16
Josh
A short guy with thick black glasses squints at the row of liquor bottles behind me.
“Need some help?” I offer, stepping aside to give him a better view.
He looks up and blinks at me twice. “Actually, yes. I don’t know what to order. I haven’t been in too many bars.”
“Well, then, we’re gonna start with your ID.”
I wait while the guy fishes his wallet from his back pocket and slides a Massachusetts license across the bar top. The picture matches his face. Danny Strong. Born in 1994.
“What is in a cement mixer?” he asks, staring at something on his phone. “I’m not much of a drinker.”
I grab a pint glass. “Why don’t we start you off with a beer, then? A nice, easy-drinking lager, and we’ll see how that goes?”
He nods, and I feel a swell of pride as I pull the tap.
The place is decently busy. Exceptionally busy if you compare it to what I estimate it pulls in on a regular night.
The string lights make a huge difference. There’s a cool, laid-back ambiance to the place now. Everybody who has walked in here tonight has been a little apprehensive at first. But once I get a drink in their hands, they become one of the many relaxed, happy faces.
That is, all but one.
Brynn plunks down onto a barstool in front of me just as I hand Danny his beer.
“What. Did. You. Do?”
She’s scowling, arms crossed over her chest. And although I fully interpret her meaning, I play dumb.
“Do? Not sure I get what you mean.”
She holds out her hands. “There are people in here. Drinking. Dancing.”
“It’s a bar.” I shrug. “You told me I needed to act like Fletch, so I am. I’m bartending.”
She scoffs. “I did not— I didn’t mean—” She lets out a defeated huff, leaning back in her seat. “How did you do it? I don’t think I remember it ever being this busy.”
The place is even fuller than it was the last time I looked around, with more pouring in through the front door.
I point to the guy on stage with a guitar singing acoustic versions of old pop songs. “I found him busking outside the hardware store. I chased him down, thinking it was Sheldon again. Things got awkward until he said he was a one-man band without a stage. I told him I was a guy with a stage that needed a one-man band. Things just escalated from there.” I pull a flyer from a stack on the bar. “Then I made a bunch of these and handed them out around town.”
She takes the paper from my hands. “Who are Seth and the Hungry Dingos?”
I nod at my busker. “Well, that’s Seth. There are no actual Dingos. I added that part because Just Seth felt a little plain.”
She watches him play for a moment. “He’s not bad.”
“He’s not good either, but no one seems to care.”
It’s true. The moment I say it, two women get up and push their table to the side to form a dance floor. They dance to Seth’s best attempt at an old Carly Rae Jepsen song. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Danny downing the last of his beer. He slams the empty glass on his table, takes a deep breath, and dances over to the women. There’s a moment where I’m not sure how his bold move is going to play out, but then they widen their circle, and their dance party of two becomes a threesome.
Brynn, who has seemingly been watching the same scene, drops her head into her hands and groans.
“You okay there?” I grab another beer glass, fill it with a hoppy IPA, and set it down in front of her.
She looks up. “I’m fine. It’s just that everything is backward.” She takes a long drink. “That guy dancing is Danny Strong. He was captain of the math decathlon team in this one episode where Fletch joined to avoid detention and discovered he was secretly gifted at math. Danny isn’t supposed to be dancing with cheerleaders.” She looks at Danny, then back at me, but then does a double take, her attention shifting to a table on the other side of the dance floor. “Wait, is that Mrs. Chuang the librarian and Doc Martin the pharmacist?” She pushes up high in her seat, leaning across the bar to get a better look. “They’re not supposed to be together either. And you!” She turns to me and glares.
“What did I do?”
“Fletch isn’t supposed to be the sexy, popular bartender getting eyed by his former English teacher.”
“Who’s my former English teacher?”
Brynn points across the room. I spot an older blond woman looking at me from the corner. When our eyes meet, she winks.
I snap my focus away from her. “Wait, did you just call me sexy?”
“No.” Brynn rolls her eyes. “Well, technically, yes, but you know what I mean.”
I try to hide my smile. “I don’t. You’ll have to enlighten me.”
