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She should be having coffee breaks with me and texting me with her random thoughts about Tiny Home living.
Not.
Him.
Jealousy is also a new feeling I can’t say I give a fuck for.
“Babe, I want you to meet my best friend in a neutral social setting for all of us,” Harper sweetly declares. “Like a normal couple.”
I surrender my hands in a conceding nature and reach for my toothbrush.
Things like having my own toothbrush and drawer to keep my clothes in does dull that troublesome voice just a bit.
So does being the background photo on her phone.
Unfortunately, I had to push for her to change all her social media shite over to couple status or photos of us, and that minor reluctance on her part had the inner demon getting loud again.
She doesn’t understand why it matters so much.
I don’t understand how she doesn’t see why it matters so much.
It tells everyone around her to either piss off because she’s taken, or it tells those that are important enough to be in her life how important I am to her.
So yes.
It very much fucking matters.
“What’s this training on exactly?” Harper asks from the other room.
“Alcohol.”
“Like to renew your ability to serve it?”
“No, like renewing my ability to interact with it as a bartender.” The lack of response leads me to adding, “I’ve gotta take a refresher course. It’ll cover the basics like spotting fake-ids, dealing with disgruntled customers, and knowing when to cut off a patron, which all operate a little different when directly behind the bar, but it’ll also provide in-depth re-covering of wine pouring techniques, performance enhancers – like the typical bottle toss – and of course the Guinness trick, although that I mastered in my free time.”
She makes an attempt to grin rather than grimace.
Harper’s not really a beer woman to begin with, so convincing her to try my stout last week at brunch was a laborious task, one that ended in me footing the bill two dates in a row for laughing too hard at her expense.
I’m not sure I should’ve been punished for her adorable, disgusted face.
Rinsing my toothbrush and squeezing a bit of paste onto it is done as she investigates further. “And why do you need this refresher course? You don’t even bartend.”
“I pick up shifts from time to time.” Brushing occurs around talking, and while it’s not the most becoming combination of activities, I do love the level of comfortableness we have with each other in such a short time. “Probably picking up Gladys’s on Tuesday so she can celebrate her daughter’s birthday all day.” An unmistakable longing appears in my expression. “She’s turning four.”
Harper offers me a sweet smile prior to poking, “Do you like bartending?”
“I don’t hate it.”
“Do you actually like serving?”
After spitting out the foamy mixture, I retort, “I don’t hate it, either.”
“Okay, but do you like it?” Her repetition has me resuming my scrubbing. “Better yet, do you love it? Is it something you see yourself doing for the rest of your life or even the next thirty to forty years?”
The familiar line of questioning causes me to roll my eyes in annoyance.
“Have you ever considered management?”
