Page 3 of The Bartender Special

Benny’s shoes squeaked against the linoleum floor as he tried to resist the advice and the man who had given it. The hall smelled vaguely like Lysol wipes.

“And Benny?” Ethan’s tone was back to parental. “You're in town for a few weeks, right? Go do something other than sulk at the old homestead. Catch a movie or go to the park. Get some vitamin D. Okay?”

“Solid advice there, mother dearest.”

Ethan snorted. The door shut between them with the full audacity of its teacher behind it.

“No sulking at home?” Benny muttered to himself, shoving his phone deep into his pant pocket. “Then I’ll find somewhere better to sulk.”

Since Benny had been back in his hometown of Arbor Bay, he'd been playing hide-and-seek with three people and three people only.

They just didn't know it.

The first was his brother, Callum. He was, as he'd always been, a good big brother. Which meant he was, as he'd always been, a pain in Benny’s backside. That pain only became more pronounced when, like Ethan, he let it be known that he was offended that Benny wouldn't tell him who Guy was...or that he'd fallen in love with him in high school and told nary a soul.

Since they were under the same roof again, their close proximity was only making Benny’s already-fried nerves extra crispy. If Callum wasn't annoying him for details, he was huffing around the house because they hadn’t been given to him years before. That huffing would only get worse when he realized Benny had told Ethan about the literary agent before him.

Secondly, there was Carol Robertson. A classic name for a classic bitch.

She embodied every stereotypical mean girl ever filmed: devastating in her beauty, more devastating in her passive-aggressive one-liners. Golden hair that caught light like it was paid to. Crystal blue eyes that calculated every room before she entered it. Curves and angles that made people look twice—and regret it when her smile turned sharp as a knife.

Prom queen in high school, she’d emerged from that crown as something worse: a queen bee who actually had the power to sting.

The Robertsons didn’t own Arbor Bay, but they ran it. Which meant Carol’s ego hadn’t just existed in a high school—it had launched. And according to Callum, that launch had turned into something closer to orbit by the time she graduated.

If the world somehow forgot how far she’d climbed, Carol made damn sure to remind them. Not with words. With that smile. Sweet as Mrs. Bellview’s tea. A lot less fun to swallow.

Which made the need to hide from the third, extremely oblivious, person even more important.

Benny walked into Arbor Bay's only bar, wearing an outfit he hoped was inconspicuous, and was relieved to not see any of the three. He pulled his ball cap down tighter on his dark hair and went to the barstool farthest from the door.

It was a Wednesday afternoon and only a handful of patrons dotted the tables and booths around the room. Benny hadn't been to Cassidy's Place since the year before when he'd visited Callum for Christmas but wasn’t surprised that nothing had seemed to change in the time between. Like his childhood home where Callum still lived, it had stood still like a museum exhibit no one dared change out.

A chandelier of antlers hung down in the middle of the room like some weird, ritualistic scene out of an 80's horror flick, and the walls were covered in enough wood and wooden decorations that he'd made many a dirty joke about it through the years. The bar was less intense, stretching along one side of the room while the door that led to the outdoor patio stood opposite.

There were only ever two bartenders at Cassidy's, and both were related to the man who had built it fifty years ago. Benny recognized the one behind the bar now, even if he couldn't place his name. Arbor Bay was a small, small town, but there was still room for a few people to not be as familiar as the others. It sure helped that Benny had never been that social when he’d still lived within the county lines.

Benny was happy for his lack of social skills as a man with the nametag Dixon took his order and didn’t try for small talk. It was a joy that continued as he played a puzzle game on his phone and drank his first drink. Benny was still riding that happy high when he finished that drink and asked for another. Rosé might have done him wrong, but Cassidy's Place had always been good at making a you'll-feel-good-but-not-get-a-hangover mixed drink. Unless you had one too many. Which Benny wasn't planning on, considering the last time he'd gotten drunk, he'd managed to release every secret he had to the internet.

Minus one.

This time, Dixon the Bartender was slower to make his drink. He seemed distracted by his phone before being distracted by a new wave of patrons coming in. Benny was curious for the briefest moment before remembering his golden rule.

Everyone else's business? None of his.

But then the door that was between the bar and the kitchen opened, and a man appeared out of it. There was a nametag on his button-up that read Jack and, unlike his fellow bartender, Benny actually recognized him.

“Oh shit.”

He dropped his chin so quickly that it hurt his neck, but Benny wasn't about to look up to see if Jack or Dixon had heard him. Nope. He was going to stare at the bar top like a totally normal human and then try to melt off the barstool and escape.

Great, solid plan. Ten out of ten.

Benny mentally kicked himself. There he had been, trying to avoid three people, when he should have added Bartender Jack to the top of the list. Because he'd forgotten one massively terrifying detail thanks to way more than one of Cassidy's mixed drinks.

There was one person who knew. Who’d not only known Benny had been in love, but knew who the object of his secret affection was...and that person was a fucking bartender.

And there Benny was. Another solid decision he’d pulled from his arsenal.