“It’s fine, Josie.” Eve wouldn’t be the reason for Josie’s stress. She shouldn’t be the reason for Josie’sanything. “I understand if you need a break, but we see each other plenty.”
“I haven’t had a night off that wasn’t a Monday in close to a year, except for those few days when the bar was closed for renovations. I just want to be able to get at least a little bit of my old life back.”
Eve sipped her water. That was an odd thing for Josie to say. “Your old life?”
“I never planned to own a bar, remember?” Josie picked at her sandwich. “I’m grateful every day that I was able to save it, but I miss being able to go out on a Friday night too.”
“Fair enough. So hire Lauren to cover the shift for you, then.”
“Planning to.” She grinned at Eve. “On a related note, if you have plans on Friday, cancel them, because we’re going out.”
“All right.”
Josie began to eat again with gusto, a sparkle in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Maybe she needed this night off more than Eve had realized. She did work alotof hours at the bar. Many restaurant and bar owners did the same, but most of them had chosen that life for themselves. As Josie had just reminded her, she hadn’t.
They finished their meal and walked outside.
“Text me about Friday?” Eve said.
Josie leaned in for a searing kiss. “Yep. See you then.”
* * *
“You aremy new favorite person right now,” Josie told Lauren on Thursday evening as they worked together behind the bar.
Lauren laughed. “We can make this a regular thing if you want. I could use the hours.”
“Yeah?” Josie glanced at her. Fridays off? Could it really be that easy? Maybe it could. And maybe, within the next year or so, she’d be able to afford another full-time bartender. She could run things behind the scenes and fill in as needed without spending every waking minute here in the bar.
She could get back to rescuing kittens, rebuild her YouTube following, go out with Eve whenever she wanted to. These were end-game goals, and they felt more tangible than they ever had before. She could really do this. She was doing it right now.
“I have to run some numbers,” Josie told Lauren, “but you’re on for tomorrow, and I’ll let you know next week if we can make it a regular thing, okay?”
“Sounds good to me,” Lauren told her.
They worked together for the next hour or so as the Thursday-night crowd began to thin. A little after midnight, Lauren said, “I could close up for you tonight, if you want to start your day off a little early.”
“What?” Josie paused in the middle of mixing a drink.
“I can finish up by myself. There are only a handful of people left in here.” Lauren gestured around the mostly empty bar.
It was true. Josie had tended bar alone with five times this many customers, not that it had been an ideal situation. Dragonfly closed in an hour and a half. It was basically the same as what she’d done with Adam last week, and that had been fine. Lauren was still new, but she’d been consistently competent and responsible.
Josie nodded. “Yeah, you know what? I think you’re ready to close.”
Lauren beamed at her.
Josie spent the next few minutes running her through the process, although Lauren seemed to already have it down, having watched and helped Josie close over the last two weeks. “Feel free to text me if you have any questions or need help with anything. I’ll just be right upstairs.”
“I’ll be fine,” Lauren told her. “I closed all the time at the last bar I worked at.”
“I trust you,” Josie told her with a smile. “Okay, I’m leaving. Thank you.”
Lauren waved her off, and Josie headed for the stairs that led to her apartment. It was twelve thirty on a Thursday night, and she was off work until Saturday at five. The prospect was intoxicating. She almost texted Eve to see if she wanted to come over, but while this might not be late for Josie, it was for Eve, who had to be at the office in the morning. She was probably already asleep.
Josie let herself into her apartment and spent a while playing with the kittens. They were eating solid food almost exclusively now and using the litter box independently. Josie still had to prepare wet food for them every six hours, but it was worlds easier than bottle feeding.
She messed around with them for longer than she probably should have, but she was still in bed earlier than usual. When she woke the next morning, she took her time feeding and playing with the kittens and even recorded a new video for her YouTube channel, documenting their progress. She didn’t earn nearly as much from it as she used to, but it still brought in a little bit of money.