She growls. “Forget it. All I’m saying is that the Bronze isn’t supposed to be the happening spot in town, and Spencer and Sloan aren’t supposed to be…”
The rest of her thought is cut off as she sighs deeply into her glass.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it wasn’t a dream date with Malibu Ken?”
She looks up. “No, not exactly. I don’t know.” She slumps to the side, resting her chin in her palm. “Maybe I set my expectations too high? Or maybe things are going exactly as planned, and I need to be patient and let our story build a little more. I guess I was just expecting our first real date to be magical. Instant sparks, you know?”
She drains what is left in her glass and sets it down on the counter. I reach for it at the same time she pushes it toward me, causing our hands to touch. There’s a sharp jolt of electricity between us.
“What was that?” She pulls her hand away, cradling it to her chest.
I shake mine. “Maybe that was the spark you’ve been looking for?”
Brynn rolls her eyes.
“You said you wanted magic.” I scuff my feet and then give her another zap on the arm.
“Magic? Or science?” She gets to her feet and mimics my own scuffing motion from a moment before. “Bibbity, bobbity—”
Bang.
The moment Brynn’s finger connects with my forearm, there’s a loud pop from somewhere in the bar.
Then complete blackness.
“Ahhhhh!”
The bar is filled with screams, including Brynn’s. But as our eyes adjust to the new dark and the noise begins to die down, I catch Brynn whispering, “Please tell me I didn’t do that.”
“No,” I answer, knowing exactly what has happened. The all-too-familiar feeling of failure rises up my throat.
This is insane.
It’s like my own personal Groundhog Day.
A living nightmare I keep recalling over and over.
The electric bill.
Sherry implied she was behind on paying it, but I had hoped it was a joke. Her cutting sense of humor. But now I know the bills aren’t getting paid, and if they are cutting the electricity, the water is next. Then the bank comes calling—if they haven’t already. There’s nothing I can do here. I was stupid for even thinking a couple of good nights could turn things around. This place is too far gone to save. It’s—
“Hey.” Brynn’s hand reaches across the bar and pokes me in between my ribs. “Do you know where the fuse box is?”
The fuse box?
“It’s in the storeroom, I think. But that’s not the issue, Brynn, it’s way worse—”
A beam of light flashes up from beneath Brynn’s chin. It illuminates her face from underneath, giving it an eerie orange glow.
“Take this.” She flips the flashlight around and hands it to me. “I have another one in my purse.” As if to back up her point, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a second light. “The storeroom is beside the bathroom, right?”
I open my mouth to tell her I’m probably going to have to shut down for the night. This place is beyond help. But she’s already gone, weaving her way through the crowd toward the storeroom. I have no choice but to follow her bobbing light all the way to the back of the bar.
“In there?” she asks, cutting the beam of her light to the closed storeroom door.
“Yeah, but…” I tell her as she pulls the door open, ignoring me. Her flashlight beam scans the walls until it lands on a small gray box. I follow her over to it and watch as she opens the cover. There are a dozen or so black switches inside. Only one is set in the wrong direction. Brynn reaches out and flicks it with a loud click.
There’s a collective cheer from the bar, followed by the sound of a strumming guitar and Seth’s voice, amplified by the microphone. “I think this calls for a cover of ‘Dancing in the Dark,’ don’t you?”
There’s another cheer as Seth plays the opening notes.
Unlike the bar outside, the storeroom remains dark.
“Crisis averted.” Brynn tucks her light between her arm and rib cage as she uses both her hands to snap the door of the fuse box shut. It closes with a soft click, which is followed by a soft “Oh, sugar” as her light slips out from under her arm, hits the floor with a metallic clunk, and then rolls underneath an aluminum shelving unit filled with cleaning supplies.
I flash my light beam to the spot where we last saw her light. “Here.” I try to hand her my light. “Let me get it.”
“No, I’m good.” She drops to her knees and reaches under the bottom shelf, then retracts her hand quickly, bringing the lost light to her chest.
I reach my hand down to help her up. “Do you always carry multiple flashlights in your purse?”
She takes it and lets me pull her to her feet. Suddenly it feels like there’s a lot less air in here. “I think maybe I should start. Carson’s Cove does seem to love its power outages….”
