One for the Road (Barflies Book 3)

by Katia Rose

  “Speaking of training you, you’re doing really great tonight! I know it gets a little crazy here sometimes, but you’re killing it, lady. You even did the lemon wedges right!”

  I pull one out of the garnish station and point out the little slice made down the middle to fit over the rim of a glass. Then I pop the wedge into my mouth and suck the juice out before tossing the peel away.

  Trainee tries to hide it, but I see her grimace like she’s the one who just got a mouthful of lemon juice. I know it’s weird, but I could eat my way through our whole supply of lemons in one night if I knew it wouldn’t get me in trouble.

  Another order comes in, this time for a tray of specialty shots, and I start lining them up before grabbing the vodka, grenadine, and schnapps. I get a little flashy with it just for fun, shaking my hips to the indie rock on the stereo and spinning around between pours.

  I glance over at trainee to see her eyes bugging out of her head. “How do you make it look so easy? You’re like a full-on mixologist—a dancing mixologist. I can’t even pour a pint.”

  “This is what I was made for, baby!” I joke. “You’ll get the hang of it soon.”

  She might not get the dancing part. It’s kind of my thing.

  We work our way through the shift until it’s just before midnight and the last server heads home. There’s still a handful of customers left talking over their beers, but they’ve all settled up, and the only thing left to do is wait for them to finish as we start on the closing duties. I have my groove on, doing all the little tasks I’ve practiced for so long I hardly even think about them. I have to keep reminding myself to explain things to the trainee.

  “Okay,” I announce, once we’ve done everything we can possibly do without actually closing, “before we kick these mecs out, you wanna make a little more money?”

  I make my eyebrows jump up and down. The trainee’s mouth drops open like I just asked her to strip naked, but I’m used to it by now. People tend to get a little scared when I have an idea.

  What can I say? Not everyone is born with a taste for adventure.

  “How...How are we going to do that?” she stutters.

  I reach for the tequila. “Shots.”

  Once I’ve got a tray full of shot glasses ready to go, I grab a salt shaker and load up a little dish with lemons. I carry it all on a platter and make sure my crop top is sitting just right before I sashay my way onto the floor.

  Nobody can resist tequila shots, not when I wink and tell them they’ve just gotta take ‘one for the road.’

  It’s an old trick of mine. Monroe keeps threatening to print those words on a t-shirt and make me wear it, and Zach is always saying he’s going to turn me into a meme. They can tease all they want; I always sell every shot I pour.

  After we’ve finally shut the place down, I walk the trainee through how to do her tip out and then ask her how she’s getting home.

  “My boyfriend’s picking me up!” she answers, sounding the most chipper she’s been all night. “We just moved in together, actually. It’s only a few blocks over, but he works late too, so I don’t have to walk alone.”

  “That’s good,” I reply as we step out onto Avenue Mont Royal so I can lock up. “My boyfriend is meeting me too. We’re lucky girls, hein?”

  “Yeah, we are.” Now she’s got a dopey, lovesick grin on her face. “Nick is amazing. Do you and your boyfriend share a place?”

  “We moved in together last week.”

  “Oh, you too! That’s exciting!”

  It is exciting. I know everyone thinks I’m crazy for jumping from guy to guy all the time, and even I can admit that living with X so soon is a little insane, but sometimes things just fall into place like that. Yeah, it might not work out. In fact, it probably won’t. Nothing like this has ever actually worked out for me before, but what’s the alternative?

  Loneliness. Being alone. It’s the one thing we all fear, and with good reason.

  So I don’t stay alone for long. I find someone to hold me at night, someone to wake up beside in the morning, and maybe they aren’t perfect for me, but they’re there. Right now, that person is X.

  And right now, he isn’t answering his text messages.

  I say goodbye to cutie pie trainee after she introduces me to her cutie pie boyfriend, forcing a smile when they both ask if I’m okay to wait on my own. It’s well past midnight now. X was supposed to be here by 11:30. I watch the two of them walk away holding hands and then send another text.

