“Two espresso martinis, ladies.” I place the drinks on the bar in front of a blonde and brunette, who have both been fluttering their eyelashes at me for the last hour since I stepped behind the bar. They purposely lean forward to give me a better view of their tits, but I’m not interested. Although, if I was ready to move on, there are always plenty of options in here. But one thing I know for sure is that I don’t want a bar bunny.
“Thanks, Landon.” The blonde draws out my name and places her sizable tip on the bar. I just pick it up and place in the staff tip jar. I don’t need the money, and my staff are working their asses off tonight. Saturdays are busy anyway, but tonight, it’s insane, with standing room only. Just like most bars in Boston during December.
It's good for business, but exhausting.
“Anytime, ladies,” I reply and move on to the next order. By sending Emile home, we are now down our best cocktail maker, so my seventeen years of bartending experience means I’m the next best thing.
I feel my phone in my back pocket vibrating a couple of times with messages, but they’ll just have to wait because I’m too busy.
I throw together three margaritas and then walk down the bar to offload them to a guy who’s been waiting for them, and I can hear the bar phone ringing in the background. Even though the music and voices in the bar are loud, my ear is tuned to the sound of the ringtone. We chose a weird-sounding one so that it would stand out. Charlene is at the other end of the bar, and I see her pick up the phone before turning to me.
“Boss, it’s Renee.” Shit, the sitter. My heart is in my throat, and my stomach drops as I move toward the bar phone as quickly as I can.
The last time this happened replays in my head as I growl into the phone. “Renee, what’s wrong?”
“Sorry, Mr. Wood, I tried to message you, but you said if it was ever important to call the bar.” She’s waffling.
“Get to the point, are the boys okay?” I grunt at her.
“Oh, yes, sorry, they’re fast asleep in bed. It’s just my mother, she has had a fall and I need to get to the hospital. It’s kind of urgent.” Renee’s timid voice on the other end of the phone reminds me that I need to pull it together because she is the one who is distressed. “I know it would be thirty minutes at least until you get here, but I need to leave. The only thing I could think of was to take the boys with me until you could meet me at the hospital, which is not ideal.”
“Let me call Mrs. Bertrum next door and see if she can help, just hold on two seconds.” Putting the bar phone down on the counter, I retrieve my cell from my pocket and call my neighbor we affectionately call Mrs. B at her request, because regardless of being thirty minutes away, I actually can’t leave when we are this short-staffed.
Fuck, is there anything else that wants to test my patience tonight?
The ringing in my ear goes on forever, and I know it’s late for Mrs. B, so I need to give her time to answer. Looking at my watch, I see it’s eleven thirty-nine, so she will likely be tucked up in bed.
She answers the phone, her voice croaky. “Landon, is everything okay?”
“I’m so sorry to wake you, Mrs. B, but I’m desperate. Renee’s mother needs to be taken to the hospital, and I’m stuck at the bar. Any chance you can go and sit with the boys until I get home? Feel free to sleep in the spare bed.” I’m almost begging for her to help me out.
“My dear, I’m so sorry, but I’m out of town for the night, staying with my sister. But don’t you worry. My daughter Poppy is at my place; she arrived this afternoon. I’ll call her and get her over to your place, lickity split. She won’t mind.” My first instinct is to tell her no, that I’ll work it out, because having a stranger watch my kids is a big concern for me. But honestly, I feel like I have no choice. Renee needs to get to her mom, I understand that, and I can’t get home anytime soon.
“You can trust her, Landon. She is a firefighter in Rochester and is just home for Christmas. The boys will be safe with her, I promise.” She uses a reassuring voice to try to convince me to trust her.
“I don’t really have a choice.” I sigh loudly. “Okay, can you have her call me, please? I have to go and tell Renee. And thank you.” We say our goodbyes, and I grab the other phone to relay the information to Renee.
Charlene is eyeballing me from the other end of the bar to ask whether everything is okay, but at the same time, she is politely telling me she’s waiting on me to make those drinks the couple in front of her have ordered.
I give her a thumbs-up to stop her worrying, but in the meantime, my stomach is churning and my head feels like it’sabout to explode. I’m pulling glasses out to make a whiskey sour and a martini, when my phone starts ringing with an unknown number.
I swipe the screen and tuck the phone under my chin.
“Poppy?” I ask.
“Yeah, Landon, I presume. I’m just getting dressed and heading over to your house now. This is my number, and I’ll send you through a picture of my ID so you feel a bit better about a stranger being in your house with your kids.” I know that should make me feel reassured, but it doesn’t.
“Thank you. If there are any problems at all or if the boys wake up, please FaceTime so they can see me.” I can hear noise in the background as she moves around. “I’ll probably be another two hours but will try to get there as soon as possible.”
“Don’t sweat it, take your time. I’ll just go back to sleep on the sofa. I’m used to being woken in the middle of the night when the fire alarm sounds.” Now I feel guilty that I’m disrupting her sleep on the first day of her vacation.
“Okay, their names are Nash and Kade, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Yeah, I know. Mom talks about them all the time. She is very fond of your boys. Now, go back to work, I’ve got this.” The mention of her mom reminds me how lucky we are to have Mrs. B as a neighbor.
We moved to Arlington just under a year ago because I was struggling with the memories living in the condo that Lucinda had made into our home, near the bar. But it was also the place she left us, which I could never unsee, so I sold the condo and moved us out to the suburbs. Now that the kids are older, it’s nice to have a yard for them to run around in.
The day we moved in, Mrs. B was over with an apple pie to welcome us, and she and the boys were instant friends. She has become like a grandmother to them, since Lucinda’s parentslive in Canada and my parents aren’t even worth knowing. I lost track of them years ago, thankfully. I grew up on the streets in Queens for most of my teenage life, and my drug-addicted parents preferred to spend their welfare payments on meth rather than feed their son or themselves. Once I was old enough to get a job, I was out of there and have never looked back.
