Page 122 of Steadfast
Jude
Zara’s brother Alec was going to do well for himself.
I pulled up in front of a gorgeous old brick building with wooden shutters. THE GIN MILL was lit up in neon over the entrance.
Inside were many, many bodies in a groovy space. There was good lighting and the dark orange hue of bricks and old wood. A gleaming copper bar stretched across one end of the room, where several people worked furiously to serve customers.
On the other end were a few booths and a DJ that I doubted would be there every night. But the opening of The Gin Mill was rocking, and people were dancing already.
“Wow,” Sophie yelled into my ear.
“Right?”
“I think I see Griff.” She pointed.
Joining hands, we wove through the crowd toward the wall. Griff, Audrey, May, Kyle and Zach were clustered together, cocktails in hand.
“Hey!” Griff said, raising his hand for a high-five. “You made it. Kind of crazy here.”
“Isn’t it?”
“What are you drinking?” Griff asked my girl. “Alec makes his own tonic water and it is tasty. And he’s pouring a Vermont-made gin with honey as its base.”
Suddenly I could taste the bitter sweetness of gin and tonic on my tongue. But that didn’t mean I had to have one. “Maybe I’ll get just a tonic water and lime.” Close enough.
“I got it,” Sophie said, slipping away from us all and heading toward the bar before I could stop her.
Griff took a sip of his. “This place is going to do well.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Alec looks happy.” He jutted his chin toward the bar, where Zara’s dark-haired brother was working hard to serve drinks.
“I thought you and Zara’s brothers weren’t close,” I said.
Griff leaned in to speak privately. “He likes me more now that I’m not banging his sister.”
“Ah,” I said, while Zach blushed profusely beside us.
God, I loved these guys. It had taken me a long time to feel part of their circle, but I did now. I wasn’t just some guy they’d paid hourly wages to over the summer. Griff and his family were my friends, and I wasn’t ever giving them up. Sophie and I went to Thursday Dinner as religiously as we went to Community Dinner on Wednesdays. This summer, on my days off, I planned to help out Griff with the renovation of the little house he shared with Audrey.
By some miracle I’d populated my life with good people. So sign me up for a lifetime of helping them wherever I could.
“What are you dudes gossiping about?” Zara asked, appearing in front of us. “Were you discussing the ridiculous shape of this belly?” She put a hand on what was, indeed, an incredibly large baby bump. It wasn’t even a bump. It was ablimp.
“How long will it be?” I asked.
“Any minute now! I can only thank her for waiting until the opening. It’s been a crazy week.” She rubbed her giant belly.
“You did a lot of work on this place?” Griff asked.
“Yeah, I couldn’t stand to watch my big brother fuck everything up. He had no idea how to do a liquor inventory. He’s a rookie who thinks he knows what he’s doing. It’s the worst.”
“Hey—everybody’s a rookie sometimes,” Audrey insisted, appearing beside Griff. “I’m, like, a permanent rookie in life. I have empathy for poor Alec.”
“But see—youadmitwhen you don’t know something,” Zara argued. “Nobody in my family iseverwrong.” She rolled her eyes.
Sophie returned a minute later with two glasses, handing me one. “What did you get?” I asked.