  There aren’t too many people out on the street. We’re right on the edge of Avenue Mont-Royal’s busiest section, but the closest place that’s still open is one block over. Everything else is dark, just a few streetlights shining on the closed-up shop windows. I start twisting my grand-mère’s ring around my finger as I wait, the one she gave just before she died. I never take it off, not even when I’m working and it gets in the way.

  A group of guys in matching jerseys walk by on the other side of the road, swearing and laughing while they push each other around. One looks over at me and whistles. Another one says something I don’t catch that makes them all laugh even harder.

  I look down at my feet until they keep walking.

  Maudit wolves.

  I give up on X and speed-walk the whole way home, making my way closer to downtown and then turning up towards his shitty apartment by Laurier Station. It’s not even a bad part of town; he just lives in a dump of a building.

  By the time I’m trudging up the stairs to the second floor, my shoulders are hunched up almost to my ears and my hands are clenched at my sides. Every little sound in the street made me jump. I’m okay to walk alone every now and then, but I thought X was coming, so I didn’t prepare myself for it. Now I’m all tight with nerves and how ben furieuse I am at him for putting me through that. We may not have known each other long, and I haven’t told him anything about what happened to Clém, but he knows having a plan for getting home is important to me.

  He’s already passed out on the mattress on the floor that we keep using instead of buying a bed frame. I could wake him up and go off on him, but I don’t. Instead I wash my makeup off, strip out of my clothes in the dark bedroom before throwing them over a chair, and crawl in next to him. He curls around me in his sleep and throws an arm over my body. I wiggle in closer beside him and force the corners of my mouth to turn up into a smile.

  Three

  Zach

  PONY: slang term for one fluid ounce of liquor

  “Hey, Paige!”

  I knock on my roommate’s door for the fifth time. There’s still no sound of movement on the other side. I know she’s got her headphones on; she’s always got her headphones on. Usually I appreciate the fact that she plays loud music for a living and still manages to be very considerate about noise at home, but it does make the rare occasions I need to get her attention kind of awkward.

  I give up after another round of knocking and pull my phone out of my pocket to shoot her a text. Thirty seconds later, the door swings open, and there stands Paige, state of the art headphones slung around her neck and wearing a giant black hoodie that goes down to her knees over a pair of black leggings. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her wear a shirt that’s less than three sizes too big.

  “Hey,” she greets me in her usual ‘the world and everyone in it is dead to me’ tone. “What’s up?”

  “Uh, not much. Just wondering if you’re okay to get all your stuff over to the bar tonight for the April Showers show. I’m heading over in a few hours.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m good. I have to catch my ride to Toronto right after my set, so everything’s all packed to travel already. I’ll just Uber it there.”

  “You’re really blowing up, aren’t you?” I try for some casual conversation even though it’s not Paige’s strong suit. “Playing Montreal tonight, sets in Toronto for the next two weeks. You’re gonna be headlining Tomorrowland any day now.”

  The corner of her mouth pulls
up. It’s the Paige equivalent of joyous beaming.

  “Thanks, farm boy.”

  I sigh and lean my head against her doorframe. “Why? Why does everyone always call me that?”

  She shrugs. “Maybe it’s all the flannel.”

  I glance down at my shirt and pull it away from my chest, going with my usual defence. “Kurt Cobain wore a lot of flannel! Flannel can be very grunge. Why am I farm boy and not grunge boy?”

  That’s enough to make her take a break from stonewalling the world and actually smile. “You are not grunge boy.”

  I hold my hands up and raise my eyes to the ceiling. “Paige has spoken.”

  “And Paige is done speaking.” She starts lifting her headphones back into place. “You need anything else?”

  “Nope. You can go back to your cave.”

  She gives me a thumbs up before pulling the door closed. Sometimes I wonder if she’s busy plotting murders or global catastrophes in there. Then I decide I’d rather not know.

