Page 4 of Bar Down, Baby

“Do you think someone else would cover my shift?” I frown, trying to think of who would maybe be willing to do it. Tips are good on Friday and Saturday nights.

“I’m off next weekend,” Molly says, taking a drag on her cigarette and then puffing the smoke out in little rings. She thinks it’s sexy. I think it’s a weird thing to take pride in.

“Molly?” She doesn’t look at me. “Please, Molly. What will it take?”

“I already said no.”

“You didn’t, though.”

She stares at me out of the corner of her cat-eye-lined hazel eyes. “I’m on cleanup Monday through Thursday.”

“How’d you end up drawing that short straw?” I ask.

“You want me to take your shifts or not?”

I let out a deep breath. Do I really want to work a double two nights this week and then come back in the middle of the night to clean up after whatever happens in the private rooms on a Wednesday night? Not to mention managing inventory and shipping for the online store I manage. I check my notes app for my to-do list. It’s actually not that bad. I might be able to swing this…

“You could always ask the other girls. I’m sure they’d be thrilled to give up their pole time to sling some drinks.” She smirks.

“Fine,” I say. “Yes, thank you.” I grin at her.

She puffs on her cigarette and nods at my phone. The door swings open and Grover pops his head out.

“What’s going on back here?”

“I’m going on a road trip next weekend!”

“You have plans?” he frowns.

“That’s what I said,” Molly says, pointing at him.

“Should I not?” I ask.

“No! I mean, yes, for the love of little baby Jesus. Go. Please! Go!”

“Am I really that pathetic?” I ask.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, booping my nose at the same time Molly says, “Yes.”

“Ouch,” I cough out with a sharp laugh.

“Well,you’renot pathetic, but the way things have been going for you? First, there’s Joaquin and Melody kicking you out. And then the stuff with Zeke? You’ve been on a rough streak.”

I blink at him. I hadn’t realized I’d told him so much about my personal life. Not that I had anyone else to talk to about it.

“Zeke wasn’t a big deal,” I say, still feeling a little stung from how that whole thing went down. He’s with Faye now, who he’d been too dense to realize he was already in love with when he asked me out. Faye is incredible and they’re so sweet together. But he was the first guy I’d actually been excited to go out with since Joaquin.

“Fine,” Grover says with a smirk. “But getting kicked out of your apartment so that Joaquin, your serial situationship, could ask his girlfriend of five minutes to move in?”

My cheeks heat and I make a note in my app to never again tell Grover anything personal.

“Thanks for kicking me when I’m down,” I say, half joking.

Joaquin gave me two weeks to find a new place. And it was by sheer dumb luck that I walked into a coffee shop a few days later to find Faye talking to Ainsley about their sudden sublet predicament.

Grover grabs my phone and reads with a smirk as I try to steal it back. But he’s at least a foot taller than me, and it doesn’t take much for him to thumb in a response.

“You’re welcome,” he says with a low chuckle as he goes back inside, passing me my phone. I open it to read it.

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