My social skills, which had never been all that great, had turned to shit. After a year locked away in a hell of my own making, I’d emerged even more of a jerk. Normally, I wouldn’t care. Except I’d offended the woman, Griff had assigned me to work with, had asked me to protect.
How did I know I’d offended her?
Well, the sweet, enticing, teasing smiles she gave to everyone she came in contact with? After my run-in with her boyfriend, not one was directed at me. And when she needed a beer or cider on tap? Rather than ask for it, like she’d done prior to my “you couldn’t handle a man like me” comment, she pushed me out of her way and took what she needed.
Man, that woman could hustle like nobody’s business. And she smelled even better than she looked.
I’d have been completely unnecessary if not for the female clientele who chose to come directly to me to place their orders. Which kept us both busy.
By the end of our shift, I felt like I’d been in the motorcycle accident all over again. My whole body ached, my left leg felt on the verge of giving out, and part of my right hand felt on fire with pins and needles. I needed a pain pill so bad my mouth watered at the thought of swallowing one down, and my pulse ticked up in anticipation of the sweet oblivion it would provide.
About that…
The call to my old college buddy wasn’t the only hail Mary play I’d made that fateful day. A friend of a friend’s cousin had come through for me. Sure, after hearing from Griff and agreeing to come to Vermont, I should have turned the guy down. But he’d gone out of his way to show up at my house, and I’d had the cash. Having the pills in my possession calmed me, even if I didn’t plan to take any unless the pain became unbearable.
Unbearable, like it is right now?
Shit.
No. Only for over ten on a pain scale of one to ten.
Tonight fell in the eight and three-quarters to nine-and-a-half range.
The constant battle I fought, craving a pill vs. trying to convince myself not to take one, only added to my exhaustion and made me feel like ripping the head off of anyone who looked in my direction. I wanted to get the hell away from people, to go home to my bed. First, I needed to wait for Lily to finish counting out the register—a task she was performing with sloth-like speed to piss me off, no doubt in my mind—so I could walk her to her car.
She had no idea who she was dealing with. As a not-very-well-behaved only child of, for all intents and purposes, a single mother, I knew better than to engage with an angry female. In the U.S. military, I’d mastered patience, could sit and wait for hours, days if necessary, and in conditions a lot worse than a hard chair in a temperature-controlled structure protected from the weather.
I’d sooner slice out my tongue than ask her to hurry it up.
Fighting off another yawn, I scrolled through some text messages on my phone.
My mother’s neighbor’s son was interested in buying the house I’d grown up in. The house I’d shared with Mom until she died. I was out of the country more than in it. Didn’t make sense to pay for my own place. Mom had liked having me around when I was in town, and I liked having a warm, welcoming place to call home.
It wasn’t warm or welcoming anymore.
But did I want to sell?
No.
I wanted my life to go back to the way it was before her death, before my accident, and before pain pills had taken over my life. Back to me being able to do the job I loved. A job that had value and made a difference in the world. Back to when I had full use of my leg, wrist, and hand. Back to when I didn’t feel like a thirty-one-year-old in a sixty-year-old body.
Next.
Another text from my old buddy, Ax, a real live lumberjack prior to joining the Marines, asking if I’d given any more thought to working for him out in Los Angeles, providing private security for the rich and famous. I would hate that job but needed to keep my options open just in case I couldn’t pass the physical exam necessary to clear my return to active duty, which would be my first choice of employment.
Next.
Ah, look. Like he could tell I was thinking about him, a text from my CO wanting to pin me down on the scheduling of that physical exam. Complete with threats to schedule it himself if he didn’t hear back from me in the next forty-eight hours.
No way I would pass that exam if completed in the next week or two. I needed more time.
Intending to put him off another couple of weeks, I’d just brought up the return message box when a flash of movement by the back door caught my attention. A quick glance toward the bar confirmed it.
Lily had left without me.
“Damn it.” I pushed to stand, giving my leg a moment to ready itself to take my weight. As soon as I felt stable, I took off after her. “Wait up!” I called as I reached the parking lot, getting madder by the second at my limp, my harsh breathing, and the out-of-shape disgrace I’d let myself become.
