Regulars were dying, absolutely dying. They had their phones out and recording as they howled with laughter and pointed at Benji, then me, then a red-faced—and glittered—Finn.
Someone started a slow clap.
Doris in the corner was wiping tears from her eyes.
“ENCORE!” someone yelled.
“There will be NO encore!” Finn sputtered, spitting glitter. “There will be—” He ran a hand through his hair and a cascade of sparkle drifted down. “Oh my God, it’s everywhere. I think there’s glitter in my crack.”
Doris snort-laughed at that.
I looked down at the ice bucket. The ice was now partially melted and roughly forty percent glitter. “I have to dump this entire bucket.”
“It was so worth it,” Benji said, still holding his bottles like trophies. “Art requires sacrifice.”
“This isn’t art; this is a biohazard,” Finn snarled.
“A beautiful, sparkly, perfectly executed biohazard.”
Finn tried to brush glitter off his shirt, which onlysucceeded in spreading it around more. “I’m going to be picking glitter out of my ass for a week.”
Benji’s face lit up with unholy glee. “That’s why you have a resident lawyer boyfriend, boss, to clean your crack.”
That’s when I lost it.
The laugh came from somewhere deep in my belly, completely beyond my control. I doubled over, ice bucket forgotten, as tears streamed down my glitter-stained face.
Finn’s expression of mortified outrage only made it worse.
I was making sounds that weren’t even human anymore—wheezing, honking, hooting.
“I hateeveryonein this building,” Finn said, his accent deepening to almost unintelligible, as he bit back a smile.
“Don’t worry, Finny Boy,” Benji said, patting his shoulder and leaving a glitter handprint. “Chase likes a little sparkle. Trust me.”
“How wouldyouknow what Chase—you know what, never mind. I don’t want to know.” Finn turned to the next customer with aggressive professionalism. “What can I get you?”
I was still wheezing as I staggered toward the kitchen, sparkly ice bucket clutched to my chest, leaving a trail of glitter in my wake like the world’smost festive slug.
By the time I’d dumped the corrupted ice, rinsed, dried, and refilled the bucket, and returned to the bar, the chaos had settled into general merriment. Benji had somehow talked his way out of trouble—as he always did—and was now serving his “Lightning Strike Sparkler” to adventurous customers who didn’t mind a little golden glee in their cocktails.
“It adds texture,” I heard one guy say.
“It adds a lawsuit,” Finn muttered, though he didn’t stop Benji.
And that was the thing about Barbacks.
It was constant chaos, but it wasourchaos.
A year ago, I answered an ad for a barback position at a new place opening up in Ybor. I’d been aimless, bouncing between odd jobs, trying to figure out what came next, while trying not to think too hard about the life I’d planned that hadn’t worked out.
Then I met Finn and Mark, the owners of Barbacks. They hired me on the spot. When I showed up on opening night, I realized I’d somehow stumbled into a family.
Now I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
Even covered in glitter.
Even with Benji as a coworker.
