Read the paper.
Don’t test me. I know she works at the theater. Do your job.
My molars grind as I sigh, cracking my neck before throwing a towel over my shoulder. Of course, he knows that. He sees everything, and I’d be willing to bet he saw how I can barely control myself when she’s in my line of sight. It’s tunnel vision, apparently. All I can see is her, and all I can think about is how I’m going to make her laugh, blush, or say something mean to me.
Fuck.
“It’s just been a long week.” I focus on the job at hand, steadily polishing each glass before moving to the next one. I can feel Johnny’s concerned gaze on my back.
“Let me give you some extra cash this week. Maybe you can refill Carm’s bus pass, get her those dance shoes your mom’s been saving for.” He squeezes my shoulder.
“You don’t have to do that, seriously. I’m handling it,” I say, a little gruffer than I mean to, but it’s true. I am handling it and I know Johnny just wants to help but that’s my job. They’re my family and he’s already helping more than he needs to. My mom would hate it if she found out he was offering me pity money. Know she’d hate that I accepted a job here, like a handout. Johnny eyes me before slapping me upside the head.
“Jesus,” I moan, rubbing the spot he just walloped.
“Grow up, Andy. If someone wants to give you some cash don’t make it a bigger deal than it is. You and Becs are the exact same, I swear.” He moves to the small safe under the bar and pulls out a few twenties. “Get yourself a burger and get Carm abus pass, and please, help me sleep at night.” I sigh but ultimately accept the money, shoving it in the pocket of my apron. “Jessica’s been asking about you. Something about you not calling her back? You know what I said about the girls at the club.” I’d been pretty intent on taking Jessica out but her name hasn’t crossed my mind all week.
I wonder why.
I need to get distracted, need to remind myself that Grant’s sisterisjust some girl by throwing myself into a sea of new ones.
Genius.
“That’s why I didn’t call her back.” I quirk a smile and then duck when he goes to slap me upside the head again.
“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?” He chuckles, grabbing an envelope of cash out of the safe to take to the back office. “Once you're done with your side work, go ahead and set up the servers’ stations. I think the girls are gonna be late tonight.” The girls he's referring to are our two front of house servers, Vanessa and Tammy, both in their mid forties with smoker’s voices that would put the Marlboro man to shame. “You’re a good boy, Andrew.” He nods, before going to the back, and I slip my phone out to text Will about our plans tonight.
“Fuck,” Will groans he’s stuffing an oversized piece of banana bread in his mouth as we careen down a narrow side street in my car. It’s an upgrade from the one I came to Astor with, courtesy of my father. Told my mom it was a perk from being on a team like the Lions. If she wasn’t so stretched, she would’ve caught the lie. “What is in this?”
I chuckle. “Pretty sure it’s just a box mix.”
“No way. No,” he shakes his head. “I’ve made boxed banana bread with Gen. This is not from a box. Your mom should open a bakery. Wait—” he turns sharply toward me, his eyes flying wide. “That’s it. Bec’s Bakery? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“You should tell her,” I smirk, keeping my eyes on the road. “How’s Gen, anyway?”
That night at the bar, when Gen showed up and practically melted into Grant, is something I’ve kept carefully hidden from Will, mostly because Grant asked me not to mention it, but also because it’s none of Will’s business. Whatismy business is how my friend is doing, and whatever messed up childhood he had, that is somewhat correlated to the hold he has on every person in his circle.
The car slices through a puddle as I turn on a road lit by a neon sign, a long line that descends downward wrapping around the block.
“She’s busy with dance, so I’ve barely seen her,” he says, but I can tell something’s eating at him. “Pretty sure Grant’s fucking with her.”
I cut him a skeptical glance. “You don’t think he might like her?”
Will stares at me for a long second before scoffing. “He probably does. But he’s wasting his time and hers.” Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his jaw grinding before he takes a deep breath. “Let’s not talk about her. Or Liv—please.Let’s just go to this weird art party?—”
“Performance art is not weird, Will. Don’t be dick. A friend invited me, so you’re gonna be nice,” I tell him pointedly as I slide out of the car, slamming the door shut.
Will grins, hands shoved into his pockets as he eyes the growing line of people who look nothing like the ones that pepper our campus. The show is a mashup of performance andvisual artists, but that’s all Autumn, my friend, said. She’s been begging me to come into the city for one of these for months, and I can tell by the eager smile spread across her face as she waits by the door that finally agreeing to it is a big deal to her. We’re friends—actuallyfriends. Her girlfriend looms behind, dark hair falling around her shoulders as she scans the street for us.
“Andrew,” she says, her British accent swallowed whole the minute we enter the underground warehouse. Slate, concrete walls run seamlessly into an identical floor, but you can barely even make it out because of the strobe lights that flicker across the sea of bodies. “You’ve met Frida?” I glance over, nodding my head at her before she pulls me in for a hug.
“Refreshing, seeing you away from those pretentious douches,” she yells over the thumping bass before she notices Will. “Oh. Hello.”
“Will Chapman,” he says on a laugh, the corner of his mouth tugging up in a smirk that visibly softens Autumn’s usually unaffected girlfriend. “Some people call me a pretentious douche.”
“I didn’t mean—” she starts to explain, but I cut her off while Autumn fights her own amusement.
“No, no. He actually is a douche, so. No harm done.”
