Hmm.
I pocketed the bag as I stood and backed away.
What started out as an impromptu attempt to evade my idleness had shifted into a lot more.
I’d encountered something of a possible clue about drug interference.
But as I walked down the alleyway to reach the sidewalk, I knew that finding myself on the receiving end of that bartender’s wide-eyed gaze of fear and thanks was what would keep me up all night.
4
NATALIE
“Are you okay?” Rosa asked as we finished cleaning up the bar.
I sighed, knowing I had to lie.
No, I was definitely not okay. I was tired. I was bewildered. I was disgusted by how many men commented on my ass, my tits, my curves, my mouth, my hair.
“Yep.”
She rolled her eyes at my curt reply, too smart to take it at face value. With a heavy exhale, she came closer to hug me with one arm wrapped around my back. “Stupid question. You’re the opposite of anything okay right now.”
I hung my head and wanted to groan at how well she could read me. Ten years older than me and with the experience of being a bartender for just as long, she had become something of a mama bear with me. Taking me under her wing, she was patient and understanding. To an extent.
“Look, I’d like to tell you that it gets easier.”
I wouldn’t believe you.
“But you know,” she said as she stepped aside and shrugged, “some people are cut out for certain jobs, and others aren’t.”
I cringed and leaned my butt against the sink’s edge. “At least you’re honest about it.” I tried my hair back in a ponytail and yawned. “I know I’m not the usual kind of outgoing and energetic bar girl who’d make sense in a place like this, but?—”
“No. No. It’s not that.” She beamed at me as she resumed sweeping. “I was a naïve, innocent thing like you back in my prime.” A naughty wink accompanied her confession. “We all gotta start somewhere. I meant that you still need to get some backbone, girl. Some grit.”
And here I thought Ihadgrit to be employed here at all.
“Haven’t you had to deal with any assholes like that before?” She gave me a skeptical side-eye. “As nice as you are, as hot as that body is, you can’t tell me that no moron’s tried to bother you before.”
“Are you insulting me or hitting on me?” I teased.
“Ha! But seriously, Nat. You aren’t some young teenager just setting out in the big, bad world.” Once more, she proved not to be pushy, looking down as she swept and kind of danced to the music she had playing with the bar closing up. “You seriously have no experience with telling men off or standing up for yourself with losers like them earlier?”
Honestly, I didn’t. I had no clue how to explain that to her without making myself appear more pathetic, though. Fitz and I were high school sweethearts, growing up together in the small town outside the Big Apple before he wanted to come here forcollege. We stayed together, exclusively. Once he started his studies and won an engineering award at a contest, we got our condo and married. Our wedding happened just days before I turned twenty, and even though I’d been dabbling with some classes here and there, trying to figure out what major I wanted to stick with, Fitz eventually convinced me to put it on hold. We immediately tried to start our family. The condo needed lots of work, and I did the DIY thing while he was in school. Working a couple of part-time jobs, like at the library as a page and as a virtual assistant for a small business owner, kept me busy too. When Maisie was born, all thoughts of working or going to school faded. Being a wife and mother were what suited me. Fitz’s award and hard work meant we could be one of those rare single income families so long as we were frugal and conservative with our living expenses.
And it had worked. Blissfully. Perfectly. Until he was gone.
Because I’d always been with him and had never been a single woman in a bar, I didn’t have experience dealing with creeps like that. I never had to experience any jerk harassing me because I’d always been with my boyfriend or husband. Protected and spoken for.
“Not really,” I admitted to Rosa, hanging my head and sighing as I realized how horribly sheltered I’d been all this time. I hadn’t criticized how submissive I ended up being with Fitz acting like our sole provider, but now, in hindsight and with him gone, I had to admit how lacking my confidence was. How much I had to go in learning how to be hardier and more at ease with society without a man to rely on.
“Well, that’s the small-town effect, huh?” Rosa said, slightly laughing so it didn’t come across as too mean.
“Yeah. I guess.”
She patted my back as I finished setting the clean glasses on the last rack. “You go on home, girl.”
“Really?” I smiled up at her. “I can give you a cut of my tips to finish closing. Again.”
