She says it like it’s happened before, like it’s no big deal. My mouth tightens anyway, humiliation hot in my throat.
Sonny is the poor fool suckered into training me, promised experience and handed…this. This spill is my second one of the night. I loaded the tray like it was going to save me time—one trip to the bus bin, one clean sweep, one tiny win.
Instead I’m standing guard over my own incompetence.
My feet ache worse than any shift I’ve worked before.
In the ambulance, pain is just part of the call. Your body complains, and you tell it to shut up. People are depending on you, and your aches and pains could be the difference between life and death. Here, my body complains and it feels personal, like I’m being punished for pretending I knew how to do this.
Sonny returns with the dustpan and broom and starts sweeping fast. Efficient. No judgment on her face. Just motion.
“I’m so sorry,” I mutter, scrubbing my fingertips across my forehead. I legit don’t know what else to say.
“Don’t be.” She flicks her dark curls back, then nods at the bar. “Friday nights on Toulouse are baptism by fire. You just happened to get dunked twice. We’llgo out one night this week and celebrate your baptism, so you shake it off right now, umkay?”
When I don’t reply right away she peers more insistently up at me. “I said?—”
“Yeah, yeah…shake it off. Thank you, Sonny.”
If my smile is a little wobbly she decides not to comment. Rising with dustpan in hand, she gestures toward a table of four men in the corner—two rounds deep into their pretzels and drinks and getting rowdier by the minute. “I got this. You take care of them?”
“On it. Thanks.”
I approach, pad and pen ready, smile strapped on like armor. “You guys ready for another round?”
They talk over each other, changing their minds mid-sentence. One reaches for my ass, while another pushes him back half-heartedly, reminding him of ‘his Jane’ at home. One says something I quite can’t hear over the TV and the laughter and the constant scrape of chairs.
I scribble as fast as I can.
By the time I make it back to the bar to give Ever their order, I can’t read my own shorthand. And I’ve forgotten what they said in the mosquito buzz of my brain.
This is much harder than I thought it’d be.
Physically. Emotionally. Mentally.
In EMS, your brain locks in. You don’t get to drift. You don’t get to forget. Here, the noise is constant and meaningless, and somehow that’s the problem. There’s no single emergency to focus on—just a hundred little demands clawing at you at once.
Through it all, Shiloh watches from his spot at the bar. Ever sees every mess I make, too—both of them too present, both of them too aware. Their attention threatens my control, especially when Ever gives a little sigh and shakes his head.
Forgetting the tab is humiliating. Delivering the wrong drinks to the wrong table is worse.
The look on the customer’s face makes my stomach drop. The look on Sonny’s—sympathetic and amused all at once—makes me want to crawl under the nearest table and die.
I lock my jaw and power through it. I’ve survived worse. Seen worse.Held worse in my hands.
Somehow Sonny’s good-natured civility and concern hits me harder than Ever’s blunt irritation ever could. She’s absolutely adorable, raking in the tips with her huge green eyes set in a heart-shaped face and compact, curvy body. I’d be jealous if she wasn’t a genuinely sweet person and I didn’t realize I needed a friend. Badly.
“Hey.” She scrubs a soothing hand between my shoulder blades, grounding me. “It’s okay. I was pretty bad my first time too.And trust me, Friday nights are the worst shift to get. They’re the best if you want to make money, but in terms of stress? It’ll test your multitasking skills.”
Serving tables shouldn’t be this hard.
“I should be able to do this,” I say, and the frustration comes out sharp. “I used to be an EMT. It’s not like I can’t handle pressure.”
“Yeah, well, I should be able to pay all my bills on time.” Sonny snorts. “Sometimes things are out of our control. It’ll get easier.”
I lift my head on my weary neck. “How long have you been here?”
“I’ve lived on Toulouse Street for five years, since I was eighteen,” she says. “And I’ve been at Noir for two. It’s decent once you learn the rhythm. And hell, girl—at least you’ve got the best of them to train you.” She puffs out her chest. “I might be on the newer side of staff, but I work circles around the other girls. Justine is lazy.”
