“Make me.”
The words came out before I could stop them. For one horrible second, they hung in the air between us, charged with a meaning I hadn’t intended, buteverythingI truly felt.
Skyler’s grin faltered, and something shifted in his expression, quick and unreadable.
Then he laughed again, and the moment passed.
“You’re funny,” he said. “I forgot how funny you are.”
“Forgot? We talked like two days ago.”
“I know. I . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Never mind. I’m being weird. Just ignore me.”
“It’s hard to ignore you when you’re sitting right there.”
“You know what I mean.” He took another sip of his whiskey, and when he looked at me again, some of the heaviness had lifted from his expression. “I don’t know why, but I feel better, you know, being here and talking to you.”
“It’s the booth. Faux leather is very therapeutic.”
“First, it’s Naugahyde. Many valiant naugas gave their lives for your ass’s comfort. And second, I’m serious. There’s something about this place. About . . .” He gestured around us. “I don’t know. It’s easy here. I don’t have tobeanything.”
I understood what he meant. Barbacks had thateffect on people. Maybe it was the found family energy or the lack of judgment. Or maybe it was that sense that whoever you were when you walked through that door was exactly who you were supposed to be.
Whatever it was, I felt it, too, and it made an odd sort of sense.
“That’s kind of the point,” I said. “Mark and Finn built this place to be a haven, somewhere people could exist without all the outside world’s bullshit.”
“They did a good job.”
“I’ll tell them you said so. Better yet, you should tell them. Finn will pretend not to care but will do a secret happy dance in back. Mark will have your words scripted in calligraphy, framed, and hung by the door.”
Skyler smiled again, another real one, not the tired, hollow thing he’d walked in with.
We talked for another hour. The conversation drifted into safer territory: his disastrous practice that morning, my ongoing battle with the dying ice machine, and the increasingly elaborate pranks Murph had been pulling on his teammates. He told me about the maple syrup incident in detail, complete with sound effects and hand gestures, and I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my water.
Around midnight, Finn caught my eye fromacross the bar and tapped his wrist. Whatever break I’d been gifted had lasted two hours—and was now over.
“I should get back to work,” I said. “Finn’s giving me stank face.”
“Stank face?” Skyler chuckled.
“The ‘you’ve been sitting on your ass for two hours while the rest of us worked’ look. It’s very effective. He should be an Italian mother instead of a bar owner.”
Skyler glanced at his phone and winced. “Shit, it’s that late? I have practice tomorrow morning.”
“Then you should stop drinking and go home like a responsible adult.”
“Probably.” He didn’t move. “This was nice, though. Talking.”
“Yeah.” I stood, hovering awkwardly beside the booth. “It was.”
He rose, standing close enough that I caught a hint of his cologne and the sweetness of the whiskey he’d downed.
“Thanks,” he said. “For listening. I needed this more than I realized.”
“Anytime. That’s what bartenders are for. Barbacks, too. We’re basically the same thing except less respected and worse paid.”
Skyler smiled. “I’ll see you around?”