Her voice trails off, but her hand still lingers in my palm.
The heat of it mingles with the strawberry scent of her shampoo.
She’s so close that I can hear her soft puff of breath as she exhales.
And although we’re standing in the dark, it’s as if a light comes on inside my head and suddenly I’m seeing everything differently.
Brynn visibly shivers and pulls her hand away. “I think I got another shock, just there. You should really do something about the floors.”
I don’t think the floors are the problem.
I shake my head, clearing away the semblance of a thought still rolling around in my mind.
When we get back out to the bar, there is a steady stream of thirsty customers looking to placate their dramatic blackout experience with more beer.
Where earlier in the night I could afford to stop to chat or make a beer recommendation, now I’m pouring drink after drink with no time to pause in between.
Seth keeps playing one hit after another.
The dance floor is so full that I can’t even see the base of the stage.
And the more people dance, the thirstier they seem to get.
And as fast as I’m pouring, I can’t seem to keep up.
I’m at the point where I’m seriously considering finding a way to track down Sherry to come and help me because the happy faces are getting increasingly annoyed as they need to wait for their next rounds. I don’t even realize I’ve run out of glasses until I reach for a pint and my hand comes back empty.
“Here.” Brynn lifts a tray of clean glassware onto the counter beside me.
“Where did that come from?”
She points at the dishwasher. “I ran a load while you were pouring whiskey shots. You were running low.”
I want to thank her, but the bar is crowding up again, and people are starting to get pushy.
“Fletcher, a refill on my Diet Coke when you get a second?”
“Do you know how to make a dry martini?”
“I liked that beer you recommended earlier. What was it called again?”
“Two Buds, would ya, Fletch?” a tall football-player type calls.
Before I can reach for them, Brynn has the beer fridge open and the caps off.
“What are you doing now?”
Her response is to grab a pint glass and pull the beer tap for a local IPA. “I’m helping you.” She glances at the packed bar. “This town likes beer way more than I imagined. I’m a little afraid to see what happens if they don’t get it.”
She serves the beer in her hand to the waiting customer, then picks up a bottle of cheap rum. “Besides”—she flips the bottle in a complete 360-degree turn and catches it—“not to brag or anything, but I spent two whole summers working behind the bar at Applebee’s.” She tosses the rum bottle again and attempts to catch it on the back of her hand. Her aim is off, and the bottle hits her knuckle and then falls to the floor, where it catches the edge of the mat and rolls—still intact—toward the dishwasher.
“Reflexes of a cat,” she says as she bends to pick it up, then goes back to pouring the rum.
Fortunately, the next two hours are free of major disasters. No power outages. Ample glassware. Brynn is a blur in my peripheral vision, serving beer, talking to customers, and smiling.
I could have used her back home at my dad’s place. Not that an insanely busy night was ever my problem, but I like this feeling that she’s got my back. That we have this ability to communicate without actually saying anything.
I hand her the vodka she’s about to ask for. She slides me the malty stout my next customer doesn’t even know he’s going to order yet.
She tosses me a bar rag to wipe the spot where my last customer sloshed his beer. “Hey, we’re running low on—”
“Moosehead. I know. I got it.”
By the time I have the keg out of the storeroom and hooked up, it’s two a.m. The place has cleared out some, but there are twenty-odd bodies still finishing their drinks or slow-dancing to the playlist Seth left running after his last set.
I ring the old brass bell hanging from the corner of the bar.
“That’s all for tonight, folks. Get home to bed and then come back tomorrow and spend your money. If you need a safe way home, come and talk to me. Otherwise, good night.”
Twenty minutes later, the place is basically empty.
The only other person left inside is slumped over next to the taps, one arm extended toward an empty glass. She’s pulled her hair up into a sweaty bun, but she missed a piece that is stuck to her neck. The blond is fine, but she looks better like this. Less hair, more of her face.
“I don’t know how you do this every night.” She lifts her head up just enough so that she can look at me. “It’s exhausting. My cheeks hurt from smiling. My legs hurt from squatting, and my emotions hurt from being so nice to everyone.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, swallowing down the sudden swell of emotion that catches in my throat.
