I watch them while Morgan mixes the drink. There are two older women at the table she joins. While Mrs. Gardiner is dressed pretty nicely in her pantsuit, the other two are more casual. One, a white woman with a short halo of curls wears a shirt that says “Shuck the Patriarchy” with a row of oysters below it, and the other, a dark-skinned woman, has long gray dreads hanging over her shoulder and an outfit with bright colors and a flowy, hippie vibe.
These women are about my grandmother’s age, and I wonder where they live. It’s a small town. I bet they have families nearby that take care of them, not put them in a home like I’ve done.
I shake the guilt away and eat the last tater tot. This is why I always come here—I need a buffer between my own grandmother and the real world.
“For the record,” Morgan says as he mixes the drink. “I’m not just trying to get into your pants.”
I raise an eyebrow. Whatever he’s going to say is bound to be outrageous, and he doesn’t mean it. Despite all his words, today is the first time Morgan’s ever crossed the figurative bar with me. He’s teased and flirted plenty, but Morgan isn’t interested that way, especially after seeing his reaction to my teeth.
We both wait while he shakes up the martini. He pops the top and pours it into a chilled glass.
“No, I’m trying to give you a night that forever changes the way you dream. The kind of night that leaves you shaky and wrung out and thinking about me, that small-town bartender that gave you the ride of your life.”
And with that, he picks up the filled martini glass and saunters off.
Morgan
* * *
I hum along to the Garth Brooks song as I wash the dishes. I dance a bit as I go—not technically part of the job description, but this is just for me anyway. Mrs. Donner, this morning’s client who requested the cowboy-themed package, is asleep in the living room.
She slipped off about five minutes after Kit and I got started. I kept an eye on her since Kit is back in her bathroom cleaning, and after a few minutes I gently took the whiskey sour out of her hand and set it on the side table.
It’s not uncommon for her to fall asleep. She’s in her late eighties, and while she’s a fun lady, apparently the pull of sleep is too strong to counter the thrill of having two young, shirtless men clean your house.
Kit comes out from the back rooms with two small bags of trash to take out. He glances at the sleeping woman and grins.
We’re both wearing pretty much the same outfit as I was wearing last night when I showed off to Rory: a cowboy hat and worn jeans (although not the tight ones Rory likes). I’ve traded my belt for something a little showier and switched my comfortable bar shoes for work boots.
We’re both shirtless. We’re shirtless for every job.
Kit’s business, Buffed & Polished, started as a side hustle and it’s blown up. It’s a great side hustle for me, Hunter, and Silas. I’ve known these guys pretty much my whole life, so we make a good team. I pick up a few gigs when I’m not at the bar in the off-season and Hunter does the same. Ski season is too busy to do much, which is when Silas picks up the slack.
Mrs. Donner bought the Whiskey Sour package, but we’ve also got a Cosmopolitan (bow ties and the titular cocktail), a Teacher (fake glasses and the lesser-known gin cocktail), and the Fireman (cheap Halloween costume fireman pants and a Fireball whisky cocktail that I personally think is disgusting). I keep telling Kit we should do a Masked Men– or a Regency-themed one, but he just says I need to get off TikTok and stop watching Bridgerton.
I guess our off-season clientele is a bit older and probably not as up with the trends. But during ski season, we get parties coming up from the city, and Kit’s got a friend who swears her book club about two hours away would hire him.
“Done with the bathroom,” Kit says in a low voice. He sets the trash bags by our cart and then makes a few trips back and forth to put the cleaning supplies away. I finish the dishes, check Mrs. Donner’s fridge for moldy food, and then run a mop over the linoleum.
Mrs. Donner’s daughter hires us to come in once a month and deep clean. I think it’s mostly just for fun though, since the place always looks pretty good.
And since there’s not much to clean, I can think about Rory. Last night after she finished her tater tots she was subdued. I know she enjoyed the show—her eyes were so big and they darted all over my body like she couldn’t figure out what part of me she liked the best.
Personally, I think it was the snake tattoo. I got it to remind me not to turn my back on a viper, but if she likes it, I’ll show it off.
As she does every time she comes, she moved to a booth once she was done with her beer, read on her phone, and drank water for about an hour before she left.
She doesn’t even say goodbye to me, her roaring motorcycle alerting me as she pulls away.
One of these days I’m going to win her over. She’ll linger longer, waiting for me to close. Maybe we won’t even make it home—maybe I’ll get to have her right there in the bar, her legs wrapped around me, her black pants dangling from one ankle while I thrust inside of her.
And then, of course, we’d do it all over again in bed when I get her back to my place.
Dammit. Now I’m sporting a boner on the job. I turn my mind back to cleaning before Mrs. Donner wakes up and I give her a heart attack.
Kit and I finish up our chores and he crouches down next to Mrs. Donner in the armchair. He places a gentle hand on her arm and whispers her name.
Her eyes open and she blinks up at Kit. “Oh,” she says, her voice rough from sleep. “Did I fall asleep again?”
