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“No,” she says, busily ringing up someone’s order. “There’s usually a few of us, but Cat, Jess, and Reb were no-shows tonight. It’s just me and Hannah trying to hold down the fort. To be honest, you shouldn’t have a problem convincing Danny to hire you, but it won’t be on good terms and the pay is shit.”
“No wonder you’re not putting up a fight.”
“Tell me about it,” she says. “No one really lasts around here. Most people stick around for a few months before fucking off.”
“What about you?”
She shrugs her shoulders and grabs another glass from beneath the bar. “Been here six months and had half of it off for exams and family shit. Even with all of that, I was still promoted to bar manager, simply because there wasn’t anyone else to do it.”
“I can’t tell if you’re trying to convince me to stay or scare me out of here.”
She laughs. “Honestly, I’ve got no fucking clue myself,” she says. “Just be prepared. This place isn’t known for its high standards. You’ll have assholes grabbing your ass and you’ll be hit with dirty slurs and catcalling from the start of your shift right up until you fuck off at the end of the night. Girls will assume you’re trying to steal their men and try to fight you out back while random assholes will try and drag you into the bathroom to fuck.”
I nod, taking cash off another customer and cringing when the whole bar erupts into cheers from the football game. “I can handle it.”
“Good, because I don’t want to waste my time training you if you can’t hack it,” she tells me. “I’m Heather by the way. Don’t get in my way, and don’t fuck with my tips. If you can stick to that, we won’t have a problem.”
The other girl, Hannah, appears at the bar and dumps a bunch of dirty glasses over the side, smirks at me, and shakes her head. “Hope you know what you’re getting yourself into,” she says, leaning over to put the glasses into the sink to make space on the bar, clearly understanding that I just hired myself under my own authority. “This place isn’t for the weak-minded.”
“Yeah, well, my rent really doesn’t care what kind of bullshit I have to suffer through as long as it gets paid.”
“I hear ya, girl,” she says, reaching over the bar and offering me her hand. “I’m Hannah.”
I take her hand and give it a quick shake. “Oakley.”
“Nice to meet ya,” she says. “Hopefully you’ll stick around long enough so I can actually get to know you.”
“That’s the plan,” I tell her, pulling out all my party tricks and proving that I belong. “Is Danny here?”
Heather shakes her head. “Not yet. He usually shows up around ten and stays til midnight. Just long enough to show his face and raid the cash register. He won’t be happy to see you working, but like you said, I don’t think he really has a choice. Not unless he wants all his customers to fuck off and head down to Arthur’s because they couldn’t get served fast enough.”
“Yo, bitch,” some asshole says from across the bar, slamming his hand down to get Heather’s attention. “Hurry up with my fucking beer.”
Heather barely spares him a glance before grabbing the nozzle for the beer and pulling out the hose. She hits him square in the face, drenching him in seconds. “Get the fuck out or learn what it means to have respect. Either way, you’re fucking cut off.”
“The fuck?” he shrieks, squealing like a little bitch as beer drips off his face and people rush to get away from the spray. “You fucking whore. You’re gonna pay for that. You can’t touch me.”
“I can and I did,” Heather tells him, simply moving on to someone else’s order, not giving two shits about the dripping asshole taking up space at our bar. “Whatchya gonna do about it?”
Heather raises her head and motions to the security guard waiting by the door, and like clockwork, he strides through the bar and grips the asshole by the arm. “You’re done,” he tells the dripping asshole. “Wait and see what happens if you try and get back in.”
“You can’t fucking—” he tries to pull his arm free, his words getting lost in the crowd, and before I know it, the guy is out on his ass and yelling obscenities from the street.
I laugh, watching as the girls get straight back to work as though nothing ever happened. Heather runs a washcloth over the bar, cleaning up the spilled beer as Hannah ducks round to our side to quickly wash up the glasses and get them back under the bar to be used again. For the first time in so many years, I feel like I might’ve just found a place I can call home.
This bar is a complete dive, filled with the worst kind of people, but there’s something charming about the chaos. I can’t help but love it.
An hour passes, and I quickly learn that the more I smile and flirt with the customers, the bigger they tip, and for a while I even enjoy it, until a chill sweeps over my body. My brows furrow and I glance up to find the three guys from my apartment complex, each one of their stares already locked on me.
The two less creepy guys look vaguely interested, but the third guy, the one I’d first seen across from my apartment, looks as though he’s about ready to tear my head clean off my body. My heart races as I fumble with the glass I’m holding, spilling cheap beer up my arm. I’ve never felt fear like this in my life.
The way they look at me . . . it’s as though they want something from me, but I have no fucking clue what that could be. I only just moved back here, and I doubt I owed these guys something before I left. I was eight years old. Surely I couldn’t have racked up some kind of debt with them back then.
Hastily dropping my gaze, I get busy cleaning up the spill and making my customer a fresh beer, but my hands just keep shaking. The three guys don’t try to approach me, don’t even come up to the bar to ask for a drink, just simply hover in the darkest corner, keeping their lethal stares locked on me.
They murmur between themselves, and I’d give everything I have just to hear their conversation. I don’t even know these guys, don’t know anything about them, only that the dude holding the black snake likes to fuck. Though I know with complete certainty, whatever is being said over in that dark corner of the bar, it’s about me.
It chills me to the bone. What do they want with me?
