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Part 7

The night passed a lot quicker than I was used to, and I woke to the earsplitting chirp of the alarm clock. Looking around groggily, I swatted at it and stopped the painfully loud shriek before it gave me a headache. The glowing numbers said we had an hour to get to work, so I looked down to Brian who was still out cold, his hand draped across my thigh as he nuzzled into my stomach. Nudging his shoulder, he stirred and looked up to me, running his hand along my sensitive fur as he brought it up to rub his eyes.

"Mornin', handsome," I said and he dropped his head back onto my stomach with a groan. I scratched his ear before pushing him off gently so I could sit up and rub my own eyes against the light streaming in from the half open curtain. Thankfully this motel was almost always empty.

"Why does it have to be morning already?" he moaned and I chuckled, tugging at his arm as I stood at the foot of the bed. He sighed and tried his best to sit on the edge of the mattress as I bent over to kiss him on the top of his head.

"You have a little something on your stomach," I said as he looked down with another sigh and I walked to the bathroom to clean my hands and face since we didn't have enough time to take showers, "come on, Brian, we have to stop by the house for clothes before work. Eating would be nice, too."

"Alright, alright," he grumbled, lumbering towards the bathroom like he had a massive hangover. As I walked out past him, I brushed my hand along his waist with a smile and he shuttered, shaking his head as he clasped onto the edge of the sink.

"If you're good, I have something special we can do tonight," I said, looking at him in the mirror as I pulled on my pants and buttoned them. He glanced at me as he brushed his teeth and rolled his eyes, making me chuckle. Checking my phone, I still didn't have any messages, but I saw we were down to forty-five minutes.

"Work, work, work," he muttered after he gargled with water. I swiped down to pick up my sweatshirt and his pants, but when I tossed them to him, they hit him across the chest, making him groan. He was never a morning person, and I knew this, so I was actually excited to find that he didn't tell me off when I laughed.

Making sure we didn't leave anything in the room, I got into the driver side and he fell into the passenger seat, looking like he was almost dead. I sped to the apartment, propelling him up the stairs so we could both get dressed again and throw something in the microwave to hold us over until lunch.

We made it back to the car with twenty minutes left, and I drove from there, dropping him off at work because I figured I'd be the first one out. He wished me luck and I saw him wave me off until I was out of sight. I drove to the bar in an anticipatory silence, checking my teeth in the rearview mirror after I'd parked in the back.

I left my jacket in the car and walked up to the entrance, fixing my shirt nervously, still feeling like I was a teenager showing up for my first job even though I'd been doing this for years. I'd never really gotten over my fear of meeting new people, but I felt a little more confident since the week had taken a good turn.

The building looked just like any one of the bars or pubs from the south, with darkened windows, brick walls and a large name painted in gold on the glass. If there weren't mounds of snow piled around me, and if it was about sixty degrees warmer, and if there weren't ice crystals creeping along the glass, I'd feel almost like I was home. Smiling to my reflection, I tried to steel myself before I opened the door. It was locked.

"Eager is good," I heard a voice behind me say, and I turned around to find a wolf standing beside me, his fur even whiter than the snow around us. His hands were a gray blur through the plume of smoke escaping his lips as he looked through a keyring for the right one. I followed the ashen muzzle up to his eyes while he smiled at me, and I shivered when the deep amber glow of his eyes struck me, "you got here before even I did."

I got lost in his amusedly indifferent tone as he hummed softly, trying to keep the cold at bay as he unlocked the door. He held the door open for me and I stepped in, quickly getting out of the way so he could follow. Turning on the lights and closing the door, he removed his jacket as he walked towards the back of the bar.

The wooden floors were scuffed and faded, but they weren't rotten as was so often the case in a place as wet as this. Everything else gleamed in the overhead lights, however, as though he took special care to make everything keep like it was brand new. He tossed his coat on one of the stools and he continued to hum a monotonic song as he stepped behind the counter, placing his outstretched fingers on the slick wood before looking at me. His eyes glowed almost supernaturally in the warm light of the old, dim bulbs.

"I'll be honest," he said, his gaze following me as I stepped up to the other side of the counter, watching his hands out of fear that his eyes would break my resolve, "name like Kurt, I figured someone smaller. Fox or something. Big guys get a lot of tips though, 'specially from the ladies. Barback pay is state minimum plus eleven percent of my tips. Bartender is paid minimum plus tips. Don't sound like much, but you'd be surprised. You good with that?"

I had just been nodding the whole time he talked, trying to take in everything he said as I marveled about how he seemed to be so interested, yet so bored at the same time. I nodded my head in response to his question and folded my arms across my chest, making the slightest smirk cross his lips as he saw how absorbed I was.

I eyed the taps curiously and all the bottles that lined the wall. Back in high school, I thought my first boyfriend's parents had a lot of booze, but this paled any bar or stash I'd ever seen. I figured Derrick was the one who owned this business, and I assumed that he had quite a knack for getting people drunk.

"Been to a lot of bars in your time?" he asked, looking around the back of the counter, pulling out different kinds of glasses and placing them in between us, and I looked over most of them. I knew them by shape, but I didn't know many of them by name. He talked to me like I was older than him, but by the looks of it, he was probably older than me.

