Page 26 of Until the Storm Breaks
The band announces their last set. I’m reaching for clean glasses when Calvin’s hand touches my back as he moves behind me, just guiding us past each other in the tight space, but my skin burns through my shirt where he touched.
I watch him at the other end of the bar pouring drinks, and my tired brain fixates on his hands. How does someone who boxes have such elegant hands? Long fingers moving with precision as he makes drinks. My mind unhelpfully supplies an image of what it might feel like to have those skilled fingers working between my legs with the same focused precision?—
Jayson calls out an order, breaking the spell. I grab the ticket with shaking hands and steal one more glance at Calvin.
I’m completely screwed.
By midnight, the bar is empty. Jayson and the dishwasher left twenty minutes ago after finishing kitchen cleanup, and now it’s just us. I’m finishing the till count while Calvin mops, the last tasks before we can lock up.
“You didn’t have to stay this late,” I say, double-checking the twenties for the third time because my brain’s too fried to trust the first two counts.
“You needed help.” Simple as that. Like it’s obvious. Likeanyone would stay until midnight mopping floors for someone they barely know.
The bar feels different with him here, like it remembers him from all those years ago. He moves through the space with surprising confidence for someone who hasn’t worked here in likely well over a decade.
“Mom drilled the routine into me,” he says, noticing my watching. “One summer she made me close by myself every night for a month until I could do it with my eyes closed.” He mops methodically, back to front just like Susan showed me. “Said a bar treated right would treat you right back.”
“She told me the same thing.” I finish the count, rubber-band the bills, tuck the cash into the deposit bag. “The first few months I owned this place, she came in every night to make sure I wasn’t drowning. Stayed until close, helped me figure out ordering, scheduling, how to handle the regulars. I think I took her up on her help almost every time.”
“Sounds like her.”
We fall into easy silence, just the sound of the mop sliding across wood and me organizing receipts. What catches me off guard is how naturally we work together after that rocky first meeting when he arrived. When he was all sharp edges and barely contained grief, snapping at me before his truck door was even closed. And I was defensive and territorial, throwing his absence in his face within minutes. Now we move around each other like dancers who’ve learned each other’s rhythms. It’s unsettling, this ease between us. Makes me wonder what else I’ve misjudged about him.
He’s leaving soon.Back to Seattle, his real life. Tonight was just him being helpful. Stop reading into it.
I head to the back to check the locks, make sure Jayson closed the freezer properly (he didn’t, never does), then return to find Calvin holding up a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.
“We’ve earned this, I think.”
“God, yes.”
He pours two generous measures, none of that precise ounce-and-a-half bartender pour, and slides one across to me. We don’t toast, don’t need to, just drink in silence. The whiskey burns warm down my throat, chasing away the exhaustion.
“Your mom used to keep this exact bottle for rough nights,” I say, studying the label, running my thumb over the raised lettering. “Said it was too good for customers but perfect for staff who’d earned it.”
“Some things shouldn’t change.” He takes another sip, slower this time. “She’d approve of tonight. The controlled chaos, the bachelorette wrangling. You handled those drunk guys at table six perfectly.”
“She’d especially approve of the part where her son saved my ass,” I say.
“Especiallythat part.” His eyes hold mine over the glass, and there’s something there I don’t want to name.
I watch him lean against the bar, looking more relaxed than I’ve seen him since he arrived. His sleeves are still rolled up, and there’s a splash of grenadine on his forearm he hasn’t noticed. I have the insane urge to reach over and wipe it off. To touch his skin and see if it’s as warm as it looks.
Instead, I finish my whiskey in one swallow.
“Another?” he asks, bottle already tilted toward my glass.
I should say no. Should definitely say no when he’s looking at me like that, all focused attention that makes me feel like I’m the only person in the world. When the empty bar suddenly feels too small, too intimate.
“Better not. It’s not exactly a long walk home, but it sure feels like it at midnight after a shift like that. Plus, Laila’s probably destroyed something by now.”
He nods, but looks maybe disappointed? Or am I imagining that? “Fair point. Long night.”
He rinses our glasses, sets them in the drying rack. Everymovement is deliberate, controlled, and I wonder if he’s feeling this too. This electric awareness that makes the air between us feel charged.
“Shall we?” He says, gesturing toward the door.
I nod, not trusting my voice, and duck past him into the night. The rain hits my face, cold and sobering, but it doesn’t wash away the heat still thrumming through my veins.