  I head to my own room and take a seat at my cheap IKEA desk before opening up my laptop. It would be nice to live somewhere big enough for an actual office, but in the meantime, I converted my closet so that it feels like I’m ‘going to work’ when I open the doors—and when I say converted, I mean I took most of the shelves out and shoved a narrow desk inside. It’s not much, but it’s home base for my ecommerce business.

  I put my economics degree at McGill on hold after doing a project on ecommerce in my second year. Something about the concept just wouldn’t let go of me, and the year after that was spent doing research and working up the guts to take the plunge while I saved what I could from my shifts at Taverne Toulouse. I made a few early attempts, but it’s only during the past year or so that I’ve really gotten serious.

  I use a drop shipping system, which means I don’t make, store, or ship any of the products I sell. That’s all taken care by a wholesaler; what I do is the market research to find a niche and a product that fits it. I create a brand, build an online store, set up social media accounts, and start running ads. It’s straightforward in a sense, but getting it right is a one in a million shot in the dark. Ecommerce is about finding and acting on just the right combination of factors at just the right time.

  I’ve had a lot of flops, and I’m still not making the kind of money to write home about, but I’ve gone from nothing to only needing to work part time at the bar, and things are picking up more speed by the day.

  I have almost three hours before my shift tonight to finish some tasks I’ve been putting off for way too long. Ignoring the notifications for half a dozen Facebook meme groups, I check a few sales pages and reply to some emails before diving into the task of getting a new ad campaign set up.

  My phone buzzes on the desk beside me just as I’m really getting into the zone. I know I shouldn’t look; this is business time, but it’s a big night at the bar, and it could be someone getting in touch with a desperate need for help.

  I last about a minute before I pick the phone up to find a text from Monroe.

  Do you think you could come in now? You can leave early as repayment. The beer order came in a day late, and I need bodies to move kegs.

  I glance at my computer screen and consider telling her I’m busy with my other job. This stuff really can’t wait any longer, and I’ve already covered an extra shift this week, but what kind of person would I be if I left five-foot-nothing Monroe to cart kegs around by herself?

  I send her the ‘As you wish’ meme from The Princess Bride and tell her I’ll be leaving in ten minutes.

  “She’s so awesome!”

  Monroe has to stand on the tips of her toes to shout in my ear. I pull away and follow her eyes to where Paige is stationed at the small raised DJ booth behind Taverne Toulouse’s tiny dance floor. It’s not enough space to hold everyone who wants to dance tonight; the whole room is a head-bobbing, hip-swaying, fist-pumping mass of booze-fueled bodies waiting for Paige to drop the beat.

  It’s not my usual scene, or my usual music, but even I feel the tremors of anticipation gathering in my thoughts, blocking everything else out as the music increases in pitch, straining like a string pulled too tight until it finally snaps and the crowd goes nuts. I catch sight of Paige tossing her head back, eyes closed and mouth stretched wide in an expression of pure and utter joy that I’ve never seen on her before. It’s only a glimpse before the DJ booth is blocked from my view by people jumping around with their hands in the air while the bass continues to pulse and shake the floor under our feet.

  “Yeah,” I agree. “She’s awesome.”

  Monroe motions for me to bend closer so she can shout into my ear again. “I’m leaving now. Lisanne is on the late shift to help the closers. You, DeeDee, and anyone else who helped with the kegs should all punch out once you finish your orders. Can you spread the word?”

  “You sure they’re okay without us?”

  She nods. “We’ve got almost the whole staff on tonight.”

  I say my goodbyes to her and her boyfriend, surprised they’re leaving so early until I check the clock on the POS system behind the bar and see it’s almost 1AM.

  Time flies when you’re serving beer.

  I make Monroe’s orders known to the staff. I’m too busy shouting over the noise to notice when DeeDee appears beside me. I turn and find her just inches away, an empty shot tray tucked under her arm and a crown of artificial pink roses framing her face.

