Page 8 of Something Forever

I raise my eyebrows, scanning him. He’s barely passing for twenty, and even though my boss told me to stop carding the people that come in here, something about these NYU trust-fund kids gets me aggravated. Probably their practiced look of poverty that they seem to wear as some sort of badge of honor, as if I can’t tell that their baggy, half-ripped t-shirt is actually designer and costs as much as I make in a week.

“ID?” I ask as his friends join behind him, a trio of what can only be called boys.

“Sure,” he says casually, opening up his wallet and handing me his ID, which is definitely a fake. Maybe one of those batch-order ones that all the college kids tend to bring in here. Why they feel the need to come all the way out here to Abe’s Pub and not some trendy spot in the village, I’ll never understand. But I acquiesce. I give the kid back his ID and line up the drinks and slide them to him.

At least he leaves me a solid tip.

The night is only getting started. It’s not even eleven, but by the time midnight hits, I know I’ll be deep in the swing of things. The place tends to get packed with a combination of locals and hipsters. I tend to ignore the latter, but then again, these days I tend to ignore everyone.

“Liam, we’ve got a delivery comin’ in tomorrow. Can you come in early?” Abe, my boss and the namesake of this place, chimes in from behind me.

It’s rare for him to be here, but my coworker Darius called to say he’s running late and won’t be in until midnight. So, I’m stuck manning the bar alone until then, which is a recipe for disaster since Abe isn’t much help when it comes to pouring drinks. He might take one or two of the regulars who tend to come by, but I’m basically on my own.

Not that I mind being alone. I’m used to it by now.

“I can’t. I’m moving into a new apartment tomorrow. Got kicked out of student housing, so I had to find a new place,” I tell Abe.

“You’re still in student housing? Didn’t you drop out months ago?”

“It’s been less than two months, and it was under… unique circumstances, so they made an exception,” I explain. “The new place is a lot closer, so it’ll cut my commute in half. I’ll be positively cheerful.”

“Believe that when I see it,” Abe offers, and doesn’t say anything else. He knows not to pry about any of our personal lives, which is something great about this job. While I may have to pour drinks as random folks share their whole life story, nobody asks about mine.

Which is good, because my story isn’t one with a happy ending.

“I can come in at five earliest,” I tell him.

“Thanks, son. You’re a real help.”

I grin sloppily at him, tossing my rag over my shoulder. “Stop flirting with me, old man.”

He chuckles and shakes his head, walking into the back office and leaving me to tend to a few women who have just walked in wearing matching cowgirl costumes. Likely a bachelorette or birthday party.

I have a feeling this is going to be a long night.

The next day, the movers arrive at my place first thing in the morning.

I would have asked friends to help me move, if I had any of those left. All my Columbia buddies have stopped making an effort with me. To their credit, they reached out countless times after Luke’s funeral to check in on me, but I ignored nearly every text and call.

Eventually, they stopped trying.

Last night was exhausting. A group of drunk girls at the bar kept asking me to pronounce random words. Apparently, they’d seen it in a scene in Love Actually and wanted to test the legitimacy of it. Which is how I got trapped repeating vodka and beer back to them until closing. I’m pretty sure they were flirting with me, but even when I blatantly ignored them, they didn’t seem to get the hint.

To tell the truth, I haven’t been interested in touching anyone since Luke died.

Glancing around at the empty apartment that Luke and I used to share, a pit gathers in my stomach, tight and unyielding. Shaking my head, I swallow the lump in my throat and slam the door behind me. No use dwelling in the past any longer. I have to start focusing on what semblance of a future I can scrape together.

I’m on my way to the new place when I call Olivia. She and Darius used to hook up, and she’d come around the bar a lot to meet him near the end of his shift. I’d mentioned that I was desperate for a new place last week, since my student housing extension was up at the end of the month. A few days later, she called me to tell me she was leaving her place and wanted to sublet.

So, maybe my luck is starting to turn.

“Hey! How’s it going?” Olivia answers, muffled sounds of laughter and music behind her.

“Alright. I’m on my way now. You left the keys for me, yeah?”

“In the lockbox attached to the gate.”

“Anything else I should know?” I ask. She hasn’t told me much about the place, but my desperation overrode any hesitations I may have had about such a fast decision.

---