Page 43 of The Quiet Tenant

I give his drink a stir, top it off with a cherry.

“So how was tonight?” he asks.

“Oh, you know. Not too busy. Next week, though—that’s when the madness will begin. And then it won’t stop until the end of the year.”

I slide the glass in his direction. He takes a sip, cocks his head in appreciation.

“Thank you for sneaking me in.”

“For our most loyal customers, we’ll always find a way.”

I put away the bitters, the orange I used for his twist. He gestures at the barstool next to his.

“Why don’t you come sit?”

I look around the dining room. Nervous, stupidly so. He licks his lips. “I don’t mean to make you break the bartender code. I just—you must have been on your feet all night.” He leans in. “And there’s no one else here to witness this…transgression.”

I laugh. I suppose he’s right, I tell him. I walk around the bar and hoist myself on the stool next to his. Without our usual setup—him sitting, me standing up, the counter a barrier between our two worlds—we feel closer than ever, thrust into roles we’ve been inhabiting virtually, but not physically, for almost a week.

He nudges his drink toward me. “Have a sip if you’d like. I feel rude drinking by myself.”

I think about saying no thank you. But there’s a vulnerability in the way he just extended the offer that makes it impossible to refuse. My fingers brush against his as they wrap around the glass. I tilt my head back, the ice cube knocking against my teeth.

Sitting at a bar, sharing drinks—I’ve seen this before. In a movie. A spy sipping on a martini, a woman in a cocktail dress plucking the drink from his hand.

“You know,” I say, “I’ve heard that if you drink from someone else’s glass, you can read their thoughts. Find out all their secrets.”

He chuckles. “Is that so?”

I nod, set the glass down. He considers me. I force myself not to look away.

“Well,” he says. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

A force field grows around us. Pushes us toward each other, into each other. I pull back. Straighten my back, clear my throat, tuck stray hairs behind my ears.

“Are you doing anything nice for the holidays?”

I regret the question as soon as it escapes my lips. So trite. Sosub-par. And so inappropriate to ask someone who has just experienced a great loss.

He takes a sip from his drink, then shakes his head.

“Not this year. It’ll just be me and Cece. We have some relatives out of state, but things are…complicated.”

“Oh, trust me, I get it.”

He swirls the ice cube at the bottom of his glass. “What about you?”

“Working. We’re doing three services on Thanksgiving alone.”

He winces in solidarity.

“It’s all right,” I tell him. “I’m not big on the holidays.” And then I decide to say it, because when you’re grieving, people don’t expect you to talk about your dead, but I know he’ll get it: “Even when my parents were still around, they weren’t really into it. They were always so busy, you know?”

What I don’t tell him: my parents weren’t neglectful, but I feel like they spent the first ten years of my life waiting togetthis parenting thing, until one day they had to accept that this was it, that things were as good as they would ever be. My father was a man who loved from the distance of his kitchen, his caring instincts reserved for the strangers who sat in his restaurant. My plan was always to be a bartender, because I thought it would be my chance to love people up close. I didn’t realize, of course, that most people want their bartender to leave them the hell alone.

I get up from the barstool and go to collect Aidan’s empty glass. He stops me with one hand wrapped around my arm. Softly, he peels my fingers from the glass and laces them with his.

“Sounds like we’re both in the same boat, then.”

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