  She explained the accessory to me earlier, saying, “I was going to make something for April Showers, but what I was supposed to be? A rain cloud? Fuck no. I’m a May Flower, bitches!”

  I blink at the sight of her so close to me and try to remember how to breathe.

  She’s done something to make the makeup she wears to work even more stop-and-stare-worthy than usual, with black stuff that turns her eyes all cat-like and lipstick so deep red it’s almost purple. She’s got a gorgeous mouth, and the way the colour contrasts with her hair and the roses just makes it even harder to stop staring.

  “What’s up, Zachy Zach?”

  Her voice has a trace of tiredness to it, and her shoulders are slumped so slightly I’m sure no one else notices, but I do. Something’s been bothering her all night. It snaps me out of the black hole of workplace inappropriate fantasies her lipstick was pulling me into.

  “Monroe says we’re good to go.”

  “Oh, thank fuck.”

  She lunges for the time clock and jabs her finger against the screen like it’s personally offended her before taking off into the back. I punch my own code in and follow after her.

  “You, uh, okay?” I call out after spotting her in the corner of the kitchen where we all hang our coats and bags.

  It’s marginally quieter back here, but we still have to speak in louder than average tones. Only one set of overhead lights is on, casting the empty kitchen in shadow.

  DeeDee looks up from where her fingers are flying over the screen of her phone. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry, I just had to send a text.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry. I was just...worried about you.”

  It feels like an intimate thing to admit, and I stumble over the words.

  DeeDee doesn’t seem to notice. She gives the screen a few final taps and then crosses her arms, letting out a few choice French curse words.

  “Men are so frustrating.”

  I force a chuckle. “I can’t help feeling a little attacked.”

  She scoffs like I’ve said something ridiculous. “I meant men, as in like, men that I date or...”

  I do my best to keep my internal flinch from becoming an external one. The brief flash of regret in her face tells me I might have failed.

  “You know what?” She unfolds her arms and tucks her phone into her purse before I can embarrass myself any further. “It doesn’t matter. I did not put this flower crown on just so I could be sad about some maudit mec. Let’s dance.”

  She marches forward, hooks her arm in mine
, and drags us back into the front.

  She doesn’t stop moving until we’re in the very center of the dance floor, weaving her way between bodies and leaving me to elbow out a path beside her. I dish out a few apologetic glances, but I’m caught in Hurricane DeeDee, and there doesn’t seem to be a way out.

  The crowd is really getting sloppy now, and I’m glad I won’t have to be the one to announce last call. DeeDee turns to face me once she’s found her desired spot, and all the tension has drained right out of her. The frustration and fatigue are gone, like the music is a life force filling her up. Even with the flailing arms and fist-bumping undergrads jostling against us, even with the smell of spilt beer in the air and the throb of EDM beats pounding in my skull, looking at her with that grin on her face is like stepping into the sun.

  She’s radiant.

  She lets out some unintelligible exclamation, and then she’s moving, bouncing along to the beat and circling her hips in that mesmerizing way of hers, the one that instantly gets the attention of everyone around us.

  “Dance, Zach!”

  She screams it loud enough for me to hear, and then she takes my hands in hers and lifts our arms into the sky. She leads us in a weird routine that resembles an interpretive dance about tree branches in the wind, and I’m sure the entire room is wondering where the hell these idiots came from, but I don’t care. I smile down at her and let her switch things up until we’re moving our joined arms in some kind of choo-choo train motion, followed by a wax-on-wax-off pattern, and then a good old fashioned ‘raise the roof.’

  It’s stupid and freeing and fun. Like a cheesy movie scene, the rest of the crowd fades away. The music gets slower. The spotlights flash over her skin as she unlaces her fingers from mine and lets her hands drop to my shoulders.

  She’s close. She’s so fucking close I can see the faint spray of freckles that runs over the bridge of her nose and the tops of her cheeks. Her face is framed by pink flowers. Her lips are the same deep burgundy as a glass of red wine. She parts them just slightly, just a fraction of an inch—and this is it.