And, of course, at Lily. “I said, wait up, damn it!” I yelled again, gaining on her as she approached an ancient white van. Dented. Rusted. An old bakery logo on the side painted over but still visible. Anyone could be inside that van, waiting to grab her, to…
Digging deep, I called out, “Stop,” in the tone I routinely used to let my soldiers know I meant business.
Lily jerked to a stop and, hands on her hips, swung around to face me. “You are not the boss of me.”
“Griff told me to walk you to your car after work.”
“Well, Griff should have asked me if I wanted you to walk me to my car after work.”
“He also told me you were sweet and nice to everyone.” All evidence to the contrary.
Ignoring me, she turned and continued walking to the driver’s side door of the van.
“This yours?” Not what I’d pictured a woman like her driving. She seemed more like the Mini Cooper or Prius type.
“She’s not much to look at, but she’s dependable.” She mumbled something that sounded like, “Unlike most everyone else in my life.” Taking out her keys, she inserted one into the driver’s side door, turning it, jiggling it carefully until the lock clicked, then she pulled on the handle to open the door.
I reached out to stop her, trying to ignore how good it felt to have my hands on her again, before she could climb in. “Open the back.”
She snapped out a, “No.”
“The rear doors are held closed by a rubber cord.” With metal hooks, like you see holding down luggage on the top of a car. “Anyone could get in there.”
“No one is in there.” Her words came out less forceful, like maybe she hadn’t considered that and now she wasn’t so sure she still wanted to fight about it.
I held her tight, not minding the contact.
“You’re not going to let me leave until I let you look in the back of my van, are you?”
Smart woman.“Nope.”
“Fine.” Twisting out of my hold, she stomped around to the back of the van.
Her unhappy acceptance of the situation made me want to smile. I held back.
While she unwrapped the cord, I brought up the flashlight app on my phone. The parking lot was well lit, but I wasn’t taking any chances. With the doors opened, I scanned the van’s contents. Large metal clamps, a circular saw, and various other power tools. Scraps of wood. Moving blankets. “What is all—?”
With a curt, “None of your business,” she grabbed both doors, slammed them shut, then angrily re-wrapped the cord. “Same as my life and my relationship with Dorian. None. Of. Your. Business.” That said, with emphasis, she stomped back to the front of the van and climbed in.
“Nice, my ass,” I mumbled.
Apparently loud enough for her to hear.
“I am nice,” she yelled.
Then she hoisted herself into the van, slammed the door, and with a rev of the engine and squealing tires, she peeled out of her parking spot, then the parking lot.
For the first time in a year, my lips turned up into an actual spontaneous, amused smile. It felt damn good.
The next morning, before eight o’clock, I was not smiling when my cellphone woke me. Seeing it was Griff, I answered with a, “What?”
“I hear you’re making friends and playing nice with your new coworkers.”
He sounded way too energetic for so early in the morning. Rolling over in my hard, lumpy bed, I shook out the pins and needles in my hand and propped the phone under my ear. “Who’d you hear it from?”
“Lily.”
Not surprised. “What’d she say?”
“She doesn’t want to work with you anymore.”
I rubbed my hand over my beard, dread starting to ball in my gut. I didn’t want to go back to California, needed more time away, wasn’t anywhere near getting my shit together. Case in point, I’d succumbed and taken a pill last night. Only one, but I hated myself for it. “What did you tell her?”
“That you’re doing exactly what I told you to do.”
Not exactly. I’d insulted her. By sharing the truth…about her dickless boyfriend and her inability to handle a man like me.
“What did she have to say to that?”
Griff laughed. “She hung up on me.”
“You find that funny?”
“You don’t get it. Lily doesn’t get mad. She doesn’t hang up on people, especially me.” He laughed again. “You have got her all fired up. Never seen anything like it.”
“Glad you find it entertaining.”
“It’s good,” he said, no longer laughing. “For both of you. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
“Roger that.”
Before I hit the button to end the call, he asked, “You got plans for tomorrow?”
Sunday. My day off. “Let me check my calendar,” I deadpanned. He knew I didn’t have plans.
