“Beer, whatever’s your special. Cheap and easy’s actually my drink of choice.”
She bent down and pulled a bottle of the same brand I’d had earlier out of the cooler and popped the top. “Here ya go, Price.”
I can’t even get into what my name on her tongue did to me. It was inappropriate in forty-nine states.
“Thanks. You’re a piece of work ... oh, right, I don’t even know your name, young lady.”
“I know.” She winked.
Some random rap blared in the background, and I’d never felt more out of place.
Tossing a few bills on the bar, I turned to go, my ego reassured with the knowledge I’d be back for more. “Actually, I wore flannels before the hipsters did. That’s what we did back home on the farm. Of course, only after we spent all day actually doing real work.”
Her mouth hung open. She should learn not to always judge a book by its cover. I suspected that was a big part of whatever issues she had going on, but I had time to teach her.
All of a sudden, I wasn’t so fucking pissed to have been uprooted to this piece-of-shit city.
Emerson
Imagine my surprise when I looked up and saw the star of my recent fantasies grinding on the dance floor with some trashy model wannabe.
Okay, okay. He wasn’t the one doing the grinding, but really ... what the hell were they doing in my bar?
Just like that, he spotted me and made his way over, and what did I do? Insulted him some more.
Now he was walking away from me, and I wanted to yell, “Come back. Please!” Luckily, another crush of people swamped the bar, and I needed to either serve drinks or get mauled.
“What can I get ya?” I called into the crowd, and just like that, Price was lost in the sea of people.
The orders dragged on—whiskey and soda, rum and diet, two IPAs, a pale ale, vodka and cranberry, a million mules—until finally “the song” came on. It was from before my time, but I knew it. Not from here, but from my dad.
Silly, but at the mere thought of him, my heart hurt. My dad. Everything between us was so mixed up, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it.
The pineapple song blared through the speakers, and there he was. Frankie strutted his stuff around the bar, lifting his leg and groping men and women alike. The crowd was already halfway to bombed, and everyone was into any and all of it.
Everyone except for the object of my attention.
No, Price watched with a half smirk and leery eyes as the cross-dressing bunny captivated the room. The music changed, and Frankie still did his thing. Customers vied for his attention, especially the chick who Price was dancing with earlier.
If she was the type of girl he went for, there was no way I—the Virgin Mary—remotely had a chance with him. All I had was an overactive imagination that seemed to play well for phone sex.
“So, is this an every-night thing?”
The question knocked me out of my thoughts, and I found Price standing in front of me, an empty beer bottle in hand.
“Who? The rabbit?”
“You working here. How many nights a week do you do this?”
“Oh. Want another?”
“I asked you a question.”
“Not all of us can do as we want—go to school, hang in bars, have fun.”
He leaned close, his forearms on the bar, his breath hot on my cheek. “I think you’re making some heavy assumptions for a not-quite-ripe bartender, don’t you? I mean, you haven’t been doing this so long, have ya?”
He was so near and all man, testosterone and some type of masculine musk practically wafting from his pores. If I’d ever thought Robby was a real man, I was wrong. Robby was a sheep in wolf’s clothing.
