Page 2 of Entirely Yours
I huff a laugh. “Yeah, well—” I”m cut off by my manager yelling from down the bar.
“Thea! Can you grab more towels from the back?”
“Yeah, sure,” I call at the same time TBD says, “Thea… That’s a pretty name.”
He says it with such genuine care that I stumble a step on my way to the back. Before I push through the door I turn to him, rushing out, “Don’t go yet! Please. I’ll be right back.”
He nods and those dimples pop out.
I press through the swinging door into the back room before immediately turning on my heel and poking my head back out. “Also…” My smile is sheepish. “What’s your name? Since you know mine.”
“Jules,” he replies. “People call me Jules.”
“That’s a pretty name,” I echo, loving the way he dips his chin to hide his smile. “Be right back.”
After I’ve located some towels, I head back to the front, drop the towels behind the bar, and beeline back over to my new friend, Jules. Playing hard to get has never been my forte.
“So…” I start, elbows making their way onto the counter to cradle my chin. “Come here often?”
The corner of his mouth quirks. “In town for a gig actually.”
“A gig?” If this guy is a musician then he’s hitting the trifecta that makes up my own personal kryptonite—tattoos, dimples, talent.
He nods, taking a sip of his beer. My eyes follow as he licks a stray droplet from the corner of his lips. “I play violin with a band occasionally. Only when they need an extra or their normal guy is out.”
“Didn’t feel like taking advantage of the groupies after?” I cringe.The groupies? Who am I?
He rubs his knuckles across his mouth, hiding a smirk. “Not really my scene.”
I give a disbelieving laugh at that. “But a northeastern version of a honky tonk is?”
“Honestly, my hotel is across the street, and I wasn’t quite ready to go to bed yet.” He says everything like each word is thoughtfully picked out of his brain in just the right combination.
Because of that, a picture of Jules in a bed suddenly flashes into my mind. I can feel the heat creeping up my neck—the telltale signs of a blush that my pale skin is unlikely to conceal. Jules clocks the red spreading across my chest but is kind enough not to mention it. “So where are you from if not Boston?” I ask, quickly attempting to divert his attention.
“A sm—” The sound of glass shattering cuts him off and nearly makes me jump out of my skin. Apparently we aren’t going to get through a conversation uninterrupted tonight.
I whip around and see the new girl—my replacement—has just dropped a tray of dirty beer pints, leaving her surrounded by shattered glass. She meets my eyes, and I can tell she’s about to cry, which simply won’t do.
“Shit.” I grab the broom and dustpan and rush over to begin sweeping up. “It’s okay, babe. No one even noticed,” I joke. She doesn’t seem quite ready to joke about the situation, however. A lone tear drops from her eye and she purses her lips, head shaking.
Standing to meet her gaze, I whisper, “Do you know how many glasses I’ve broken during my time here?”
Her watery eyes look into mine, and she shakes her head again. “Dozens,” I reply. “Tim finally took pity on me and found someone else to bus the tables. I think he realized it would save him money in the long run if I stayed behind the bar.” I smirk. “Now come on, let’s clean up and go take your fifteen.”
Thirty minutes later, I’ve finally gotten the new girl, Sophia, calm and have resigned myself to never seeing TBD again—it would be my luck that he’s already left or moved on to some other person at the bar. Turns out Sophia is newly pregnant, andher baby daddy is just as shitty as mine. I felt like I needed to reassure her that, while everything might not turn out “alright,” and it definitely wouldn’t be easy, she has someone she can call and vent to when needed.
Raising Chloe is hard, but it’s also the best thing that ever happened to me. However, becoming a mother at nineteen was not in my life plan. I honestly wasn’t sure if I would ever have kids. I was planning on dancing for Ballet Boston until I retired, probably in my late thirties, and opening my own studio, but never really thought beyond that.
After fluffing Sophia’s hair and refilling her water bottle, I slide out of the back and immediately look over to where Jules was seated.
My heart instantly drops out of my chest. He's gone.
Normally after a gig in Boston, I go straight back to Ben’s apartment. Sometimes he’ll try to talk me into going out with some of his work friends, but usually I’m so peopled-out, I want to get back home as quickly as possible.
Ben moving back to Sassafras really makes me second guess taking gigs in Boston anymore, though. Since he’s not here, I had to stay at a hotel which feels so sterile and also cuts into my pay… I really need to find somewhere to play closer to home. And then, of course, the one time I don’t have Ben with me, I got back to the room and could not fall asleep.
That’s how I found myself shutting down a western-themed bar across the street from my hotel.
