Page 2 of Unforgettable You

She winked at me. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

I flagged down one of the other bartenders and said I was taking a break. Jo followed me outside, even though it was cold. The interior of the bar could get stifling on busy nights.

“Ahhh,” I said, filling my lungs with city air. The smell of cigarettes and weed combined with pavement and gasoline and all the other city smells that I couldn’t help but love. It helped wash away the smell of the bar which was mostly alcohol and sweat and too many bodies packed in one space together.

“Rough night?” she asked, leaning against the brick wall of the building.

“Just like every other night. What are you doing here?” Ever since she’d started school, she’d been hard to pin down because she was so busy. I missed her just as much as I missed Cade and Hunter. I couldn’t help but feel a little abandoned while my friends were on all these new adventures.

“Had to get out. I was going to lose my mind,” she said, rubbing her eyes. She did look tired, even under the weak light.

Her wavy hair was pulled into a loose bun on top of her head and her skin was pale.

“You need more sunshine, kid,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re one to talk. You work vampire hours.”

That was true. I slept through a lot of days after my shifts. I worked just enough to get by. Sometimes I got a little bit of money teaching a baby ballet class here and there. For some reason the little kids thought me being surly was funny and none of the parents had complained. I wasn’t mean or anything, but I also wasn’t sunshines and rainbows and a cutesy voice. They got talked to like they were people and my goal was for them to have fun, not to have perfect form. If they wanted to spend the entire class spinning in a circle over and over, I wasn’t going to do much to stop it. You had to pick your battles and I didn’t really want to battle with kids.

“It’s not so bad,” I said, and she gave me a look.

“You literally complain about this job all the time,” she said. It was true, but it was rude of her to point it out.

“Yeah, well,” I said and then couldn’t think of anything else. Talking so much at my job seemed to use up all my words, and then I had nothing left over.

“Don’t,” I told her when I saw her open her mouth to start telling me that I should get a different job. I couldn’t count how many times I’d had that conversation with my friends. I wasn’t quitting my job at Sapph. Yes, it sucked, but it sucked a hell of a lot less than living under my mother’s thumb like I used to.

Plus, working as a bartender really pissed her off and that was a little extra twist of satisfaction.

“I’m fine,” I said.

Jo raised her hands. “Okay. I didn’t come to harass you.”

I snorted. “Yeah you did.”

She grinned. “Maybe a little bit. You know it’s out of love.” It was. I teased my friends right back. With affection.

“Any good stories?” Jo asked. My friends always wanted to know my best Sapph stories.

“Almost had to call a car for a drunk girl who just had to tell me that she wasn’t a lesbian and her fiancé had cheated on her. Fortunately, her friend seemed sober enough and took her home. I wonder if she’s even going to remember coming here.” Probably not. “How’s school?” I asked.

She blew out a breath and closed her eyes. “Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and tell the me who decided that grad school was a good idea that she should do something else. Anything else.”

“Awww,” I said, reaching out and squeezing her shoulder. I wasn’t much into touching, but I knew she was having a rough time.

“It’ll be fine. It will all be worth it in the end, but right now it doesn’t feel like it, you know?”

How many times had I told myself the same thing when I’d been bandaging my bleeding toes after a particularly rough dance class? It hadn’t worked out for me, but there was a big difference between what I’d been doing and what Jo was doing now.

She was living life on her own terms and that was fucking beautiful.

“Can I help?” I asked.

She gave me an exhausted smile. “Make me that drink I like and let me sit at the bar and not think about the paper I need to write or all the research I need to do. I just want to be in a room of people and just…be. And see pretty girls dancing.” She let out a little sigh.

I inhaled a deep breath and got a whiff of someone else’s cigarette. I’d smoked for a brief period a few years ago in another attempt to piss off my mom before I switched to vapes. I’d given both up without much fuss, but every now and then a craving hit me like a truck.

Fuck. I needed to get back to work to get my mind off it.

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