I blinked.
Murph was waving a hand in front of my face.
“You zoned out, bro. You good?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I shook my head, clearing it. “Just tired. Long day.”
“Uh-huh.” Murph didn’t look convinced, but he let it go. “Well, wake up. Erik’s about to tell us about his revenge plan, and I need witnesses in case I have to file a police report.”
“I have made no threats,” Erik said serenely. “I am . . . how do you say it? Brainstorming.”
“That’sexactlywhat a supervillain would say,”Murph countered.
The table dissolved into laughter again. I grabbed my drink and rejoined the conversation, pushing aside all thoughts of Barbacks or sliders or curly brown hair.
It was fine.
I was fine.
Everything was fine.
Chapter 5
Jacks
“Jacks! Bus table seven. And twelve needs refills. They’ve been waving for five minutes!”
“On it!”
I grabbed my tub and wove through the crowd, dodging elbows and sidestepping a guy who’d decided the middle of the walkway was the perfect place to have an emotional phone call with his ex. The noise was overwhelming in the best way: laughter, shouted conversations, the clink of glasses, and underneath it all, the steady thump of whatever playlist Benji had commandeered for the evening.
Friday nights at Barbacks smelled like beer, sexual frustration, and the faint chemical sweetness of whatever cologne the after-work crowd had bathed in before hitting the town.
And I loved it.
Table seven turned out to be a disaster, a group of finance bros who’d torn through seven orders ofwings and left behind a graveyard of bones, napkins, and what appeared to be an entire salt shaker’s worth of seasoning spilled across the tabletop. I bussed it in record time, stacking plates with the efficiency of someone who’d done this ten thousand times.
Which I had.
Probably that night.
“Refills on twelve!” I called out as I passed the bar, dumping the tub in the dish pit. “Two Bud Lights and a Lightning Limbo.”
“Copy!” Finn didn’t look up from the drinks he was building, his hands moving with the kind of practiced grace that made bartending look like art. Beside him, Benji was doing something complicated with a shaker that violated several laws of physics.
Mark burst through the kitchen door with two plates of sliders balanced on his beefy forearms and a basket of fries clutched against his chest. “Hot behind! Move, move, move!”
I flattened myself against the wall as he barreled past, somehow navigating the packed floor without dropping a single fry. For a guy who claimed to hate front-of-house work, Mark was disturbingly good at it. The man could run food faster than any of us, and he did it with the grim efficiency of someone completing a military operation.
“Table four, table four!” he called out, alreadyheading back for another round.
This was Friday night at Barbacks.
Controlled chaos.
Beautiful, exhausting chaos.
I grabbed a pitcher and headed for table twelve, weaving through the crowd again. The place was packed to capacity, every seat filled, with standing room only near the bar. We’d been slammed since doors opened at five, and there was no sign of it letting up. Lightning game nights were like money magnets for the place.
