Page 3 of Into The Light

“I’m coming!” I snapped at him loud enough he could hear me over the din of the crowd.

A quick glance at the man in the booth showed the pair of icy eyes still fixated on me. As much as I wanted to continue drinking him in, there was no time to dream about men out of my reach. There were bills to pay, and I wore half of a drink that should have been to the table a while ago. At least one gin and tonic had survived. While I tried to gather up the last shreds of my composure, I pushed my way through the crowd to Chomp’s table.

“Here you go,” I said, setting the drinks down in front of Chomps and his equally ridiculous-looking friend. Maybe I should find the Juicy tracksuit lady and introduce them. They seemed like they would get along famously. “That will be twenty-two dollars.”

“What is this?” He pointed to the half empty drink.

“Someone bumped me. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not paying for half of a drink.”

My body quaked with rage. He wasn’t wrong, of course, but he had no idea what I had been through just to get him that drink.

“Fine. Just pay for half. We’ll call it fifteen.”

He took a sip. “This isn’t Beefeaters.”

The temperature of my blood rose from scalding to near boiling. “You didn’t request Beefeaters, sir.”

“Yes, I did. I said two Beefeaters and tonic. Isn’t that right, Harry? You heard me, right?”

His friend, presumably Harry, nodded in agreement. “I only drink Beefeaters. I’m not paying for these. Run back and get me two Beefeaters and tonics. Did you get it this time?”

Despite my exploding head, like a good waitress I nodded and bit my tongue instead of spitting out what I wanted to say.

You said gin, douchebag. At no point did the words Beefeaters pass between your horrifyingly blinding teeth.

I reached for the glasses to take them away, but he caught me by my wrist.

“Whoa, there!” He laughed. “You can leave them here. No need for them to go to waste!”

My eyes moved from the glasses to the wrinkled fingers holding my wrist. The moment I felt his weathered hand touch my skin, my near-boiling blood started to bubble. “If you’re not paying for them, you’re not drinking them. Let go of my wrist.”

“Ah, come on, sweetheart! Don’t be such a sour puss! Just give me a little smile.” His blinding teeth offended me once again as he beamed.

That. Is. It.

Unwritten server rules number three, four and five. Don’t touch me. Don’t call me sweetheart. Don’t tell me to smile. As my blood hit a rolling boil, I knew I was so far gone rage was no longer visible in my rear-view mirror.

“You want me to smile?” I said, my voice rising with each syllable. “Why in the actual fuck would I smile? Should I smile because I just wasted all this time dragging the two gin and tonics you ordered across the club only to have you tell me they’re wrong, which they’re not? Should I smile because my boss makes me wear this ridiculous black dress with my tits popping out, my tits that are now covered in not only beer, but beer and your gin and tonic? The one you’re refusing to pay for that I will get docked for tonight? Should I smile because I already worked an eight-hour shift today crammed in a cubicle in my dead-end career? Should I smile because my piece of shit husband walked out on me six months ago for a twenty-two-year-old stick figure and left me with a mortgage and thirty-five thousand in credit card debt, hence why I now work here as a mistreated cocktail waitress five nights a week on top of my full-time job? You tell me, Chomps... if you were me, would you fucking smile?”

He stared at me blinking, his veneers now hidden away. A quick glance around confirmed that my overdue outburst had not only reached the ears of Chomps and Harry, but everyone in the near vicinity. Another glance revealed the stranger with the icy eyes had been listening as well. His lips weren’t smiling but I could swear his eyes were.

I rarely indulged in tears, but the non-stop work, the exhaustion, and the stress of rebuilding my life after Jeff walked out all built up in my tear ducts. Turning on my heel, I pushed my way through the crowd to the storage room behind the bar. I could feel the man in the booth’s eyes on me all the way. He must think I’m a freak.

This is so embarrassing. I can’t believe I snapped.

I slammed the door to the storage room and with it, shut out the music and voices that had resumed since my outburst.

“Damn it!” I pushed back the tears and exhaled a cleansing breath.

You’ve got this, Emilia. Get it together. No. Tears. We had a deal.

The day Jeff walked out I had given myself seven days to cry. Seven days to wallow in self-pity and curse myself for all the bad decisions I had made since the day I met him. After seven days, no more. No more tears would get shed because of that lying, useless, cheating asshole. Another deep breath and they slipped back away to the recesses I had forced them into. It wasn’t so much Jeff I was ready to scream and cry about, it was the situation he had put me in. The situation I had allowed myself to get into.

A soft rapping on the door startled me back to my senses. “Emilia?” Eric asked. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I lied. “I’ll be right out.”