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The door opens with a savage flourish to reveal a dangerously impatient bartender with hair kinked to one side and nostrils flaring with rage. “Two mornings in a fucking row.”
He grabs my arm and yanks me into the building, and before I can turn back, he slams the door shut and makes his way to the same booth he slept in yesterday.
Today, instead of jeans, he wears flannel pyjama pants and thick socks. “Get your fuckin’ coffee, then go away. In fact,” he stops at the booth and stares deep into my soul, “take the machine and forget you ever met me.”
“You’re grumpy in the mornings.” Smug, I make my way to the bar and around to the other side to get started. I grab the machine from the bottom shelves and fill the jug from the tap. I snag the can of coffee and pour it in—we don’t need to measure around here—then I hit the button and glance across to the dozing Tim. “Start my new job today. Exciting, right?”
“Nope.” He buries his face against his arm and huffs. “I literally don’t care before noon.”
“I’mexcited. I love working with the dead. They always have something important to tell me, even those who didn’t always live a life treating others the way they should.”
“I love killing people,” he responds instead. “Wanna be my Monday victim?”
I choke out a soft laugh and turn to search for a mug. I prefer travel cups—and make a note to add them to my shopping list—but stealing one of Tim’s ceramic mugs will have to do for today. “My new office is only a few blocks away, so I can walk every day, which is pretty cool. And we’re right by the hospital and the police station.”
With that thought, I nod my approval. “I guess this must be the public services sector of the city, huh? Keep everything close. Which probably means old Mrs. Mayweather was a nurse or something when she was younger.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I just meant—”
“I didn’t say I wanted you to explain.” Tim pushes up to sit and sneers, “Make your coffee in silence. Then take it and leave me alone.”
With that, he flops back into the booth and covers his eyes with his forearm.
“Are you single, Tim?”
“Why?” he groans. “Wanna fuck? Arch on Saturday, Tim on Monday?”
“No.” I do a little dance when the machine finishes filling the pot. Grabbing it, I fill my cup to the very top. “I just meant, are you single? And if so, do you think your bad mood prior to noon could be to blame? Because honestly, this guy,” I wave my hand in his direction, “and the guy from yesterday morning…” I shake my head. “Not the same guy I met in a bar on Saturday night.”
“That’s because the guy you met on Saturday had ample sleep and wasn’t woken before a respectable hour.”
“Which, according to you, is midday?”
“A reasonable time for a guy who works at night. Fuck!” Turning to the side, he brings his knees to his chest and snuggles in the way a small child might at night. “Go away and stop treating my place like we were married and now you get half in the divorce.”
“I was going to marry you, ya know?” Sniggering, I bring my coffee to my lips and inhale. “But you chose to go hang out with other people, and in your absence, someone else slid in.”
“I was working, and Arch slides all over the fucking place. Once he decided he wanted to hang with you, it was all over.”
Affronted, I scowl and hold my coffee by my lips. “He doesn’t get to decide. He can’t just declare he wants my time, andpow, he gets it.”
“Pow?” He scrubs his hand across his face. “Pow, he got your time, Mayet. Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.”
“Because I wanted to spend time with him, too. I decided I would accept his offer. Onlythendid he have my time.”
“Are you sure?” Tim’s legs surge straight again, then the soles of his feet hit the floor. “Because you were telling me how much of a douchebag he was.He’s so awful. He’s such a dick. He’s soblah blah blah. Then he walks up, andpow, I’m constantly being woken up in the middle of the fucking night because a woman I don’t even know thinks we’re pals!” He drops his hands over his eyes and whimpers. “Go the fuck away.”
Despite Tim being the most offensive person I know in my new life, I laugh and carry my coffee around the bar and stop on the customer’s side.
Tim’s a total sweetheart during nighttime hours, and a total bear when the sun’s out. But despite the fact I enjoy anonymity and solitude, I find myself smiling even after snarling interactions with the grumpy lumberjack bartender.
He and the devilish Steve in my apartment building both have that effect on me.
I think what these people are,I ponder,arefriends.
The New York City version of me would break out in hives even considering it. But the point of being in this new city is to have a new life. Be a new me.
