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Ollie nodded and waved him off as she returned to the bar, adjusting the apron around her waist. Ollie stepped behind the bar and smiled at the new faces. “Hey there, what can I get you?”
And so it went—one fruity cocktail after another and a bottle of champagne with sparklers causing havoc. While the other bartenders kept their heads down and pocketed their tips, Ollie watched everyone. People watching was an underrated pastime. You could tell so much about someone by watching them for 30 seconds. Like the redhead in the jeans; she didn’t want to be there but she was sucking it up for her drunk friends. Or the trio of young men at a standing table, drinking beer and ignoring everything around them.
As a bartender, you met all kinds of people. Some of them treated you like a shrink, wanting to tell you their life stories and relationship woes, others sat at the bar quietly and moped until you had to get them a cab to go home.Thiswas one of five things she enjoyed about her job.
Smiling to herself as she wiped down another glass, Ollie was distracted by her own thoughts when a soft voice purred her name. She’d know that voice anywhere. Looking up, Ollie was greeted by a purple-haired woman leaning over the bar, displaying her delicious cleavage and stunning smile.
“Becca,” Ollie greeted her. “What can I get for you?”
“A screaming orgasm.”
Ollie snorted as she watched the woman. “And your friend?”
Becca flipped her hair over one shoulder and smiled. “Just me tonight.”
Ollie nodded and made the drink, aware of Becca watching her every move. This was exactly how they met a year ago—Becca leaning over the bar top, with flaming orange hair, asking for a screaming orgasm she chugged in one breath. And when her shift was over, Ollie went home with Becca and they both had more screaming orgasms that left her satisfied for a few days. The next time she saw Becca, she had her arms wrapped around another woman and Ollie laughed it off. One night stands were great and it worked on nights when she didn’t want to go home alone or she forgot to charge Grant. If Becca was back for a repeat, Ollie wasn’t interested.
“Here you go, one screaming orgasm.”
“Maybe later I can give you one?”
Ollie offered a smile she hoped conveyed she wasn’t interested, “Have a good one.”
Becca pouted, still flashing Ollie her cleavage as she seductively toyed with the straw in her glass by curling her tongue and wrapping her lips around it. Olliewashorny, it was bound to turn her on. But, Becca wasn’t what she was looking for.
“Brent,” Ollie called out to one of the other bartenders, forcing her eyes from Becca. “I’m gonna take five.” Brent nodded and Ollie smiled at Becca as she walked off.
Stepping into the ladies room,Ollie stifled a groan when she found a group of women hogging all the sinks and mirrors. They were touching up their makeup and hair, chattering and giggling. Usually, Ollie didn’t judge women for the kind of lifestyles they wanted to live. Everybody liked something different and you couldn’t judge them based on their likes always. But at that moment, in the terrible mood she was in, her brain conjured up an image of her going Uma Thurman inKill Billon those women to get them out of the way.
Sheshoulddislike these women—they were the ones that ruined every relationship. Well, not these women specifically, but the ones who looked like them. Tall, leggy, with shiny hair, expensive clothes, perfectly applied makeup and shrill voices that were a siren’s call for men and women alike.
It wasn’t her fault her Indian mother was born in America and it wasn’t her fault she was curvier than she was thin. Okay, maybe that second thing was on her. But Ollie didn’t hate her body. Till she graduated high school, Ollie had looked like those women. She wasskinnyand had legs for days, her curves were accentuated by tight dresses and tiny tank tops. But, it was the 90s and everyone looked the same, no matter the color of their skin or their sexual preferences.
But when she left home and went to college, junk food became an easy solution. Obviously, Ollie and her best friend, Frankie, started piling on the pounds. While they partied occasionally and ran across campus almost every day, it wasn’t enough to lose weight. By the time she graduated college, depression over the demise of her first real relationship set in and food became her best friend.
For a while, she hated the way her body changed, but the older she got, the more she came to appreciate her body. She might have been raised to believe that women of acertain sizewere unappealing, and it took Ollie along timeto look in the mirror and see a woman who was confident and comfortable with her size. There were always going to be those who used the word ‘fat’ as an insult, but to Ollie, being fat wasn’t a bad thing. She wasn’t unhealthy, she wasn’tsettlingfor her new shape—she loved who she was. Every inch of her body was the way she liked it, from her wide hips to her breasts and even her slightly larger ass. If people didn’t like what they saw when they looked at her, that was their problem.
Her maternal grandmother, fondly called Baby, lectured her on her weight, hair and face her whole life. Ollie knew the basics of what Baby had gone through in her South Indian hometown and running away to America to meet and marry a man was her way of escaping it. Baby had also grown up in a society where women were meant to look, dress and behave a certain way, so when Ollie was growing up, she went above and beyond with making sure she knew what wasexpectedof her.
Sadly, the running away and falling in love was only applicable to Baby. Ollie had to lose weight, straighten her wild hair and marry an eligible South Indian bachelor. Not even her mother marrying a half-white man could change Baby’s mind. Hell, one of her brothers had married a white woman and Baby adored her. But Ollie? She had to marry an Indian man. Being bisexual? Not something Baby would ever be able to wrap her head around, so Ollie kept the secret.
These thoughts usually sent her down an unappealing spiral, but Ollie had a long shift ahead of her. So she decided that the women deserved to touch up their makeup and look good for whoever they were trying to impress, but she wasn’t going to stand around and wait.
Sighing heavily, she stepped out of the ladies room. Ollie eyed the men’s room and pursed her lips. Nothing she hadn't seen before and besides, when she first started at the Barrel, Killian put her in charge of cleaning the restrooms, so she figured she could get away with it. Hand on the door, Ollie sucked in a deep breath in case another drunk patron had relieved himself on the floor instead of the urinal and started to push. But the door swung open and she almost fell onto the sticky floor.
“Gah!”
“Holy shit, I’m sorry. Are you okay?” Hands moved to help her straighten up and Ollie shook him off, taking a minute to catch her breath before regretting that decision instantly.
Fighting back a gag, she shuddered, “Who opens doors like that?”
“I didn’t know there was a right way to open a door.”
Ollie huffed, scuffing her feet against the sticky floor, “Yanking it open like you’re mad at the door is not the right way to do it.”
“You do realize this is themen’s roomright?”
“Yeah, so?” Ollie pushed her shoulders back and looked up at the door police. A playful smirk, messy dark brown hair, a faint blush on his cheeks and hazel eyes greeted her and Ollie fought the smile tugging at her lips in response. Her eyes dragged down his frame, taking in his brown and green plaid shirt with a Chewbacca t-shirt underneath, dark jeans and sneakers.Cute nerd. Ollie bit back a smile and gestured for him to step aside, putting on her best-exasperated face, “Do you mind?”
