Page 5 of Boyfriend of the Hour
He has the velvety-est brown bedroom eyes in existence.
I actually…know him.
ONE
THINGS TO REMEMBER AT YOUR NEW JOB
#4 a slice isnt the Same as a twist
Four months earlier
“Tell me it’s over this time.”
Rochelle Ortiz twirled her straw in the Long Island iced tea, then took a long sip as she peered up at me.
About to start her shift at Diamonds, a strip club a few blocks away, my cousin had stopped into Opal for a free drink and to celebrate the fact that I’d just been promoted from shot girl/go-go dancer to bartender two nights a week. After recovering enough from ACL surgery to walk around, tonight was my first shift, which had mostly consisted of Tom, the middle-aged owner, teaching me the ropes. Sure, it took me three times to get Rochelle’s drink right. But I figured that wasn’t too bad for day one.
I shrugged as I wiped down the bar, trying to remember if I’d already cleaned this part again after spilling a bottle of bitters earlier. Opal was an odd blend of new and old, with the battered walnut bar top and exposed brick blending with velvet chaisecouches and the sleek platforms built into the big violet wall at the far end of the lounge. Tuesdays and Thursdays were slow nights, and I was supposed to be helping to get things ready for the weekend rush.
So it wasn’t my best first day on the job. But I was trying.
“Ithinkit’s over,” I said. “I mean, he kind of broke up with me too, don’t you think?”
“No, Shawn did that thing he always does.” Rochelle tapped her long nails on the bar. This week, they were pink with blue stripes that reminded me of a Barbie-themed racecar. “He loses interest, tells you he wants a space. Then he comes back a few months later looking to get laid. This time, you busted your knee, so he can’t brag anymore that he’s banging someone on Broadway. I could have put money on him asking for another ‘break.’”
I sighed. I couldn’t argue. Shawn was just one of many cycles I had seemed to slip back into lately.
“Well, this time,I’mdone,” I said firmly. “And I told him that, too.”
“You did?”
I knew why Rochelle was surprised. Saying no to Shawn Vamos had never been something I was good at.
I chewed my lip. “It’s going to sound weird, but it was the music.”
My cousin gawked, making her thick, curly hair shake around her shoulders. “The music?”
“Yeah. We were driving back from Long Island, and he put on that shitty EDM he thinks is so hot. And I’m sitting there, and heknowsI don’t like Dead Mouse Seven or whatever the guy’s name is, and he doesn’t turn it off or even ask me what I’d like to hear.” I screwed up my face, like I’d tasted something bad. “It’s small, but I realized that in all the car rides I’ve taken with him,Shawn has never once checked what kind of music I like. Just put on whatever he wanted, and that was that. So I was done.”
I shrugged. It really was that simple.
I hoped.
Rochelle took another long sip through her straw. “I mean, normally, I’d say that’s small potatoes, but I’m actually proud of you,mami. Fuck Shawn. He’s an asshole, and I’m glad you’re done with that loser.” She finished the drink with a noisy slurp and set it on the bar in front of me. “All right, I’m out. Gotta get over to the club. Sure you don’t want to audition?”
I tipped my head from side to side. Rochelle, a former dancer like myself, had been lobbying for me to join her at Diamonds since I got my brace off. The money was good, she said, especially for someone like me—a born flirt.
But I wasn’t sold. I blamed it on the six more weeks of PT I was supposed to do, but really, I just wasn’t ready to graduate from performance art to full-on exhibitionism. Not yet.
