FIVE
STELLA
I walked through into the front door of the Watering Hole, and the low lights and cozy factor immediately set in. I could see why Anna talked about this place so much.
“Welcome to the Watering Hole,” a young woman in her young twenties greeted me.
“Hi. Can I sit at the bar?” I asked her.
“Sure, take any open seat,” she replied, and I began walking over to the very large bar on the right side of the large room.
I spotted him right away, though that wasn’t saying much since Axel was so tall. He had a presence that filled the whole room and drew your attention in his direction. He was focused and looking down, but as I approached the bar, he looked up and his gaze met mine. He instantly smiled at seeing me, and I found myself unable to do anything but smile back.
“You made it,” he said as I walked over to a chair. “Here, sit on this side. That side belongs to Tammy.”
He turned to face the woman next to him behind the bar, who was holding two glasses in her hands.
“Tammy, this is Stella, from Scandinavian Sweets,” Axel said, pointing at me. “Stella, this is Tammy, my fellow bartender for tonight and also the manager.”
“Nice to meet you,” I told her, recognizing the name from my conversations with Anna.
“Ooooh, I’ve had some of your pastries, and they aredivine,” Tammy said to me, causing me to smile.
Even though I had been baking for nearly two decades, it always put a smile on my face to hear that someone liked what I made.
“You didn’t happen to bring any with you, did ya?” Tammy asked hopefully.
“No, sorry, I didn’t. But I can the next time I come.”
“I brought you two things yesterday,” Axel told her.
“Yeah, but they’re gone now, and I want more,” she shot back as though this was obvious. “Plus, Ruthie gets to have first dibs, and she always takes the best ones.”
Axel rolled his eyes, and my smile got bigger listening to them discuss my bakery items.
Tammy moved back over to her side to set a drink down and talk with another customer while Axel came to stand right in front of me and leaned over the bar to place a napkin down at my seat.
“Thanks for coming. What can I get you to drink?” he asked.
“I’ll just take a Dr. Pepper, please,” I told him.
I watched him move behind the bar to get my drink while also checking on one of his other customers. He moved seamlessly, as though he’d done this before.
“I know you said you were new here, but have you worked at a restaurant or bar before?” I asked him.
“No. Never.”
“Well, you wouldn’t know it,” I told him. “You look like you know your way around pretty well.”
“That’s because he had a damn good trainer,” Tammy said, chuckling as she walked up beside him.
Axel rolled his eyes and then looked back at me. “Thank you. Let me drop this off over to that man, and I’ll be back to take your order.”
I was one of those weird people who looked up a restaurant’s menu before I went there. I liked to have an idea of what I wanted beforehand. In most cases, I even knew what I was going to order before I ever stepped foot inside the place. But I still picked up the menu and pretended to look while Axel worked his way around the bar, attending to customers and pouring drinks for some of the other staff.
He came back to take my order and then went back to helping Tammy bring in some new clean glasses for behind the bar.
I watched as he delivered one order and then handed his other customer a check before coming back over to me. “Okay, now I should have a few minutes to talk. Sorry about that.”
