“Yeah, we were debating on coming up there to save you,” Dani says.
“Nothing important, just his usual hateful bullshit.” I look across the tables to where Asher sits still grinning. He winks at me and I gag internally. “He’s so annoying. Why have we even tolerated him in this group for so long?”
Annica leans back in her chair. “Because he’s Wesley’s cousin and even though we don’t like him, the boys do.”
“And because he’s hot,” Dani adds. We both give her a look. “What? He is.”
Annica scoffs. “Are you forgetting about the time we were walking to their house in the pouring rain and he drove past us honking his horn instead of giving us a ride?”
“Or when the PC gossip page posted my DUI mug shot, only to find outhewas the one who sent it in,” I add.
“Well, yeah, I didn’t say he was nice to us; I just said he’s not the worst thing to look at.”
“Change of subject,” I say. “How are your classes going this week, Dani?”
“While you guys are getting a syllabus week, my classes have all jumped right into the material. But I get to do clinicals this year and I am so excited. What about you guys?”
“Our only exciting class is senior seminar,” Annica says.
“Yeah, our professor is having us all write a short story, and at the end of the year he submits the best one to Boston’s short-story writing competition,” I add.
Dani’s face lights up. “Really? That would be so amazing for you guys!”
“Well, it would only be one of us.” Annica looks at me and I see the competitive fire in her eyes.
“It could very well be neither of us,” I say, trying to put it out.
Jake comes back to the tables with a tray of shots full of a clear liquid.
“What are these?” Sam asks, hesitant to take one.
“I have no idea,” Jake says. He lives for chaos, and it shows. Sometimes I think Jake may be the only one in this friend group who makes more reckless decisions than I do.
Charlie picks one up and questions, “You don’t know what kind of shots you ordered?”
“I told the bartender to surprise me.” Jake beams. “Happy first Ladies Night of the year, bitches!”
We all take one. My eyes slide over to Wes, where he has Marissa on his lap. “Actually, give me two,” I say, reaching across the table again.
In the low light of the bathroom at work, I don’t look that hungover. With my hands gripping the sides of the porcelain sink I ask myself why I picked up a double the day after Ladies Night. Tuesday nights can get a little out of control due to the dollar drinks, but it’s syllabus week—it’s practically like a free week to get adjusted. I’m just getting adjusted, that’s all.
The wine bar I work at, Cantine, is located in Bloomfield, thetown next to Pembroke, a rich little suburb full of WASP moms married to lawyers and CEOs. The building sits in the quaint town square in between a Lululemon store and a vegan ice cream shop. Each shift I watch the stay-at-home moms walk around the square, going from shop to shop while their kids play in the grass square that the shopping area surrounds. Until they come in for happy hour, kids in tow, and order cheese plates and talk shit with their other rich friends about Lisa, whose husband lost his job and had to pull her son from private school to go to public school. The horror. But it’s not the wine and cheese that brings them in; it’s Tristan Brent.
When I walk out of the bathroom, I stop short of the bar, because there he is stocking the glasses. I run to the back of the kitchen where the schedule is, and sure enough, there is his name below mine.
“Fuck,” I whisper to myself.
Tristan Brent is a shameless flirt. The twenty-two-year-old had been working at the wine bar all throughout college, and was the one to train me when I started working here last year. I would watch and learn as he greeted everyone with that side smile that held too-perfect teeth and created a too-perfect single dimple on his left cheek, his blue-gray eyes holding each stare in conversation. With light brown clean-cut hair, a finance degree, and a part-time gig as a firefighter, he was every WASP mom’s wet dream. I used to laugh at the grown women who came in here and fell over him like schoolgirls but soon I, too, found myself struggling to find words when he looked at me. It wasn’t long before he screwed me over and I had to kill him.
In my journal, obviously.
I decide to go back out and just pretend he’s not there. He’s standing behind the bar, arms crossed, leaning against the counter. I walk in and start rolling silverware, not sparing him a glance.
“I take it you’re still mad at me,” I hear him say. I don’t give him the satisfaction of a response. “Over something I didn’t do.” I pick up a rag and start wiping down the bar. “Come on, Sloane, it’s been months. I can’t get a hold of you, because I’m assuming you blocked me. And you’ve purposely scheduled yourself to avoid working with me for the past six months.”
I finally give in. “And there’s a reason for all of that.”
“I never made that bet.”
