Page 1 of Wish You Would

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GIGI

SEMI-CHARMED LIFE

“Well? How is it?”

I eyed the cocktail in front of me, the red, yellow, and orange a near-artistic blend of colors, and somehow managed to not grimace as the bitter taste clung to my tongue. “It’s…pretty.”

Kai’s face fell. This was the fourth Tequila Sunrise they’d made, and they still hadn’t nailed it. It wasn’t for lack of trying. The kid had enthusiasm for days. Alas, a gift for mixology, not so much.

“Hey.” I bumped my shoulder against theirs. “You’ll get it. And, in the meantime, Carl over there is happy to be your guinea pig.”

Cranky Carl, a regular at Heathcliff’s since my dad ran the place, lifted his half-empty Tequila Sunrise in acknowledgement, his lips pressed tight together in either a smile or a frown. It was always hard to tell with Carl.

“Carl is gonna need a wheelbarrow to get him out the door if he keeps drinking my fuck-ups.” Kai pushed their fingers through their tousled pixie cut, chunks of bleach-blonde hair falling right back over their forehead like they were the lead in a goddamn romcom. Vaughn’s voice echoed in the back of my head in that moment. You can’t just hire people because you think they’re hot, Gi.

I’d show him. Kai was going to be a damn good addition to Heathcliff’s if it was the last thing I did.

Just…not tonight. Tonight, we had a super popular cover band performing, and our ’90’s cocktail menu had to be on point. The Millennial moms demanded it.

“Okay,” I said, sliding the newest cocktail fail—cockfail?—down the bar to Carl. “You’re on beer duty tonight. I’ll make the cocktails.”

Kai nodded, shoulders dropping. “That’s fair.” They untied their apron and pulled it over their head. “I’m gonna take a quick break. Psych myself up for a night of slinging hops.” They tossed a grin my way and I grinned back, shaking my head as they vanished out the front door.

“You sure about that one?” Dante, kitchen master and all-around awesome dude, asked as he peeked out from the service window.

I faced him, resting my elbows against the bar. “Trust the process,” I said, earning a skeptical eyebrow raise.

“I don’t know, Gi,” he said. “Kid’s been here a month already.”

“And they’re gonna get the hang of things.” I shook off Dante’s doubt and shoved away from the counter. “You were not a munchie maestro right away.”

“Please.” He smirked. “I was born with a spatula in my hand.”

“That must have been painful for your mother,” I shot back, earning a boisterous laugh. The sound pulled a laugh from me in a way that only Dante did. He was simply the most contagiously joyful person on the planet.

“But seriously.” I leaned into the service window so that we were eye-to-eye. “Are you concerned?”

Kai was the first hire Vaughn, my brother and co-owner of the bar, had let me make all the calls for. There was a lot riding on the kid. If I couldn’t get them up to snuff soon, Vaughn would likely not trust me with hiring again. And if I couldn’t earn his trust when it came to hiring, the odds of him trusting me for other bar stuff was nearly nil.

I pressed my lips together and pushed an anxious breath from my nose, slow and steady. Panic played at the edges of my mind, but I blocked it out. Day by day, I reminded myself. Task by task. Trust had to be earned. And, with Vaughn, I had a lot of work to do. A lot of trust to earn.

“Honestly?” Dante said in response to my question. I raised my eyes to meet his, deep brown and soft, and the knot in my stomach loosened the teensiest bit. “Nah.” He looped his apron over his head and reached behind to tie it. “They’ll catch on. And in the meantime, our customers are gonna love their baby giraffe charm.”

I laughed, relieved. “They are like a baby giraffe, aren’t they?”

“Oh, yeah. I half expect them to take a header because they’re still learning to walk on those impossibly long legs.”

Wincing at the thought, I reached beneath the bar for my phone. “God, I hope not. That’d be a liability nightmare.”

Dante chuckled and turned away from the window. Soon after, the mostly quiet bar filled with the sounds of Dante and the other cook banging around in the kitchen, opening up for the day. I looked down at my phone, bypassing numerous notifications from dating apps and social media accounts. Opening my calendar app, I glanced over my task list for the day. Everything was on track. Everything was all good. Everything was—

“Goddammit.” The voice was accompanied by the squeak of the front door’s hinges as the members of Patti Mayonnaise stomped inside. “Would it kill you to come prepared for once in your life?”

“Well, excuse me for having a life outside of the band.” The lead singer shook her Britney-esque bangs away from her face and glared. “Some things take precedence, you know.”

I tucked my phone back beneath the bar and watched as the band dropped their equipment at the base of the stage in the corner. Patti Mayonnaise had been performing at Heathcliff’s for a couple months now, a recent addition to our lineup, and they always brought in a lot of business. They were popular in the tri-state area, and it took work to get them here regularly.

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