Page 24 of The Barkeep and the Bro

“I’m buying the first round!” said a guy with a gut hanging over his uniform. He slapped down his credit card. “Keep the tab open,” he said to Charlie.

“Is there an airport around here?” Charlie asked me.

“There’s a flight attendant training school. They must’ve all just passed their exams.” I’d heard of these crowds from other barkeeps. The flight attendant exams happen once a quarter, and when they graduate from their training, they find a bar to blow off steam.

“That’s right,” said a female flight attendant with side-swept blonde hair. “I’m finally going to fly the friendly skies.”

“What’s your route?” I asked.

“Buffalo to Cincinnati. Have more beautiful words ever been spoken?”

To my left, the flight attendant with the gut tossed off drink orders haphazardly as he heard them. Charlie nodded along, but I could see in his eyes that he was flustered. I hopped behind the bar.

“So that was two Bud Lights, one Seven-and-Seven, one rum and Coke, one Midori Sour…” I repeated the drink orders back as he said them, which was my way of committing them to memory. Charlie nodded alongside me. Flight attendants crushed against the bar, yelling orders and questions at us, full of jubilation.

“Did you get all that?” I asked him.

“I got most of them.” He rattled off the drink orders; I filled in one he was missing.

“You get the beer and wine orders, and I’ll handle the mixed drinks.”

“Got it,” he said with wide-eyed wonder.

I nudged him with my elbow. “Hey. We got this covered.” I winked at him. “You’re gonna make some amazing tips today.”

I got to work lining up glasses, then swiveling my arms between the well and the shelf liquor. I was a marionette puppet controlled by the whims of my customers. Charlie assiduously poured the drafts and plunked off caps of beer bottles. We maneuvered around each other as best we could, but it was tight quarters, and our bodies kept rubbing against each other, similar to his first day. His jeans were tight, the curves of his ass leaving little to the imagination. I pulled all the focus I could muster, but that goddamn friction did a number on my dick. And Charlie’s musky body spray mixed with the sweet smell of his shampoo fucked with my nose—and my dick—some more.

I kept my distance as best I could with the mixed drinks.

“You good?” I asked him.

“Great!”

At one point, Charlie bent down to the fridge to pull out a bottle of white wine while I had to reach above him for the Johnny Walker Black. My aching crotch hovered over his ass. I moved carefully to ensure I did not make contact.

That would be bad.

Glorious. But bad.

“Right behind you,” I warned. But it was too late.

Charlie inched back to shut the fridge door right into my crotch. His bubble butt was burst by my pointy object.

That was as close to sex as I’d gotten in years, mere hours after laying down the non-fraternization rule.

As soon as our bodies made contact, he popped up like there was a spring in his spine. I’d never seen the human body snap so quickly. He stepped back to the bar, thankfully not witnessing the embarrassment curdling inside me. I went back to my customer, throwing myself back into my job.

The flight attendants drank like their passengers, gulping down their libations like they were about to expire. People were on their second round before we finished serving the first. At the same time, the lunchtime crowd filled more of Penny’s tables, which meant more drink orders. Charlie and I kept repeating drink orders so we didn’t forget any. And we kept passing each other in the tight quarters of the bar.

Bodies having no choice but to brush against one another.

More friction.

More of me being grateful I was wearing thick pants.

“Shit,” Charlie muttered.

I looked up from pouring a line of celebratory shots to find Charlie reaching his hand above the bar for a tulip beer glass used for one of our draft beers. His fingers grazed the curvy glass. He was too short to make full contact.

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