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“Who’s that?” I ask absently, checking to see that I have everything I need. Keys, credit card, ID. Bag full of notebooks. Phone.
“The head bartender. Martin? Maxwell? Mysterious Man?”
“You mean Michael?”
“Yeah, him.” Reese growls low in appreciation.
“Michael is . . .” I pause because I’ve never really noticed Michael. I have a vague memory of someone dark haired and tall.
“Tall, built, hot. Did I mention built? Did you not see him at the flag football game last week? We were sitting right next to each other!” Reese is completely affronted.
“There were a lot of nice chests on display,” I say weakly. I remember the flag football game, or at least I remember going to the park with Reese and Lainey, but I was making out my schedule for this week.
“It’s all those professional athletes, you know,” he accuses. “You’ve become numb to ripped bodies. You think everyone has them.”
“I don’t,” I protest. But maybe he is right. There’s no shortage of sculpted abs and amazing physiques in my circle. Maybe I have become desensitized to them.
“Get out of my sight,” he says, throwing a pillow at my head. “I can’t be around someone who doesn’t drool over a good man chest.”
“I promise to work on my drooling. I’ll even try to sexually harass Michael during work. In the meantime,” I throw the pillow back, “will you please double check my schedule and plane tickets? I’ve got a million and ten things to do when I get to San Diego tomorrow.”
“I liked you better when you were a romantic!” Reese calls out after me. “When you cried at soda commercials and tampon ads.”
It’s not until after the door closes that I answer him. “I didn’t,” I say to the empty stairwell.
When I was a girl I used to think writing letters, for example, was super romantic. But after years of writing and receiving almost no response, years of waiting only to be left alone time and again, I woke up finally and realized that romanticism is simply a cover used to conceal decay and sickness.
Men cheat on their girlfriends. Girlfriends cheat on their boyfriends. At least some guys know that they can’t be in a relationship because they’re too busy sampling every type of woman, as if God created the female in a buffet form just for their pleasure.
It’s not that I don’t believe in love. I just don’t believe it’s for me. I had my one great chance at love, but when it was exposed to a few harsh conditions, it collapsed like a shitty ass umbrella in the Windy City.
I believe in friendships like the ones I have with Nick and Reese and Lainey. I believe in the love of my parents. God knows they’d do anything for me. I believe in long walks in the park, the surprise pleasure of a warm summer rain, the rotation of the spiral pass, and the glory of the no hitter. I believe in a lot of things, but I don’t believe in love.
When I arrive at Stack’s, the doors are propped open. The summer heat is baking into the concrete, loosening the odor of the Las Colinas streets. For a swanky neighborhood in Dallas, sometimes the smell of progress stinks.
“Why do you have the doors open?” I ask Lainey, my other best friend and current manager of Stack’s.
“Smelled like someone died in here last night,” she explains.
“It’s awful out there.”
“Was worse in here.”
Seeing that I’m not going to win this battle, I stick my purse under the bar and tie my apron on. “Should I cut the limes first?”
She nods and checks her watch. “I’m going to be in back counting bottles. When Michael comes in, tell him to record the opening bank and then he can come back and finish up inventory.”
“I’ve got this covered.” I shoo her toward the door. “You go on and get Cassidy to her appointment.”
“Seems like it was only yesterday you plopped down here asking me about all the good places around the Mustang’s training facility, and now you’re telling me what to do,” she replies with a wry smile.
“A good bar owner knows everything,” I say affectionately.
Looking around, I take in the wide oak-paneled walls, circular wooden tables, and cheap stage that have been my home away from home for three years and sigh. Maybe I’m still a teensy bit romantic because this rundown joint looks beautiful to me. When I came here three years ago, I was heartsore and trying to find myself. Here I found Lainey, a bar waitress with one kid, a bad boyfriend, and a big heart. And Reese, a man child looking for love in every conceivable wrong place but still smiling no matter how many times the guy of his dreams turned out to be a cheating bastard.
I’d started a business and found comfort in new friends and a good career. On most days, this is good enough.
