Page 27 of Glass Half Full
When I turn back to Dylan, the tension is gone. He’s standing there with a mildly disturbed expression.
“Mamma DeeDee?” he questions, in a ‘Do I really want to know?’ tone.
“Apparently that’s what she makes all the trainees call her.”
“Do you call her that?”
“Sometimes.” I force a chuckle, wondering if I imagined the moment that just passed between us. “DeeDee likes to be...indulged.”
“She’s about to get those customers to indulge her.”
We both watch her start pulling pints. The guys have foregone a table and are all grabbing seats at the bar.
“So,” Dylan comments, after we’ve both had our fill of watching DeeDee work her magic, “how long have you been listening to Chance?”
“Only about two years now. I wish I got into him sooner. I didn’t even know what I was missing.”
“I love the way he phrases things. You can read his lyrics and just know it’s him.”
“Exactly!” I’m bouncing on the balls of my feet with excitement I can’t be bothered to hide. I know way too few people who listen to Chance. “I feel like the genre—any genre, really—is so oversaturated that it’s hard to actually come across something unique. That’s not to say it’s hard to find things that are good, but there’s that tiny, tiny handful of people who have that...thatthing, you know? And he’s one of them.”
“Yeah.” Dylan bobs his head, his goofy, overenthusiastic fan grin matching my own. “I agree. One hundred percent. Have you ever seen him live?”
“I wish!” I shake my fist with regret before I gasp. “Wait, don’t tell me you have. Oh my god, I would be so jealous I’d have to kill you.”
He holds up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, slow down there, righteous rap enthusiast. I haven’t, so there’s no need to murder me today.”
“I mean, I’d also plague you with questions about it before I killed you.”
“Now that I wouldn’t mind.” He scratches his chin, where just a bit of stubble is forming. He’s always shifted between scruff and clean shaven, even back when I was in high school. I was never able to decide which look I liked more. “I get the feeling we could talk about Chance the Rapper for a long, long time.”
It slips between us again: that pull, like magnets just close enough to start jerking with the urge to snap toward each other. This time I know I’m not imagining the force of that draw. He doesn’t say it, not exactly, but I know the real meaning behind his words.
We could talk for a long, long time about anything. It’s like my life story has scribbled itself down in a notebook and is asking—beggingfor me to thrust those pages at him. I want to tell him everything: my favourite song, my favourite colour, the tattoos I’d get if I were brave enough to get some. I want to tell him what half-remembered dreams swirl around my head when I wake up in the morning. I want to tell him about the way the streaks of light from passing cars keep me up at night as they climb my bedroom walls.
I want to talk with him. I want to talk for a long, long time.
The song ends, and some soft acoustic ballad I don’t even remember putting on the playlist starts drifting out of the stereo. Dylan shifts his weight and clears his throat.
“You guys, um, doing okay out here?” he asks, reaching beside him to drum a finger against the bar.
“Mmhm.” I nod, turning so I can keep working on lining up shot glasses. “It’s been really slow. I’m sure you guys are losing money on me.”
We don’t have a hope of breaking even if I stay on the payroll for my entire shift.
“Hey, you’re important.” I whip my head up way too fast at those words. Dylan clears his throat again. “Training is, uh, important. We take it seriously here. I’d rather you had a few slow shifts to really get comfortable with the job. There’s nothing worse than someone bailing in the middle of a night we’re getting totally slammed because they don’t have the training to handle it. There’s something to be said for getting thrown into the fire, but I like to get my staff as ready for it as they can be.”
“That makes sense,” I agree. “Not a lot of places in this industry are like that.”
“You can say that again.” He stops tapping the bar top and gives it a fond pat instead. “Which reminds me, I have like, eleven million and one things I’m supposed to get done for the reopening.”
I wish him good luck with his eleven million and one tasks before he heads to the office. I turn back to the bar find myself out of shot glasses to stack, so I start on the pint glasses next. That’s when Tahseen’s grand prediction decides to drift back into my thoughts and pester me.
I think this whole ‘Oh no, he’s my boss’ thing is just an excuse, on both your parts, for the real reasons you think you can’t date each other.
If Dylan weren’t my manager, if I’d never worked here in the first place, if we’d bumped into each other at a metro stop and decided to grab a coffee to catch up, would things look different for us?
No.
