Page 88 of Employing Patience

It almost killed me to turn him down, and if I didn’t have studying I needed to do, I wouldn’t have. I would have thrown my whole plan, dignity, and brain out the window and followed him wherever the hell he asked me to.

Sex? Sure.

Work? Yes, sir.

Manual labor? Sign me up.

I’ve never been more grateful for an upcoming assessment before.

When I get to work that night, I have to acknowledge that I’m going to need to look at slowing down. It goes against everything I’ve worked at for years. Downtime doesn’t suit me, but neither does getting so sick I’m basically comatose for days. The thing is, my bank account finally has money in it. My fridge is stocked. The bills that come in are all green, showing that glorious little negative number, letting me know I’m in advance.

I’ve done a budget and started allocating money to things weekly so that I can try to keep in advance as much as possible. I’m making my car repayments on time. Once rent hits again, I’ll be back on struggle street, but for now, I’m breathing. I’m getting ahead. And I’m trying to get through my coursework as fast as possible so I can nail down an actual career path before money becomes an issue again.

And since I can’t walk away from school and Art pays way too much for a lowly bartending job, it means Freddy’s is the thing that will need to go. Problem is, I like Freddy. I like talking to the morning customers and seeing Art with his niblings once a week.

Until I can walk away from that, I’m going to have to keep on dealing with the exhaustion.

“Hey, Joey,” Will says, taking a seat at the bar. “Why are you thinking so hard?”

I laugh and pull his usual drink for him. Since that night we went out, we’ve caught up once or twice for lunch, and I actually think I’m making a friend. A real friend. It’s exciting stuff.

I hand over his beer and tap my nose. “You know who.”

Will glances around like he’s looking for Art. “He here?”

“I haven’t seen him, but I only just started.” Images of him being upstairs with someone else haunt me. If he is, I only have myself to blame. “What about you?” I ask. “Not often you’re drinking through the week.”

He gives me a cheeky grin and lifts his glass. “Technically, I didn’t order this.”

“But it hasn’t stopped you from drinking it. Funny that.”

“Hey, when a cute bartender buys me a drink, I’m not going to be ungrateful.”

“Oh, is that how we’re playing it?”

Will tips his drink toward me. “I’m flattered, really, and—”

“Bartenders aren’t allowed to buy patrons drinks,” Art says, appearing out of nowhere. My gut gives a violent flip, and it takes all my willpower not to immediately smile. He throws down some bills in front of Will. “There. On me.” Then Art glares my way. “You know better.”

“So I can’t buy hot men drinks, but you can?” I throw back at him.

“This is my bar, meu lutador. I can do what I like.”

“Mu … luta …?” Will tries to echo, watching Art as he storms away.

I’m as confused as he is. “He’s called me it a few times when we’re together. No idea what it means.”

“Have you looked it up?”

“I wouldn’t even know how to spell it.”

Will pulls out his phone and starts searching for a bunch of iterations of the words. As I watch him, I’m torn. I want to know what Art’s saying to me, to understand, but at the same time … the level of affection in his tone when he says it is translation enough. Whatever it is, it’s for him and me—and well, whoever else he calls that, I guess—but the point is I don’t want Will to be the one to tell me.

I cover his phone with my hand. “Knowing Art, it’s probably not a good thing, so just leave it.”

“I dunno, that looked like jealousy to me,” he says, glancing around as though he’s checking Art isn’t still within earshot. Knowing Art, he probably has this whole bar rigged up with mics so he can eavesdrop on everyone.

To be on the safe side, I shrug. “I don’t think Art has the capacity for jealousy. That kind of thing requires actual emotions being involved.”

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