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Felix carefully shifted his attention to twirling his pasta neatly around his fork and not meeting my eyes.
“You still miss her?”
He nodded.
“Yeah, it’s just— Never mind.”
I raised an eyebrow at him until he sighed.
“It’s just that I don’t want to work in a bagel shop forever. Is that what I’m gonna do? Just have a series of jobs that pay only enough to make rent?”
“Nothing wrong with working to support yourself,” I soothed.
An expression of horrified guilt flashed on his face.
“No! I know. My mom worked hard at jobs she didn’t like her whole life so that we had enough money to live. But…she also said it was worth it because she had us. Only I don’t have a thing that makes it worth it anymore ’cuz Sof doesn’t need…Fuck, I dunno. I’m just being an idiot. Lots of people work at jobs they don’t like. I’m lucky to have something that I can live on. It’s fine.”
He slumped in his chair, miserably pushing food around his plate.
“Hey. No. It’s not idiotic to wanna do something that makes you happy.”
He shrugged half-heartedly.
“It’s just…” He bit his lip and looked up at me shyly. “It’s just that there was a moment, when they were waiting for me to sing, when…I could have done it. I could have maybe, possibly, changed my whole life. I mean, I would never have done that,” he assured me quickly. “I’d never do that to Sofia. I just mean…I saw it. I saw how maybe your life can change in one instant. How things could go from meh to super happy in the space of that one breath.”
His eyes shone and he was looking at me intently.
“It happened to Sof, so maybe…” He shrugged and tugged on his hair self-consciously. “I dunno, never mind. Ugh. Dane, can we not talk about this anymore right now? It’s just depressing me.” He wrapped his arms around himself.
I nodded. Then, because sometimes it helped just to not feel alone, I added, “I used to work as a bouncer. It sucked.”
He perked up. “How come it sucked?”
“They hired me because they thought I looked intimidating and strong enough to break up a fight. That almost never happened, though. It was just boring. Checking IDs, staring at a mass of people every night. After a while it looked like the same group every night even though it wasn’t. It was dark and loud and smelled like beer and sweat and too many people. Started looking forward to throwing people out because at least it was something to break the monotony.”
“What else?” he asked, smiling and leaning in.
“You wanna hear about all my shitty jobs?”
He nodded.
“Well, in the summers when I was in middle school and some of high school, I worked cleaning fish on the dock north of my house. Tourists who wanted to fish would rent boats there but didn’t want to get their hands dirty. So I’d gut and clean the fish for them. I stank no matter how many showers I took. That shit gets into your skin. Nice being by the water, though. I like the water.”
I’d brought a book to work with me every day and stayed by the water long after my shift was over, until hunger drove me home. I’d wanted to delay it as long as possible.
“Where’d you grow up?”
“Virginia. Worked laying bricks one summer. That was pretty damn bad. Murder on the back.”
My phone chimed the ring tone I’d assigned to the bar. I held up a finger to Felix and answered.
“Hey, boss,” Johi said. “There’s some kind of bar crawl going on and a bachelor party scavenger hunt…thing. And Roy called in, so we’re swamped.”
“Okay, I’ll be down in a few,” I told her.
As I hung up the phone, Felix paused, food halfway to his mouth.
“One of my people called in sick, so Johi’s slammed at the bar. I gotta go help her out.”
Felix jumped to his feet immediately.
“Oh, of course, sure, yeah, no problem.” He put the uneaten bite back on his plate. “I guess…I’ll get out of your hair, then? Or, um…?”
He looked around at the dishes and I realized that he was searching for a reason to stay. Probably just looking for a way not to go back to his apartment, but I caught his shoulder as he put his plate in the sink.
“Felix.”
“Hm?” He leaned into me, arms going around my waist. I wasn’t used to anyone touching me and it brought me up short every time.
“It’s not much fun, but you could come help in the bar, if you want?”
“Really? Yeah, I can do that!” He grinned up at me. “I’ve always wondered what it was like to work in a bar. Can I…”
“What?”
“Can I kiss you before we go down?”
Heat pulsed through me and I bent and caught Felix’s lips in a kiss. He made a tiny noise of surprise, then tightened his arms around me and opened his mouth on mine. I slid my tongue inside and the slick heat of his mouth was heaven. I wanted to slide my hands under his ass, lift him onto the counter, and ravage his mouth, but I forced myself to let him go.
