By date four, we’d both come to the same awkward realization: we had about as much romantic chemistry as two bottoms stranded on a deserted island without a double-ended dildo.
For the straights in the crowd, that translates to a total of zero.
We liked each other well enough, enjoyed each other’s company, and could talk for hours without running out of things to say, but the one time we’d tried to kiss, we both pulled back and started laughing because it felt so fundamentally wrong.
“Like kissing a brother,” Mark had said.
“Or like kissing a golden retriever,” I’d countered, because Mark kissed with way too much enthusiasm, more tongue than a member of Kiss, and less technique than a four-year-old at her first ballet recital.
We spent the rest of that fourth date drinking beer, relieved to admit that while we made terrible boyfriends, we’d probably make excellent friends.
That turned into the greatest understatement in the history of understatements.
We became best friends who had the kind of easy physical affection that confused the hell out of everyone around us, mostly because we thought it was funny. We called each other “babe” and “honey,” made vulgar, juvenile innuendos that sounded sexual but were actually about mundane things, and generally acted like a doting couple without any of the actual coupling.
It worked for us, and baffled everyone else.
Mark got a best friend who’d tell him when his ideas were stupid, and I got a brother who’d show up at two in the morning with ice cream when I was having an emotional breakdown over Netflix canceling season two of my favorite show.
Our friendship was better than dating ever could have been.
So, receiving a text from my bestie at any hour, day or night, wasn’t unusual. His wanting to have lunch was almost a daily occurrence. The tease about ominous good news? That was new.
Before I could ask what this ominous conversation might entail, the back door swung open and Brad stuck his head out. “Finn, we need you back on the bar.”
I checked my phone. “My break’s not over foranother eight minutes.”
“Yeah, well, we’re slammed.”
We were always slammed. The place was perpetually understaffed because corporate had determined the exact minimum number of bodies required to keep the restaurant operational, then cut that number by one. I’d asked Brad about hiring another bartender six times in the last two months. All he said was that he’d “look into it,” which I’d learned was corporate-speak for “stop asking.”
I pushed off the wall and followed Brad back inside.
By some grace of the gods, the flamingo hat woman was gone. Brad had comped her entire meal and given her a gift card to make up for the plastic mint travesty. Her seat at the bar had already been taken by a guy in a Buccaneers jersey who wanted to know if we had any “good” beer.
We had sixteen taps. Fourteen of them were variations of light lager. The other two were corporate’s idea of “craft”—an IPA that tasted like pine needles and a wheat beer that somehow tasted like nothing at all.
“What do you consider good?” I asked, already knowing this conversation was going to end with him ordering a Bud Light.
“You know, like, something with flavor.”
“We’ve got an IPA—”
“Nah, IPAs are too bitter. What about that wheat beer?”
“It’s pretty mild—”
“I’ll just have a Bud Light.”
Called it.
The rest of my shift was a blur of watered-down margaritas, split checks, and a bachelor party that ordered round after round of shots and tipped eight percent on a three-hundred-dollar tab. By the time I clocked out at eleven-thirty, my feet ached, I smelled like a lime grove had exploded on me, and I was pretty sure I’d developed a permanent twitch in my left eye.
I sat in my car in the parking lot, soaking up the A/C, and checked my phone.
Mark: You still alive?
Mark: Dumb question, you’re at Riley’s, of course you’re dead inside.
