Even when the chaos felt like it might kill me.
Barbacks was home.
From a booth in the corner, Mark looked up from his laptop, took in my glitter-encrusted appearance, and sighed. “Do I want to know?”
“Benji.”
“Say no more.” Mark returned to his spreadsheet. “I’m adding ‘glitter incident’ to my insurance claim research, just in case.”
Chase, who sat across from Mark reviewing some legal documents, glanced up. “That’s not a real category.”
“It should be. We should make it a category.” Mark squinted at his screen. “Is ‘aggravated sparkle’ a thing? Can I sue?”
“You can’t sue your own employee for being enthusiastic.” Chase rolled his eyes.
“What about ‘glitter with intent’? There’s got to be a crime in here somewhere.”
“Mark.”
I had to get in on this action. “What if there was a secret organization called The Glitterati? They could be a group of mysterious gays who walk the city at night tossing glitter everywhere. They could have a secret handshake and everything. Would that give Mark his case?”
Mark pointed up at me, nodding, then looked toward Chase without so much as cracking a grin.
“Why did I go into law?” Chase groaned and rubbed his temples. “Seriously. It wasnotfor this.”
Bored with the business talk, I returned to the bar, grabbed a clean rag, and started wiping down the section that had caught the worst of the fallout. Sparkly shit clung to everything—the wood, the glasses, my own arms. I was going to be finding this stuff for weeks.
“Hey, Jacks!” Benji bounded over, shimmering like a disco ball. “You have to admit that was impressive, right? The bottle catches? The drama?”
“You turned the ice bin into a craft project.”
“Abeautifulcraft project.”
“I have glitter in my eyebrows, Benji.”
“It brings out your eyes!”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed again. Benji was impossible to stay mad at. He could be annoying as hell but was impossible to stay angry with.
The Lightning game started, and the bar shifted into game-night mode. Regulars cheered, drinks flowed, and Benji led increasingly creative (and suggestive) chants every time Tampa scored. Finn and I worked in practiced rhythm, anticipating each other’s movements, keeping the drinks coming and the customers happy.
At some point, I caught sight of Finn and Chase in a quiet moment. Chase had come up to the bar, andthey were leaning close, arguing about something with fond exasperation.
“Chocolate fountain, Finn.Onechocolate fountain. That’s all I’m asking.”
“It’s tacky.”
“It’s delicious,” Chase countered.
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Exactly! It can be tackyanddelicious. That’s the whole point of a wedding.”
I smiled and kept working.
Finn and Chase had gotten engaged a few months ago—a whole dramatic proposal that I’d heard about seventeen times from Benji despite us both being present to witness the scene. They were disgustingly in love, the kind of love that made single people want to throw things. It was also the kind of love I tried not to think about too hard.
Why worry over the unattainable, right?