“Good. I’ll pick you up at six a.m. You’re going to help me sell apples and cider at the farmers’ market.”
“Six in the morning?” Was he kidding? “I have to work tonight.”
“See you then.” He ended the call before I could give my opinion of waking up that early, assuming I could sleep at all.
A pill would calm your mind and your body and put you right to sleep, just like last night. Then you’ll be rested to spend a nice day with Griff.
“Ahhhhh,” I yelled at myself, jamming the heels of my hands into my eyes. “Stop it.”
I would fight that battle after work.
Assuming I survived my next shift with Lily.
Saturday evening, Lily made it impossible for me to ignore her motivational nonsense, because she’d positioned her whiteboard right beside the hard cider taps where I spent a good deal of my time:
Be happy. Not because everything is good, but because you can see the good in everything.
Its current location meant I would have to listen to people reading it out loud, discussing it amongst themselves, and asking my opinion.
My opinion? Some situations have no good at all. Most situations, to be honest. Anyone who thought differently was naïve to life in the real world.
Luckily, things started off busy, giving me a valid reason to avoid conversation and a distraction from the fact my sore body would rather be horizontal on a soft surface than vertical, hustling to fill the orders shouted from all around me. The customers. The waitresses. Lily.
On the plus side, my prickly bartending partner had calmed down a bit. Still no smiles aimed in my direction, but she came off friendly enough. My hopes for a good start to a decent shift, without incident, plummeted when a big, burly, bearded guy plunked his glass of beer on the bar in front of me and called out, “Hey, Lily. The new guy is trying to pass off Budweiser piss as Red Rover.”
Red Rover. A Belgian-style amber ale. Which was what I’d served him, an amber ale from the tap labeled Red Rover.
Lily hurried over. “Sorry, Jack.” She took his glass, dumped the contents in the sink, and retrieved a clean glass. Pushing in next to me, she pulled the tap handle labeled Red Rover. Same as I’d done. With only about an inch of beer in the glass, she stopped, studying the brew. Shaking her head, she tasted it. Dumped it.
Then she pulled the tap labeled Budweiser, tasted the beer that came out. Then she did that for every beer on tap. The crowd seemed to swell, everyone watching Lily work, waiting to be served. Watching me.
“Hey, Kurt,” Lily called out.
What the hell was he still doing here?
Kurt showed up beside me. “Yeah?”
“These tap handles are all messed up. Can you fix them real quick?”
I answered with, “I can fix them,” even though I had no idea how to go about doing that. Better me than Kurt.
Lily turned to me. “Griff told me you don’t drink alcohol.”
“I don’t.”
“These brewer tap handles screw on and off so they can be moved depending on which beer line is attached. If you don’t drink, you won’t be able to taste the beer coming out of the spout to match it to the correct handle.”
Fair point.
“I’m happy to help, Lily,” Kurt said, elbowing me aside. “Anything for you, hot stuff.”
I imagined how he’d sound trying to speak around my fist shoved down his throat.
As Lily got back to work serving the thirsty masses, I watched Kurt, trying to memorize which tap handle went where. Katie came over to the waitresses’ order/pick-up area. “Odd how the taps got messed up on your shift, Kurt.” She tilted her head and raised her pierced eyebrow, a non-verbal message I received loud and clear.
Kurt set me up. Asshole.
“Shit happens,” he answered. “Glad I’m here to fix it.”
I bet he was.
Coincidence?
I didn’t believe in coincidences.
I waited until he had the last tap handle in hand before I moved in close, lowered my voice, and said, so only he could hear, “Actions have consequences, Kurt. You want to know what those will be if something like this happens again?”
He turned, his smirk disappearing the instant he got a good look at me. Rage coursed hot through my veins. The urge to do battle, strong—to make him pay, even stronger. That he’d intentionally tried to make me look like an incompetent fool. In front of Lily. In front of everyone.
Kurt swallowed, his eyes looking from left to right nervously.
I’d made my point.
Lily interrupted my stare-down to say, “I need two cans of Green State Lager and an Unstrung Harp. From the cooler. Two house cabs. Six-ounce.” To Kurt, she said, “Thanks for the fix. We can talk about how that happened tomorrow.”