She looks up, a little surprised, as if she’s picked up on it. “I’ve got your back, Josh Bishop.” She smiles. “You can repay me with undying devotion and a free beer.”
“Done.”
I loved everything that happened tonight. If I could copy this night a thousand times and repeat it day after day, I probably would.
I pull open the fridge, grab two chilled bottles, and hold out my other hand to her. “If you can stay on your feet for another two minutes, I’ll show you something cool. It will be worth it. I promise.”
Brynn groans but takes my hand. I pull her to her feet and lead her up the stairs to Fletch’s room.
She stalls in the doorway, “Uh, Josh…That cool thing you were going to show me, it isn’t…” Her eyes drift to the bed.
I cross the room to the window. “No, it’s out here.”
I lift the window and step out onto the fire escape. But instead of climbing down to street level, I head up, waiting for her at the top, watching her face as she climbs onto the roof and discovers what I found earlier this afternoon.
“Holy smokes. Look at this place.”
Her reaction is the same one I had when I found it. It’s a run-of-the-mill roof for the most part. It has a simple concrete floor and a three-foot-high brick railing that runs around the perimeter. There are a few air vents and what looks like an HVAC system. But the view is incredible. You can see the entire length of Main Street and the twinkling lights of the beach houses in the distance. Then, if you look up, there’s a sky full of stars above.
“So, was this my discovery?” I ask her. “Or are you about to tell me about some episode of Carson’s Cove that happened up here?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve never seen this place before. Wow, you can see the entire town.” She braces her arms on the ledge and leans forward. “And right into Doc Martin’s apartment. Wow…I guess he and Mrs. Chuang are definitely together, and nope—” She takes a quick step back. “Definitely didn’t want to see that.” She whips around to face me, not realizing I’d followed her to the edge. Our sudden proximity makes her teeter, and her arms brace against my chest.
She doesn’t step away or remove her hands, and I swear that I can feel the beat of her heart through her fingertips.
“So tonight was good?” Her voice is unusually high.
“It was.”
“We work well together.”
“We do.”
I feel a jolt of something: a crackling between my ribs.
Brynn’s mouth falls open in surprise, like she’s felt it too, and it’s as if something changes. Like the air shifts between us.
I can’t read her.
I can’t tell if what I’m feeling is entirely in my head or if she’s right there with me.
To be honest, I don’t even know exactly what I want to happen.
Her eyes meet mine, and she inhales as if she’s about to say something. And I find myself also holding my breath.
“I kissed Spencer.” Her confession comes out in a rush.
Okay, that was definitely not what I wanted to happen.
“Earlier, at the observatory,” she continues. “We were looking at the stars, and I kissed him. Or maybe he kissed me. Either way, kissing definitely happened.”
Any confusion from a moment ago becomes painstakingly clear. She’s here for Spencer. Her leading man. I am just the bartender, making everything complicated.
“Well, that’s good, right? That’s what you wanted?”
She finally steps away, removing her hands and leaving the place where she touched me suddenly cold.
She walks over to an air vent and sits down on its concrete ledge. “It is what I wanted, but—” She looks up, but her eyes seem to focus on something off in the distance. “It wasn’t exactly a great kiss.”
My blood rushes. It feels a little like relief. And although I hate that Brynn is upset, I’m glad their kiss sucked, and I think that says a lot about me as a person.
“I know I have this tendency to build things up in my head.” Brynn’s eyes meet mine again. “I overanalyze a lot. But I don’t think I’m doing that now. Josh, it was really bad.”
I join her on the air vent. “First kisses can suck. There’s a lot at stake. I’m sure it was just a fluke.”
She shakes her head. “But what if it’s not?” She turns toward me so that her knee is pressing against my thigh. “When my ex, Matt, left me, I’m worried it…it broke me. And I don’t mean it in that overused metaphorical way people usually reference when doing hard things. I changed, Josh. I decided at that moment that I’d never again let someone hurt me the way he did, and now I’m wondering…” She looks up at the stars for so long that I’m not sure if she’s going to complete her sentence.
“I’m wondering if I’ve done something permanent. Like my heart got confused, and while it was protecting itself from ever breaking again, it also severed the part that lets me feel at all.”
