“You’re pretty brutal yourself, Greg Harlow.”
Oof.His full name hits him in the chest with a tingle that overwhelms him in the best possible way.
The sound of footfalls echoes behind them. They’re almost certainly Augustine’s black heeled boots. “We’ll be right—”
“I know. I know.Right there.” She’s shoving a pittance of cash at him. “Emptied the tip jar, so we can start fresh now that the full staff is here. Split it among yourselves.” She’s gone before they can say anything else.
It’s nearly next to nothing, so Greg doesn’t feel weird at all saying, “Here. You take it.”
“Come on, you got half the people in the door. I just spouted useless wine facts at them.”
“They’re not useless if you care about them,” Greg says firmly, recalling the poised Julien behind the bar—Greg’sbar—from twenty-minutes ago. Would Julien be poised, too, in Greg’sroom? Greg’sbed? “Put it toward your course. What am I going to do with this anyway?” Every little bit helps when it comes to expunging debt, but Julien’s need is more pressing. The course is coming up. Greg’s credit score isn’t going to drastically improve if he pays four extra dollars on top of his minimum payment.
Julien smiles at him. “Okay. Thanks. We’ll do better tomorrow.”
Greg latches on to that hope.
Ten
JULIEN
Julien feels silly for saying they’d do better tomorrow.
They didn’t. Fewer people showed up on Thursday than on Wednesday. There are too many other, hipper happy hours in town edging them out. The people who did show on Thursday, however, did spend more money since the cocktails were more expensive, so that was good. But you can’t really hold a happy hour mixer when there are only three people to mix with and they all came together.
This is how Julien finds himself, on a Saturday evening, wandering the aisles of Weis Markets with a red plastic basket, wondering what to bring to Greg’s place. Wine and liquor would be pointless. Flowers would be too date-like. He spends several minutes puzzling over a fruit platter before a rude lady hip checks him so she can get to the cantaloupe.
He’ll find something. It’s not like he’s in a rush. He takes his time with important matters. For some reason, not showing up empty-handed to Greg’s place is an important matter.
In his amble, he stops at an endcap showcasing Hostess snacks—Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and HoHos. These sound more like the queer “tribes” that hookup apps make you select for your profile rather than the names of junk foods, but just the same, the blue-and-red boxes remind him of childhood afternoons with Aunt Augustine, and suddenly he’s craving SnoBalls, so he picks up a pack and brings them to the self-checkout.
It’s not until he arrives at the row house and Greg opens the door that Julien senses he missed something in the initial invitation. Greg’s text had mentioned brainstorming and creating promotional materials for happy hour—so why is he impeccably put together, wearing a dark blue button-down and a suit jacket? And why is Julien in a pair of joggers holding a box of pink coconut, chocolate, and marshmallow mass-produced pastries?
“H-hi,” Julien stammers, unable to get past the heart-rate-raising sight of Greg in this business-chic attire. “Why are you wearing those?”
“Clothes?” Greg asks.
“Fancyclothes,” Julien says, not playing into his flirtation. If that’s even what you can call this.
“I figured I should dress the part of cocktail connoisseur for our promotional videos.” Greg does that cool-guy thing where he flaps the sides of his suit jacket, effortless.
“Videos?” Julien was too wrapped up in the invitation to go over to Greg’s place that he hadn’t even considered they’d be doing videos. “I guess we won’t need the markers I brought then.” They loudly roll around in the bottom of his tote.
“We’re not making missing-dog fliers,” Greg jokes with a laugh. “We’re the faces of the happy hour. We should make some TikToks to show our faces. They’re good faces.”
Julien doesn’t let the compliment simmer. Instead, he asks, “Where’s your bathroom?” And before darting quickly to avoid his flushed cheeks being seen, he shoves the box of snacks at Greg. “I brought SnoBalls.”
“I see that.”
“Throw them away if you want.”
“Why would I do that?”
Julien shuts and locks the door before responding. He needs a minute. Julien prides himself on being prepared, and somehow he’d misread this situation, which mortifies him. Rationally, he knows it’s not a big deal. Mentally, he’s unwound. OCD can trick you into thinking the worst of any scenario—if the stain on the napkin sets, the restaurant will close; if you don’t keep the TV on an even volume, someone you love will die.
If you bring SnoBalls to your coworker’s house looking like a slob, you’ll inevitably incite the apocalypse.
Like his therapist taught him, Julien envisions a stop sign—red, octagonal, blinking. It causes his intrusive thoughts to pump their brakes, until they’re nothing but a stalled-out car at an intersection. He splashes some cold water on his face, looks himself in the mirror, and breathes.
