Page 108 of The Bartender Special

“Benny can't talk too loud because his bottom half is hiding in the utility closet,” he said. “So come over here and switch places with me before my shoulders fall right off, and then we'll explain.”

Jack was just as quick to do as he was told. Benny made a little yelp as Jack took his hands from Ethan and transferred them to his shoulders.

“Thank God,” the two said in unison.

Ethan shook out his shoulders.

“Your height feels so much better,” Benny added, voice just above a whisper. “No offense, Ethan.”

“A lot of offense taken considering you told me you weren’t going to do anything stupid and instead of leaving you, I stuck around and suffered for you.”

There was no real anger there, which was good, because Jack didn’t think fighting with Ethan for Benny while Benny was stuck in his competitor’s window would make anything less complicated.

He tried to look upwards at Benny. Dark hair fell against the top of Jack’s head. He couldn't see Benny’s gaze from the new angle beneath him, so he gave the question to Ethan.

“Can someone please explain why we’re breaking the law here?”

Ethan stepped in close, but Benny’s whisper fell against his head first.

“Are we really breaking the law if we were breaking out of this place and not into it?”

Ethan narrowed his eyes.

“I wouldn’t trust the legal know-how of the man who tried to flee through a damn window so he wouldn’t get caught. Especially when the front door exists.”

“Listen, I had no idea I'd picked the one window in this whole damn place that's higher than God,” Benny muttered back. “Plus, this would have been fine had I not gotten my pants caught on the damn window and then we wouldn’t have⁠—”

“There is literally only one window back here at a normal height!” Ethan protested.

“Both of you hush,” Jack interrupted. “Fight after one of you isn’t stuck in a fucking window.”

Benny’s grip tightened on his shoulders, but both besties quieted.

“You said your pants are stuck, right?” he asked the guy on his shoulders. “I’m assuming you can’t pull yourself back into the utility closet then?”

Jack felt movement as Benny shook his head.

“We think his pants are caught on something weird on the inside sill,” Ethan jumped in. “He tried to undo whatever it was with his hands earlier but couldn’t make it budge. He tried to fall onto me but then he knocked the blinds off with his legs. So I don't know what he's really stuck on now, but we were afraid we’d break the window if we kept trying. Or someone from inside would hear him and call the police and break the internet again with Benny De Carlo antics.”

Benny sighed.

“I also tried taking my pants off,” he added. “Clearly it didn't work. The angle’s all weird.”

“And no one’s heard you two yet?”

Jack had driven to the back lot as per Ethan’s instructions to use the For Rent office’s access road next door. That way no one from the front of The Drinking Spot could see his mad dash to help the awkward calamity just outside.

Still, surely someone on staff would make their way out to the parking lot at some point. A smoke break, a staff shift, or a lull in the music that was just long enough to finally let them hear the wiggling panic of a man stuck in one of their windows.

Ethan, however, shook his head.

“The owner is running the bar solo before his bartender gets in at six and there's only a cook in the kitchen. Thomas said they get really busy around five and, until then, everyone coming in is a ‘sweet, sweet bonus.’”

There was annoyance in Ethan’s voice.

It was nothing compared to what Jack felt flare in his chest.

“Thomas Bleuth is here?”