Page 148 of Dating Goals
I blink at him. “My mother.”
The three of them burst into uproarious laughter.
“Your mother?” Colin wheezes, wiping tears from his eyes. “She smokes out all the customers with her incense. Then falls asleep.”
“I have no customers. Just you three.”
Evan snorts. “Not when Lars is behind the bar. He draws in the tourist crowd.”
“Americans love it,” Colin nods enthusiastically. “They leave enormous tips.”
“Wait until Saturday night. Standing room only.” Lars grins, spreading his arms wide. “Welcome to S’Holzfass After Dark.
“The…what?” I sputter.
“While you’ve been going to hockey games, working with spies, and catching criminals, we’ve been running the place,” Colin explains.
“You’ve WHAT?” I screech.
“Lars does his bottle tricks; the tourists love it,” Evan continues. “They take videos, post them online. The place has gone viral.”
“Viral?” I stare at Lars. “You run my bar when I’m not here?”
“Someone has to,” Colin says. “Last Saturday, we had people lined up outside. Lars did that fire trick thing.”
“Fire trick?” I echo weakly.
“Ja, with the cinnamon and the whoosh.” Evan gestures wildly with his hands.
“We’ve had to hire two more servers just to keep up with the crowd,” Colin adds. “They’re all coming in later. We open at seven now.”
“You HIRED people? For MY bar?” I’m practically shrieking now.
“Your mother approved it. To be fair, you weren’t exactly in a hiring state of mind,” Lars points out. “You’ve been too busy listening to your sad songs.”
“I’m being replaced,” I murmur, staring into the middle distance.
“No,” Lars protests. “We just wanted to help you out, really.”
I slump in my chair, feeling even more dejected than before. Not only am I lovesick and abandoned, but my bar is apparently thriving without me. Lars has been secretly extreme bartending while I’ve been playing the part of a Bond Girl.
“You’re a better bartender than me, Lars.”
Lars softens. “Anika, nobody makes a Schorle like you.”
“A monkey could make a Schorle,” I say flatly.
A profound despair mixed with a measure of rebellion hits me, and I might be losing it, but I stop the music mid-song and just as quickly switch to “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” by R.E.M. and crank up the volume full blast.
I feel like I could scream, but all I do is laugh maniacally.
This might scare the guys more than anything, but at this point, I have no cares. Just abandon.
I take a sip of Lars’s cocktail (which turns out to be delicious), and shout over the music.
“Hey,” I yell, pointing at each of them in turn. “If you ever see aliens in the sky, don’t believe it!”
They stare at me blankly.
