.”
“Dylan.”
He makes his way back to his seat, ignoring the urgency in my voice. He’s grinning at me like a doped up stoner.
“Well isn’t this the breaking news of the fucking century. It looks like there really is hope for this world. You and DeeDee Beausoleil finally—”
“Dylan!” Now it’s me making people turn their heads. I lower my voice to a fervent whisper. “Nothing. Happened.”
“What do you mean nothing happened? Oh.” His eyes get wide. “Are we keeping this on the DL? I won’t spread the word or anything until you guys are ready. I just can’t believe—”