Page 6 of Hallow’s Eve
I ignored the part about singing. We’d been over it too many times. “It ain’t smart to leave with just anybody.”
“You’ve got a key to our apartment. Pick some guy and bring him over. You could be waiting a lifetime for the right dick to come along.”
“You’re right. I’m still waiting for the right dick to come along.”
Donette got loud, “Bless your heart. I don’t see how you do it. I can’t go a week without a dick in my mouth.”
I slapped her with my bar towel, but she was right.
Grady came over after he heard Donette. He joined us to roll. “What are we talking about?”
The knife slipped, and I sliced my hand. “Ouch.” I held up my bloody hand to show them.
Donette ignored my injury. Her voice was dry. “Getting Eve laid.”
Grady made a face. Standing, he took my hand and me over to the sink to run it under water. He rubbed the bloody cut and looked me in the eyes, “You need to get laid, Eve. Life’s too short to wait for the right guy.” Then he cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Did you hear about my surprise?”
“I did. What is it?”
Grady pulled gauze and tape from his apron and wrapped my hand up. “That’s not how surprises work.”
He’d dressed as the wolfman which was great with his grey hair and beard. Celie was a sight as the bride of Frankenstein. She’d even done the big, tall hair. Once we finished with the silverware, the two of them got on stage between the third and fourth act for a duet, John Prine’s, “In Spite of Ourselves.” Their rendition was a classic at Bootsies, but also a bitter reminder that they used to be in love.
Behind the bar, Nikki, our day bartender waited to be relieved. She’d been slinging drinks all day as a scary clown. Ford showed up late. Who could blame him after getting knocked out last night? He’d dressed as a member of the Tennessee Titans, big surprise. In the same jersey he wore yesterday, he’d thrown on white sweatpants instead of his normal jeans, pushed them up to his knees and painted a black stripe under his eyes.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
Reaching up, he scrubbed the back of his head.
“Who would do such a thing?” I declared.
“Probably one of those bikers.”
Jasper came in even later, saying he was a lumberjack. He’d simply worn a flannel with his normal jeans and t-shirt. Bless him. His cornbread’s not done in the middle. He limped over.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked him.
“Someone ran over my foot.”
“Lordalmighty. You serious?” There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t almost get hit by a car walking to work.
Viv and Greta were dressed as Playboy bunnies, one red and one purple, but they put the bunny ears up through a cowboy hat. Both had on those body suits with a thong. At least they wore nude tights. They’d rake in the tips tonight. Not that they didn’t every other night. I didn’t want to be mean, but Greta was so trashy she better not linger by the curb on garbage day. Viv had gotten so much work done she could donate her body to Tupperware when she died. I had no idea how she could afford it. Well, that was a lie. Viv had expensive tastes in men.
The barmaids were all a sexy version of something, a sexy nurse, a sexy maid, a sexy female firefighter, a sexy Freddy Krueger, a sexy cowgirl. I simply wore my white dress from homecoming Senior year and kept a red apple in my pocket to pull out when people asked who I was. Last year, I had a bunch of fake ivy and a stuffed animal snake to wrap around my arm too, but our dog Killer done ate them.
Our kitchen staff came as Joe Exotic zombies, every last one of them. Wearing blond mullets, pink button up shirts and cowboy hats, they had done their faces as the living dead. Well, all of them except Jennifer our one female cook who came as an undead Carol Baskin. She put the fake blonde, braided wig up in a hairnet and looked hilarious. The patrons had to be in costume to enter. Not really. We couldn’t make them, but we had a creepy, red lettered sign that said as much. Some of them had gone all out like the scary twins from the Shining but some claimed to be Randy Travis or George Jones because they wore a cowboy hat and boots. There were a few Rebas and Dollys too.
While I ran drinks, something caught my eye. Lordalmighty. From the back wall, a man watched me. I always noticed that sort of thing. A girl had to keep an eye out for men creeping on her and all. However, with this one, I stopped dead in my tracks and stared back. My breath hit the road, and my knees gave out at the sight of him. This bearded man donned a pair of black angel wings as big as life. Shirtless, he showed off his gorgeous bod with a tattoo across his bicep and chest. That was it. That was his costume. Otherwise, he wore distressed, faded jeans with a proper belt buckle and black cowboy boots. It was the best damned costume I’d seen all night. He was so hot he made my teeth sweat. This man was the gosh darn best looking man I’d ever seen in my life, hands down and nipples up. Yes, my nipples got hard just seeing him.
Ding Dong, he won. Only he stared at me like I was the prize. I gulped and felt a trickle of wetness in my undergarments. I tried to play off our staring contest like it was nothing. On my way to deliver two drafts, I knew I’d have to walk past him. I worried for the first time tonight about my hair. I hadn’t been able to do a thing with it before work and by now it probably looked like a cat had been sucking on it. Sweating like a stripper on Sunday, I’d been busier than a chicken running from Colonel Sanders. When I almost made it past him, the angel stepped in front of me. Rocking to a stop, I nearly spilled the beers.
“Lord have mercy,” I complained.
He took the beers from my stunned hands. Face to face with his hard nipples, I lifted my chin to see his face. The dark angel smiled down at me with a grin so wickedly sexy that my mouth watered even more. Not only that, his glorious brown eyes smiled too as they searched mine, mesmerizing me for a moment.
“Have a drink with me.” His rough voice grabbed a hold of me as he handed me back a beer.
I shook my head trying to shake the spell. “I can’t. I work here.” I took both beers back. “These are for somebody else.”
