Page 7 of A Favor Owed

“We both went to college in New York. It was fun to reminisce. That’s all.”

“Yeah, he looked like he wanted to do a whole lot of reminiscing with your ass,” she says with a saucy grin that makes me laugh.

The night passes quickly, as weekend nights at work always do. In the three months since Cliff offered me this job despite my lack of waitressing experience, I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I can balance a tray filled with drinks without spilling any, jot down orders quickly, and be friendly without inviting flirtation or any other unwanted attention. The fact that I’m paying my way with this job makes me that much prouder of it.

We close at two o’clock, clean up, and head out. I ride my bike home and go to bed, fighting off the fear and loneliness that always engulfs me when I lie in my bed at night. God, I miss my shrink. And my six-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. And my Louboutin-destroying labradoodle. I miss comfort and safety, no matter how superficial they are. A thin blanket is better than nothing.

Doing this on my own means being alone, and alone is terrifying. But alone I must be. I have no intention of returning home, so I don’t need to forge great relationships that would give my dad leverage over me. I have no one to run to if I fail, no one to call in an emergency, no one to cry to when the stress is too much. Every dollar I make goes to my survival, and I have very few dollars to spare at the end of each week and no one to go to if money runs out. I’m on a tightrope, and there’s no net if I fall.

I finally pass out and sleep until noon. Saturday consists of an online Pilates class, studying, and food shopping. When I get to work at seven o’clock, Finnegan’s is already filling up with the usual mix of grad students, fake ID–bearing undergrads, and neighborhood regulars. Kelsey and I and another couple of waitresses are back and forth between the bar and the tables constantly, raking in tips and having fun doing it. The DJ who Cliff hires on weekends is playing everything from Duran Duran to Dua Lipa, and the dance floor is packed with people getting their drunk dance on.

Around midnight, I notice that Brady has come in with some guys I vaguely recognize from school. They’re drinking and laughing and flirting with some girls at another table. A flash of jealousy whips through me, taking me by surprise. I shake it off, reminding myself of what I told Kelsey just yesterday: I’m not interested in Brady McDaniels.

“What do you need, honey?” Cliff leans toward me from across the bar so he can hear my order. He’s in his late fifties with close-cropped gray hair, a face lined from years in the sun and surf, and weathered blue eyes. In the daydreams I’ve been prone to recently, he’s my dad and his wife Darya is my mom and we live in a trailer park near the beach. I refinish surfboards for a living when I’m not working in the bar. Cute, right?

I give him the order, and I’m about to go clear some empties and take orders for next rounds when a stout, heavy body presses against me from behind.

“Hey!” I try to move away. Hairy, heavily muscled arms wrap around my midsection. Ugh. Gross.

“Where do you think you’re going, baby?” a beer-drenched voice says in my ear. He pushes me against the bar, his hands latching onto my hips. “Just came to see where our beers are. And maybe get a dance with you.”

“Get off me,” I demand, but I have no room to elbow him or even stomp on his foot. “Cliff!” I call down the bar to where he’s pouring my IPAs, but the music is too loud. The drunk idiots next to me are too busy trying to get laid by the drunk girls they’re with. The bouncer, Russ, is checking IDs at the door, and I can’t catch his eye.

I push the guy’s hands off my hips, but that just makes him wrap his arms around me and grind against me, taking the dance I refused to give.

I’m just about to pour a discarded beer over his head when suddenly the music stops and the DJ’s microphone screeches.

“Hey, everyone!” I look up at the stage in shock. It’s Brady, his arm around the DJ. “If everyone could turn their attention to the bar for a minute, my man with the unfortunate plaid shirt who looks like a fun-size Dwayne Johnson just got engaged. Let’s give him a big round of applause.”

Everyone starts hooting and hollering.

“Congrats, douche,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and jerking my chin toward the stage.

“What the f—” Mr. Muscles turns away from me to find a spotlight on him and the entire bar looking his way. “Is he talking aboutme? Who the hell is that asshole?”

“Hey, son, come on back to your table,” Brady says, waving him away from me. “You and Hortense are a special couple. You deserve this. Folks, can you feel the love tonight?”

Everyone either cheers orawws.

“Play it, man,” says Brady, handing the mic back to the DJ. And sure enough, Elton John starts crooning from the speakers. Mr. Muscles stalks away from me in a fury. I watch as he tries to make his way to Brady, but his path becomes blocked by couples swaying to “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.”

I turn back to the bar to find Cliff clutching his stomach laughing. Once my shock wears off, I start laughing, too. Brady just faked out that meathead, and the only reason he would have done that is…me.

Suddenly, I get a whiff of lightly cologned, hot-but-innocent boy-next-door. I whirl around to see Brady standing directly in front of me. My back is pressed up against the bar, Brady forced into my space by the crowd. I have to crane my neck up to look at him.

“You all right?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” I reply, but I’m not sure what I am. The feeling that rushed through me when I realized what Brady had done scared me even more than the jealousy. I don’t want to drag him and his sunshine and freckles into my shitshow of a life. “That was some stunt you pulled there. You have no idea who that guy is, do you?”

“Nope. Not a clue. But it was either that or flatten him where he stood, and I’m not in the mood to get kicked out of a bar tonight.”

Cliff’s voice cuts in as he puts the last of the drinks on my tray. “Here you go, honey.”

“I’ll get out of your way,” says Brady.

“Yeah, you’d better get back over there before you miss out on all the action,” I say with a smirk in the direction of his female-swarmed table.

He makes a show of peering across the bar. He shakes his head. “I don’t see any girls with purple hair over there,” he says. “Do you?”

---