Page 4 of Promise Me

The last place I’d go to is to a bar—unless it was to celebrate a win.

Today, though, it’s just after 6:00 a.m., and I’m the first one here.

To be fair, I am the one who owns said bar.

Hudson’s.

I know. Original. It took me months to come up with it.

But really, I was just tired of not having a goal, of notknowing what was next in my life. So I bought this place, moved back to Lovers, and turned it into a bar.

I step behind the bar top. There’s only one opening for the bar top, which is almost a full square in the middle of the room. The liquor bottles and taps are in the middle of the bar top, making them easy to see only while we are working.

“I knew you’d be here this early,” Linc, my best friend since fifth grade, says as he walks in through the back of the building.

“That door is for employees only,” I remind him. My tone isn’t serious, but I swear, this guy acts as if he’s the one who owns this place instead of me.

“Add me to your payroll.”

“As what?”

“Walking advertisement?”

I chuckle, grabbing my clipboard to note what needs to be restocked in the front before we open for lunch at eleven.

The closing crew is supposed to do this at night, but since I was one of them and my leg was flaring up, I sent them all home and told them I’d do this in the morning. Then I popped three Advil and went upstairs to my apartment to relax.

Now that it’s morning and I’m tired as hell, I wish I would’ve sucked it up last night.

“Are you really going to work right now?” Linc asks.

“The perks of owning your own business,” I say sarcastically. He should try it sometime.

Linc grabs a towel nearby and snaps it at me.

“Don’t give me that look right now. Working for my dad is going just fine.”

I nod, counting the seltzers in fridge one.

“Really. He loves working with me.”

I nod again.

“I’m serious. He hasn’t mentioned me buying him out once in the last six months. He likes the dynamic we have together.”

“Or he gave up that you’d ever want to take over.”

Linc shrugs. “I just don’t see myself selling real estate my entire life.”

“Have you told him that?”

He taps his knuckles to the bar tap and groans.

“Enough talk about me. Why didn’t the closing crew do this last night? You do realize this cuts into our workout. Which, at the rate you’re moving, is looking pretty nonexistent today. Is your leg bothering you again?”

“I’m fine.”

Silence settles between us as I work, fully aware that he’s watching me.

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