15
Tiff
Despite the whiskeys last night, I slept like utter crap with Hannah’s words playing on repeat in my dreams.
When your own girlfriend couldn’t accept you, where did you turn?
Above all else, I hated bullies, and since I had about zero interest in changing who I was or questioning myself because of someone else’s misguided beliefs, I just stayed away and lived my life.
If you asked me what a perfect world look liked, it would be everyone minding their own goddamn business and letting the world be happy.
I was sick of having guys treat my bisexuality like a free pass for a threesome and girls treating it like a red flag.Some personal slight against their own choice because I was able to “pass” as straight if I was with a man, or like I was just “playing around” at being gay.
This.This was why I hadn’t chased relationships in the past.
Because if I was going to commit to someone, then I wanted that commitment back, two hundred percent.
I wasn’t about to give my heart and soul to someone who couldn’t accept me.All of me.
So, if that meant being single, then hell, yeah, I could do that.
There wasa new energy humming under my skin as I made my way to work today, remembering the bizarreness of my conversation with Sam last night (and hello, how long had there been an apartment upstairs?!) and our truce.
He still was the same occasionally charming, oddly stilted, consistently maddening man he was before.But.
Last night he’d been thoughtful.And … ugh.Sweet.
What a bastard.
How dare he make me like him after all the shit he’d given me.He’d even apologized!
He was insufferable.
Except he, of course, wasn’t.Which was worse.
Last night, he’d surprised me, and now, I saw him through new eyes.Details I’d ignored before had become unavoidable.The sparkle in his eye if he told a joke, his face giving nothing away.How that stirred something playful in me, like we were sharing a secret.
He’d started dressing differently, too, more appropriate for working behind the bar.When he first started, it was all tailored pants and dress shirts.The occasional vest.Now, well, the pants hadn’t changed, but he’d adopted the uniform the rest of us wore.It’s better, I thought.Not that I couldn’t appreciate a crisp button-down, and he certainly didn’t look out of place in one.In fact, I could picture him looking pretty ok, actually.Sleeves rolled up.Collar undone.Glasses …
He didn’t look entirely hideous, that was all.And the black t-shirt he had started to don did show off some surprisingly muscular biceps.Lean without an ounce of fat.
What had I been thinking about again?
Right.Last night.
It had been a long time since someone else had looked after me.I was so used to handling everything on my own or being the shoulder other people cried on.And having gone to the bar when it was closed on purpose, I hadn’t expected to talk to anyone about what happened with Hannah.Sam wasn’t supposed to be there.
He wasn’t supposed to listen, offer advice.Make me feel better.
Fuck.
Whatever.I’d have to freak out about it another day.Hours of restless sleep had not prepared me enough to deal with whoever the hell Sam was.
Except.That fucker always seemed to have something new up his sleeve.
My attempt to start a normal shift was halted immediately once I spied the industrial coffee machine being installed at the end of the bar.
A beautiful, bold, black and brass coffee machine.