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Sorry…You brought me up here to hang out and have a beer, and I turned it into therapy. I didn’t mean to unload on you like that.” She shakes her head.
“It’s okay. I know exactly how you feel.”
She looks up, her eyes big and round. “You do?”
I don’t want to get into this now. I prefer to forget about it completely. If a drug existed to strike an entire year from my life, I’d probably take it. That time right after my dad died fucked me up in ways I’ll never be able to really explain. But she’s shared something really personal with me tonight, and I don’t want her to think I don’t understand how hard that is to do.
“I told you my dad had a bar. It was a place that was really important to him, and I inherited it after he died and wasn’t able to make it work.”
“That really sucks, Josh, I’m sorry.”
It may be the alcohol, but I like the simplicity of her answer. When it happened, it seemed like everyone had an excuse. The pandemic. The insurance company. No one just came out and said, “Fuck, that sucks,” and it’s really the only thing that I needed to hear.
She closes her eyes and shakes her head.
“What?” I ask, wondering what she’s thinking.
“I just had a very different idea of you in my head…until tonight.” She opens her eyes and looks at me. “You give off this air like nothing fazes you. You’re always smiling and so confident. I’ve been jealous of how…easy it all seems for you.”
“Nah. I’m just practiced at hiding it. Putting on my hospitality face. The bartender is not the one who is supposed to have the problems. He’s supposed to listen to yours.”
“You’re really good at it.” She reaches out and places her hand on top of mine.
“At looking happy?”
“At being a bartender. I mean, looking happy as well, but I was talking about downstairs. You ran that show tonight. People were loving it.”
She could have said a thousand different things just now, but that is somehow the perfect compliment.
“Tonight felt really good. It was actually the best I’ve felt in a long time. I owe you one. I wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without you.”
She starts to remove her hand from mine but stills suddenly. “Hey, Josh.” She turns her whole body to face me. “This is going to sound weird, but I need you to do something for me.”
“Sure,” I answer automatically. “What do you need?”
Her attention drops to my lips. “Would you…kiss me?”
I freeze, certain I’ve misinterpreted something.
“You’ll be honest with me,” she continues. “I don’t know if it was the kiss that was wrong or me, and I need someone who will tell me straight up.” She turns her head away again. I can’t see her face, just the profile of her eyelashes blinking rapidly. It gives me a moment for my head to catch up with what just happened.
“Hey, Brynn, I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”
“Please, Josh.”
There’s pleading in her voice, and as she turns to face me, I can tell by the way the moonlight hits her eyes that those were tears she was blinking away a moment ago.
Fuck. It’s hard to say no to a crying woman. It’s impossible to say no to a crying Brynn.
“Fine.” My mouth makes the decision without my brain. “One kiss.”
What the hell am I doing?
I have kissed a lot of women, yet I find myself struggling to start.
My fingers graze her cheek and cup her jaw. Her skin is so damn soft. I bring her face to mine until I catch the faint scent of her strawberry shampoo again.
I used it once by accident.
One day, when I was showering, I reached for the wrong bottle. Now every time I eat a strawberry, I subconsciously think about her, and now I wonder what else she’ll ruin for me once I taste her.
I bring my mouth to meet hers. Just a simple press of the lips.
Chocolate.
For some reason, she tastes like chocolate.
And beer. Damn. My two favorite things.
Her lips part, and even though I planned on a quick, chaste kiss, I slide my tongue inside. She makes the softest moan, and any resolve I may have had a moment before is completely gone.
I press closer, cupping the back of her head with my hand, tipping her face back so I can kiss her even more deeply.
Before I realize it, the single kiss turns into two. Then three. Then something else entirely.
I’ve forgotten why this was a bad idea.
Until she pulls away, her eyes wide, as if she’s also processing everything that just happened.
“Whoa.”
“Yeah.” I’m still catching my breath.
She blinks at me. Those fucking lips are all swollen and plump and kissable.
I almost go back.
But then she scoots away, putting space between us. “So, what’s your verdict?”
I have many thoughts.
“No worries there, Brynn. It’s definitely not you.”