Page 147 of Dating Goals
“Oh for the love!” Lars starts.
“Does Griffin at least call you?” Evan asks.
I mumble something into the table.
“What was that?”
I sigh. “Three times a day,” I admit begrudgingly. “Sometimes four.”
“And he texts you constantly,” Colin adds.
“It’s only a matter of time before he forgets me.”
“So, the man calls you multiple times daily from another continent,” Colin summarizes slowly, like he’s talking to a child. “And you think he’s forgotten about you?”
My chin wobbles traitorously. “Memories fade, but the scars still linger.”
“Oh no, she’s quoting lyrics again,” Colin mutters.
“Are you quoting Tears for Fears right now?” Lars asks incredulously.
I ignore him. “Will I ever love again?”
Evan stands up abruptly, almost toppling over his chair. “This has gone far enough. We’re staging an intervention.”
“I don’t need an intervention.” My lips slide over something sticky on the table surface as I speak but I’m too dramatic to care.
“Lars,” Evan continues. “You know what to do.”
Lars shoves his chair back and vaults over the bar. He adjusts his collar, rolls up his sleeves, and cracks his knuckles.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I demand, lifting my head fully off the sticky table.
Lars just winks, tossing a bottle over his head in an arc and catching it with his other hand. He’s not even looking! He starts pouring various liquids into a cocktail shaker.
My jaw drops. “Since when can you…”
He rolls the shaker behind his neck, over his shoulder, catches it with his elbow, bounces it to his other hand, and shakes it like a maraca.
“Are you secretly Tom Cruise?” I mutter, watching him flip two more bottles in the air at once.
Colin and Evan clap enthusiastically as Lars continues his bartending spectacle, juggling tumblers, spinning in place, catching bottles behind his back, and tossing ice cubes into glasses from three meters away.
“I am so confused right now,” I say, wiping what I think might be beer residue from my cheek.
Lars finishes with a flourish, pouring the colorful drink into a hurricane glass and decorating it with a pineapple wedge, acherry, and one of those tiny umbrellas I didn’t even know we had.
He slides it across the bar, then carries it over to my table when I don’t make a move to get it.
“For you,Fräulein,” Lars says, placing it in front of me with a bow.
I eye the drink suspiciously. “What’s in it?”
“Happiness,” Lars replies. He does this interpretive dance thing with his hands, waving around the drink as he scoots backward.
“What’s going on?” I ask, suddenly alert. “Why are you all being weird? Weirder than usual, I mean.”
Lars goes back to the bar to clean the tumblers. “Who else will keep the bar running while you’re not here?”
