My blood turned hot at his dismissal, and I tried to keep my cool. “Hey, maybe we got off on the wrong foot? I’m Lilith.” I held out a hand to him, and he jerked away from me as if the thought of touching me disgusted him.
“I know who you are,” he snapped, and I frowned. What wasthatsupposed to mean?
“Hey, can I get a damn drink over here?” One of the guests at the bar complained, and the chit machine fired off another slew of drink orders for service at the same time.
My eyes darted back and forth from the quickly filling bar to the out-of-control chit machine.
“Do you think you could handle the bar while I do service?” I asked, and Reaver let out a low chuckle but otherwise didn’t respond. He just continued to scroll on his phone as if I wasn’t there at all. I let out a frustrated little stomp and spun away from him.
Fine. I would do it myself.
I tackled the bar first, rapidly taking drink orders and tapping them into the POS machine before pouring several pints and a few glasses of wine in quick succession. By the time I made it back to service, the chits were curling over the edge of the counter all the way to the floor. I had a long lineup of servers waiting for their drinks.
Fuck!
I ran to the chit machine and didn’t let myself think before getting to work. I ripped through all the single and double orders first before tackling the larger ones.
I loved service. It was like a puzzle. I would read all the orders first and mentally tally up how many of each drink I needed to make. Then, I would come up with an on-the-spot strategy and the best way to execute it. It was mentally stimulating and a fun challenge. I lost myself in the work and got a rush of satisfaction when I dropped the last drink on the service bar.
“Woah, thanks, Lil! I was worried for a minute, but you whipped these up so fast!” said one of the servers, Sarah, grinning at me as she loaded her tray. I beamed at her, blushing.
“Maybe let Raf know how much you love working with me,” I winked at her. “I’m trying to score a permanent spot in primetime.”
Sarah smiled back. “You got it! Thanks again,” she said before leaving to run her drinks to her table.
I turned to find that the bar was now three lines of people deep, all trying to get Reaver’s attention while he… cleaned a rocks glass.
For fucks sake.
I barreled past him and went to work refilling drinks for people with open tabs while trying to take new orders at the same time. I could feel Reaver’s eyesfollowing me as I ran back and forth, doing everything I could to get people their drinks in a reasonable amount of time.
Soon the bar looked like a hurricane had run through it. There were empty mix containers strewn about, abandoned, dirty martini shakers, and our empty bins hadn’t been taken out once.
I was getting so frustrated, and I couldn’t even stop to catch my breath. Reaver just watched me, his angry frown turning more and more amused the more frantic I became.
By the time the dinner rush was over and we moved into the more relaxed late-night crowd, I was close to tears. This was my one big chance to prove that I could handle this, and as always, the universe seemed to have stacked the chips against me.
The moment there was a break in orders, I started cleaning. I needed to get the bar back in tip-top shape before Raf noticed. I couldn’t tell him that Reaver hadn’t lifted a damn finger to help me. Rafael was not one for excuses. He would make it seem like I should have found a solution and somehow managed to make it a successful night with or without Reaver’s help. It would still be my fault.
So, I forced the tears down and frantically got to work. I scrubbed every single surface and ran the glassware washer. I restocked garnishes and made sure service practicallysparkled.I was just finally getting to the full bin of empties when Raf appeared with a big smile on his face.
“You guys did great!” he exclaimed, wiping his finger over the sparkling clean service bar and nodding appreciatively. “Especially you, Lil. I had so many servers telling me how amazing you were tonight. Great job, you two!” he beamed before heading back into the kitchen.
I felt like steam was going to come out of my ears.
Great job, you TWO!?
I spun around, my arms full of sticky, empty beer bottles, to find Reaver lazily filling up a pint glass while chatting casually with one of the remaining guests at the bar. He glanced over at me with an infuriating smirk on his stupidly attractive mouth.
I wanted to punch him right in his smug little face.
Storming out from behind the bar, I brought the empties to the recycling room. After sorting them by color, I jogged back upstairs to find Reaver on his way out from behind the bar with a cigarette hanging from his lips. Shem came up behind me and tossed his arm around my shoulders.
“You killed it tonight, Lil! You were running around like a mad woman, but damn! No one can stop talking about how amazing you were!”
I shrugged out from under his arm, putting distance between us.
“Thanks…” I frowned at Reaver as he brushed past us to head out for the smoke break that he hadn’t earned. “Has anyone heard from Sam?” I asked.
