“Will you come back with me to Los Angeles? We can leave right now.”
CHAPTER
Eight
Late December 2014
Hal’s was mercifullydead when I made it in around six o’clock for my shift.
The week after Christmas seemed to come with a different playbook for everyone. Some got a jump on returning to the ordinary, hauling dried-up noble firs to the curb and putting lights and decorations back in storage. Others reveled in an extended seven-day holiday that didn’t end until the last football game on New Year’s Day. I was just trying to get from one end of it to the other without acknowledging the occasion.
Not that I was anti-holiday as a rule. I had a few fleeting fond memories from my childhood. My love for pop-top cinnamon rolls began with Grandma’s tradition of having them for “special breakfast” on Christmas, and she always made sure there were presents beside the small plastic tree she put on the coffee table, even if I never quite got whatever I’d been hoping for. The season had taken on a certain glamour during my time in Boston, weeks marked by the black-tie parties Henri was required to attend for work. But this New Year’s Eve would be one year since my return to Los Angeles. Ignoring the day altogether seemed like the safest way to avoid summoning any demons.
However, my best friend put a damper on those intentions by insisting on seasonal cheer. Zach’s exact words were, “Fuck that. Henri had you for eight years, doll. He can’t have our first Christmas back together, too.”
Besides the abundance of red and green—and plaid,so much plaid—regalia saturating Hal’s, Zach had gone full Martha Stewart in our apartment. There was a kitschy snow globe collection on the windowsill and special candy cane potholders hung from the oven door. A six-foot blue spruce shedding needles in the middle of our living room made it impossible to evade even the smell of the season.
I understood Zach’s desire to make merry. He was in the throes of a serious relationship, and the holidays were more fun when you had someone to curl up with to drink hot chocolate and watch Bing Crosby movies. I had also never seen him so excited about exchanging gifts. Teddy had given him a stunning watch inscribed withAll love is sweet, Given or received, and Zach had given Teddy—with my blessing—a key to our apartment.
They made sure to include me wherever possible and never made me feel like a third wheel. Zach and I had plenty of best friend time at work and we kept a standing date to watch every Seahawks game together, since football wasn’t Teddy’s thing. Teddy had also started reaching out to me on his own. He’d cemented the final selection of the watch he’d given Zach only after multiple texts, getting my opinion on everything from size and style to inscription. I had given him the hint of choosing Percy Shelley, Zach’s favorite poet. “That’s why I love you, doll,” he’d said to me then. “You know everything.” Teddy’s easy adoption of the nickname Zach had been using on me for more than a decade had been natural.
Teddy was becoming a genuine friend in his own right. Which made the conversation I’d been putting off feel more urgent.
Zach was changing out the tills and grimacing at the ancient register when I arrived. Larry insisted on running the business side of things like it was 1975. The bar’s stubborn owner had barely consented to the laptop in the back office, so getting him to purchase computerized machines for the front end had been a lost cause. Just before I’d left for Boston, Zach had convinced him to let Hal’s accept credit cards, but there hadn’t been many improvements since that epic struggle. The good news was that Larry would officially retire in the new year and Zach had finalized his purchase of Hal’s. Another reason we needed to talk.
I was tying my apron when I noticed Teddy at the end of the bar. He’d been coming in now and then to keep Zach company during his shifts. Zach finished wedging the last till back in the register, slamming it shut with a flourish. He picked up his phone and, with a few flicks of his fingers, the music coming out of the scratchy sound system switched from the frat boy anthems of early Beastie Boys to the sad dad music of the Dave Matthews Band.
I looked up at the speakers and frowned at Zach. “Dude, are you sure you’re even gay?”
Teddy leaned across the bar to plant a kiss on Zach’s lips before turning to me with a wink. “I assure you that he is very, very gay.”
I laughed. “Calm down, tiger. You’re giving those sorority girls…ideas.” I gestured toward a pack of tittering students at a nearby table.
“I was on my way out, anyway,” Teddy said. “Gotta head back to the office.”
“At this hour?” It was just past six, starting time for me and Zach, but to most of the working world, it was time to Netflix and chill. Or in my usual case, Netflix and snack.
“I can set my schedule, so I’ve been trying to align more with Zach. At least sometimes. I’d miss this guy too much if I worked a straight nine-to-five every day.” He put his hand over his heart, sighing dramatically. “The things you do for love.”
Teddy gave Zach one more quick, hard kiss—cue the giggling coeds—then grabbed his coat and offered me a hug before exiting toward the parking lot. I waited until I could hear his footsteps echoing across the asphalt before speaking.
“So it’s love then?” I asked Zach, who was still looking at the door.
“It’s been love, doll. From the minute we met.”
Zach and I really needed to talk.
By ten o’clockthere were no patrons in the bar other than Gary, a mid-sixties, gray ponytail type who came in several times per week to spend two hours drinking exactly three beers while reading a book.
“Hey Gary, are you good for a minute? I need to talk to Zach, but I don’t want to leave you hanging.”
“I’m good, Sadie girl. I’ve got my pint and a book. Don’t worry about me.”
“Thanks.” He buried his nose in a beat-up paperback. The title was obscured, but there was a black-and-white photograph of a military helicopter on the cover.
I found Zach hunched against the counter, scrunching his face as he examined the bar’s “books,” shaking his head as he tried to connect whatever was on the paper to what he could see on the shelves. Good old Larry. I imagined him as the type of person who went to his accountant and dropped a ratty shoebox full of receipts at tax time. He did keep a Mesozoic-era version of QuickBooks on the laptop, which ensured employees got paid correctly and we observed the barest legalities regarding money handling, but the rest of the record-keeping system was a mess. What passed for inventory was basically a collection of handwritten spiral notebooks. Zach had made a lot of improvements as manager, but he would still have a mess to untangle when he took the reins for good.
“Can I help with anything?”
