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Lily
My entire body aches from my head to my feet, but most of the pain is throbbing in my shoulders and upper back from being hunched over my computer all day. I knead my fingers into the stiff toughness that is my shoulder as I push the door open to my favorite little bar. The familiar aroma of bubbly beer and fried chicken wings swarms me, and I sigh softly. I can already feel myself start to relax.
My long, deeply brown hair swings behind me in a high ponytail. I put it up earlier to keep my body temperature cool, an effort proven completely worthless by the suffocating, summer heat.
The buzzing chatter of the 12 to 15 people already here fill my ears as I make my way to the bar. Dennis, my favorite bartender, smiles at me when I sit down.
“Well, what’s the terrifying Miss Lily doing in my bar this late in the evening?” The youth in his face makes me feel compelled to be nice to him even though I’m about ready to snap the neck of the next man that talks to me.
“Dennis, I’m exhausted. Please, can I just have a Vodka Cranberry?” My voice is breathy with sighs and weighted with my lack of patience. His bright smile and glistening blue eyes don’t falter in the face of my foul mood.
“Coming right up, my lady,” he chirps.
I watch the way his lean shoulders ripple in that tight off white shirt he wears as a uniform for just a second before I rip my eyes away. I want to snap at him to hurry his ass up, but I know he’s literally just started. I can’t be too much of a bitch to someone so sweet. Even if he is male.
Damn, I could use that drink. The day has been so long. I worked double time to finish next month’s edition of Bitch Press which is scheduled to be released in a couple weeks. I finally completed our feature article, but I can’t celebrate seeing as it is a week late. My poor senior editor, Liv, bit her nails to nubs waiting for me.
Usually, she’d lay into any of our writers for being so irresponsible, but I’m the owner, so she can’t really tear my head off. Still, I feel bad for stressing her, and I profusely apologized for all of the inconvenience.
I’m also writing our feature article for the July edition. I promised Liv to be better with this one upcoming, and swore to let Nadia, our best writer, handle the features for the rest of the year. Nadia is an amazing journalist, and one I fully trust, but I always miss writing too much to not yank a couple months out of the year from her.
I know I took 10 or more years off of Liv’s life stressing her over June and July’s editions. This year’s features were fully planned and posted to our CoverBoard, which is our online e-zine planning platform, last December. When I came in and insisted on covering June and July at the start of May, I threw our entire little office into a frenzy. I hate how much trouble it was and still is for everyone, but I couldn’t swallow the urge to write any longer.
That being said, I have no idea what July’s feature will be covering. I can’t spend another two weeks frantically researching and writing the way I just did. I need to figure it out now. I sit back away from the bar as Dennis sets my drink in front of me.
“Can I get you anything else?” he asks just before I hand him my debit card.
“No, thank you, Dennis,” I mumble, too irritated to fake any semblance of perkiness. The drink settles into the bottom of my stomach and warms my bones. I almost moan out loud, but I choke the urge down with another sip. This is what I needed. Dennis returns my card, gives me one of his dazzling, hot college guy smiles, and walks off to attend to someone else.
“What’s a pretty girl like you doing paying for her own drinks?”
My eyes slip closed before I acknowledge the man that spoke, the sound of his voice grating and entirely unwanted. The silent prayer I send up to God goes unanswered when he speaks again.
“Let me buy your next one.”
I open my eyes and turn to see a middle aged man with a receding hairline and gray scruff that’s too patchy to be considered a beard. His smirk is prominent and speaks to his confidence. I wonder why he feels so sure of himself. He’s old, pudgy, and balding. Maybe he’s rich. No, that can’t be. This little bar isn’t usually where people with money like to spend it, especially at this time of night.
“Someone as beautiful as you should smile more. That frown will have you looking haggard in a couple years, dollface. Why don’t I treat you to a late dinner? That should get a smile out of you.”
There it goes. The last of my patience. I feel my mouth spread in a slow, sweet smile.
“I’m so sorry, sir.” I say, pitching my voice to be syrupy sweet. “I’d hate for a man like you to be inconvenienced by having to look at my unsmiling face. Dinner sounds lovely.”
His graying brows shoot up to what should be a hairline. “That sounds more like it. Apology accepted, beautiful.”
His smile reveals perfectly whitened teeth that would be completely straight if not for one of the front ones slightly overlapping the other. He adjusts his pants around his pudgy belly.
“Thank God, you forgive me. I don’t know how I would’ve been able to go on with my night had you not,” I say with a sigh of fake relief and a smile. “Anyway, my light bill is $276, my water bill is $75, cable and subscriptions comes out to about $250, my car note plus insurance is $520, credit card bills total $427 a month, my phone bill is $120, health insurance is a whopping $526, and my rent is $1,600–”
“What the hell are you–”
“I know right. Cost of living these days is a killer. Anyway, dinner with me will cost you $700 in addition to the bill when we’re done, and I’ll have to tack on an inconvenience fee of $350 because of the late notice. That is a total of–”
I pause to pull up the calculator on my phone even though I already know the total.
“$4,574. If you send me triple that we can go out tonight. My Cashapp is dollar sign Lily Fields 95.”
His face grows progressively redder as he stands there, fuming.
