“I know it’s fast,” I add in a rush, “and,ben, I guess we didn’t reallymove intogether. My new apartment fell through. The landlord was some sketchyconnard, and I couldn’t keep my old place, so X is letting me keep my stuff in his spare room, and I’m staying there until I find something else.”
“Oh, DeeDee, I’m so sorry.” Monroe practically falls off her barstool as she lunges forward to grab my arm. “I had no idea you got stranded. That must have been horrible.”
“Kinda,” I admit, “but it is actually going very well with X. He’s a bouncer, so he works late nights too, and we get along so well.”
“That’s good.” Roxy finally crunches down on her nacho. “Just so you know, if you do end up needing somewhere to stay again, you can always call me.”
“Or me,” Monroe adds.
“Yeah, I literally spent a year occupying Monroe’s living room when I was sixteen,” Roxanne chips in. “I would recommend it.”
I make myself smile as I thank them and tell them I will, but it doesn’t stop me from remembering that they were the first people I thought to call, or why I decided not to.
We aren’t teenagers. Monroe owns a business. Roxanne manages one. They have careers and cool jobs and dreams they were brave enough to chase. They have boyfriends—serious boyfriends with careers of their own.Tabarnak, Roxy is getting married in May.
I can’t move into their living rooms.
So me and all my stuff are staying with a guy I met less than two months ago, but hey, people have done crazier stuff before.
Monroe helps Roxanne with the nachos while I finish getting the bar set up. I’m closing tonight, but since it’s Monday, I doubt we’ll stay open any later than eleven. The two of them clear the plate in about twenty minutes and wish me a good shift as they pull their coats on.
“Oh, hey,” I call out when they’re about to leave, “I didn’t check the schedule for today. Do you know if I’m closing with Zach again, Monroe?”
“I don’t believe he’s on tonight. I hope you’ve been playing nice with him.”
Roxanne laughs. “He issoin love with you, DeeDee.”
I put my hands on my hips. “He is not.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah. Right.”
“He is not!” I repeat. “Why does everyone always say that? We arefriends.”
“Yeah, he’s the kind of friend who wants to take you on dates, buy you flowers, and call you his girlfriend. He also probably wants to bend you over the bar.”
“Roxy!”
I don’t know why the hell my face gets hot. I’m usually the one making sexual comments about anything and everything. If there’s an English word for the opposite of prude, that’s me, but I always feel like my face is on fire whenever anyone talks about me and Zach.
Probably because I’m mad. It’s like the people at this bar have never heard of the word ‘platonic’—which, yeah, I hadn’t heard of for a long time either, but you don’t have to speak perfect English to understand that sometimes guys and girls really arejust friends.
Nobody accuses any of the cooks of being secretly in love with me, and I spend almost as much time joking around with them as I do with Zach. I mean, sure, I do call him my work husband. Yes, I can admit that he’s cute and handsome and going to be some lucky girl’s perfect boyfriend one day. Maybe I haveaccidentallythought about kissing him a few times over the years, especially when he looks at me in this one way of his that makes my breath get all fast and has me wanting to push him up against a wall.
And okay, if it came down to it, every Taverne Toulouse-themed round of ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill’ would end with him as the ‘marry’ option, but that doesn’t mean we can’t care about each other in a way that doesn’t involve kissing and a bit ofcrac crac boum boumin the storage closet.
One of these days, I’m going to get up on the bar and tell everyone in the room just that.
“Just keep it professional at work is all I ask,” Monroe says with a sigh.
“You have to admit they’d be great together,” Roxanne prods.
“I own this bar. I don’t have to admit anything.”
“Oh, and remember!” Roxanne whirls around at the last second to point at me and then Monroe. “Your bridesmaid dresses came in, and we’re having the fitting at my place tomorrow. Zach RSVP’d to say he’ll be at the wedding, so we have to make sure yours looksextragood, DeeDee.”
I flip her off as she laughs. They leave the bar, and I’m left standing there with my face still flaming and something hot shifting around in my chest.
The crowd that filters in over the next few hours is as mixed as ever. We get everything from McGill students starting off their nights out to businesspeople on company happy hours to mega hipsters who share Monroe’s obsession with craft beer.