Atta girl. I didn’t need her to stand up for me but appreciated the gesture all the same.
Customers called out their orders, unaware of or unconcerned with Kurt’s bullshit. No time to dwell on it, we got back to work.
Unfortunately, as the night wore on, things did not get better.
After hours of standing, bending, and reaching, pain in my leg, my shoulder, and my back made it difficult to focus on the simplest of tasks. Failure to keep up with the home exercise plan given to me by my physical therapist after my accident had me deconditioned and struggling to hide it. An open can of Focal Banger fell from my weakened grip, dropping onto the bar top, sending a foamy wave in the direction of several customers. A few got spritzed. Only one got doused.
Lily swooped in to clean up the mess and comp the group’s round of drinks.
Then a full pint glass slid through my numb fingers, soaking me from the waist down.
When my boot caught on a corner of the rubber mat meant to keep us from slipping, causing me to stumble, Lily brought over a stool. A stool! Which showed exactly what she thought of me: A loser incapable of doing the job properly while standing. And I lost it. “Stay the hell away from me with that,” I yelled, mad as hell at…myself. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop me from taking it out on her.
“I thought—” she tried.
“Don’t waste your time thinking,” shot out of my mouth, loud enough to make everyone around us go quiet. Because I’d just insulted Speakeasy’s favorite bartender. Again.
Shit.
I held still, waiting to see how she’d react.
Did she tear up?
Nope.
Did she yell?
No, she did not.
Instead, like my outburst never happened, she simply turned away, tucked the stool into the corner beneath the bar, and got back to work.
At first, when concerned patrons approached, asking how she could work with someone like me, she channeled her Zen self, responding with things like:
“I don’t allow the energy of negative people to affect me.”
“You don’t stop shining because someone doesn’t appreciate your light.”
“The way he treats people is a statement about him, not me.”
“No point in stressing over something I can’t change.”
“Everyone is fighting a battle we know nothing about.”
To be honest, I appreciated that last one.
Over time, however, a little snark made its way into her responses. When friends approached with, “What’s his problem?” emphasized by a glare in my direction, Lily casually responded with things like:
“Nipple piercing gone wrong.”
“Got his balls waxed today.”
“Roid rage.”
“Waiting for a call from the clinic.” Followed by a whispered, “If you know what I mean.”
“He’s lonely. Needs a good woman to straighten him out.”
I played it cool, acted like I didn’t hear. The sassy side of her? A total turn-on.
When the good women of Colebury, Vermont, converged on my taps, in need of large quantities of local beer and hard cider, I ignored their blatant advances. Rather than retreat, they returned to Lily for further encouragement, which she provided in the form of, “Don’t give up so easily. A woman needs to put in the work for a man like him.”
Thanks a lot, pal.
While I found Lily’s form of underhanded combat entertaining, the dozen or so women badgering me all night? Not amusing. At. All.
By the end of my shift, I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever wanted to sit down and elevate my leg more. Lily could take all the time she wanted to cash out. I was in no hurry to move.
A while later, someone nudged my leg. I opened my eyes to see Lily standing over me. “You going to sleep here all night?”
Shit. Closed my eyes for a minute… “Uh.” I cleared my throat. “Didn’t plan to.”
“Come on,” she said with a head tilt toward the door. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Damn right you will.” After stirring up the single ladies, Lily intercepted credible intel of a possible plot to ambush me in the parking lot. In response, she’d appointed herself my protector. This job was turning into a giant pain in my entire body.
With a deep breath, I pushed to a stand. Took a few seconds to get my balance then started a slow limp toward the door.
“You okay?” she asked, looking in my direction.
“Yup.” I glanced down at her. “Except for my sore nipples, my chaffed balls, and the unwelcome ragey side effects from the steroids I’m apparently taking.”
Lowering her head, she picked up her pace, not fast enough for me to miss her sly smile. Okay with me to follow. The sway of her shapely hips in that tight mini skirt and her bare legs? Absolute perfection.
Later that night, I finally gave in and took a pain pill, deciding a good night’s sleep was necessary for me to have the energy to work with Griff in the morning.