"Not a lot of different bars, but a lot of the same one," I said, and he stood up to look at me with a blank face. I was starting to get used to his lack of affect rather quickly, but there was something about his stare that was still unnerving. I already had a hard enough time telling if he was impressed or disappointed, and now I was nervous that we was reading my thoughts as his eyes dug into mine.

"Forget everything you know," he said strongly and I sat down on a stool when he motioned me to, "it's probably wrong. You've been a server, you know how the difference of perspective changes everything. Customer sees you as a slave, and while it very well may feel like it, you're in charge, because you know the sides of being a waiter they don't. Same with bartending. You know your job description as barback?"

"Keep the glasses clean and bar stocked?" I tried and he let a stifled smile slip out.

"Since you're learning, you can play back up for the first few days. You seem quick and smart, though. I see the way your eyes are darting around trying to remember it all. Comes with time. When you catch on, you'll be part bartender, part barback. You'll be serving drinks and doing support work. Most important thing is to help make drinks, then stock, then do dishes.

"One other guy works here, too; Joe. He's a cool cat. Black something or other, panther, leopard, I dunno. Cats are too confusing for me to remember. He usually works nights, but I'll switch with him so I can teach you since you'll mostly be working nights. Now, you know the first rule of bartending?"

I looked around nervously as I shook my head, wondering if I was supposed to have done some kind of research. He didn't seemed bothered by the fact that I didn't know the answer, but he didn't seem bothered by much of anything. He was still leaning over the counter, but now he was staring at the scintillating shards of light that were thrown from the bottom of the many crystal glasses. He sucked his lip softly for a second and I spoke, "don't drink it before it gets to the person who ordered it?"

"Rule number one," he said, letting out a weak sigh of a laugh as he looked up to me, "there is no tea in the Long Island Iced Tea. Can't even count how many people have asked if there's tea in it. Rather frustrating question, actually."

"I knew that one," I smirked and he shifted his weight, looking up at me with a flick of his eyes before he began studying the glasses contemplatively.

"Rule number two," he said, looking at me as he held up two fingers. I reached out to grab the different glasses and study them, listening to him speak. This was was quite obviously a shot glass, but I was sure anyone knew that. I could learn all this easily. I had memorized all the stock at my retail job in about a week, "don't make eye contact with anyone around the bar waiting to order unless you plan on making their drink then and there."

That made perfect sense, but I never would have thought of it if he hadn't told me. I repeated it in my head and found myself still nodding repeatedly as I tried to commit it to memory. Putting the shot glass back on the counter, rim down, I touched the next and was almost positive it was called a highball glass. I found it funny that I'd spent so much time in a bar before but never taken the time to learn any of this.

Placing the second glass on the counter with it's top down, I looked at Derrick and saw him watching me keenly. I hoped it was because he liked my concentration, and not that I thought I was ignoring him, but I couldn't tell as usual.

"Rule number three," he continued as I placed my finger on the rim of the tallest glass. I bit my lip as I tried to balance it on it's rim while maintaining a perfectly divided attention. I was used to people shouting at me from every direction, calling after me like they knew me even if they didn't know my name. I remembered Brian always getting a Tom Collins and it came in this glass, "if the bar is busy, and you're taking orders, and you get to someone, but they say they don't know what they want, just move on. They had enough time to decide. Go back after, but this is a bar; time is money. Always take the orders of the regulars first, since they pay your bills. That's just a collins glass."

"Thanks," I replied distractedly, turning over three glasses in a row. Collins, pint, and stein. Perhaps I had picked up a little more knowledge than I had thought during my drunken bar romping. The rest I all knew quite well; champagne flute, snifter, old-fashioned and two wine glasses. I looked up to him and his lips curled more than I'd ever seen them before; it seemed to be from approval.

"Weren't lying when you said you like to drink, were you?" he said and I chuckled. He seemed to like the fact that I drank, perhaps it was only because he thought some things couldn't be learned without first experiencing. And by the time you'd progressed to vomiting on other people's feet, there wasn't much you hadn't experienced.

"I guess I just remember more than I thought," I said, as he pulled out a cloth to wipe the smudges away before putting the glasses back where they belonged. I listed the glasses in my head again, sticking a mental image to them. It seemed easy enough, but I was sure that was bound to change when I had to start remembering what went in them.

"Rest is common sense," he said, draping the cloth over his shoulder with a flick of a wrist, making me think back to that image I'd had when I first talked to him. When he looked at me, that unnerving edge to his stare had faded away, but I didn't know if I'd just gotten used to it, or he's consciously done away with it, "don't let the weird guys bother the girls if you can stop it. Girls like it when you help them. More girls in a bar means more guys in a bar which means more guys spending money. You have a girlfriend?"

"Not... exactly," I said, wondering if I should risk telling him about Brian. My last boss didn't like him, but Derrick seemed a lot more open. He gave a grunt of laughter again as I squared my jaw and studied the grain in the counter, knowing I'd given myself away regardless.

"Girlfriend, boyfriend, favorite hand, whatever. Don't really matter. As long as you're here, if you want your tips, you're flying solo. I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life, but the girls love it when you throw in a little complement. They like to watch a cute face doing things for them," he said, and I wasn't sure if he meant that as a double entendre or not, but I didn't comment. In the back of my head, I knew Brian definitely wouldn't like the idea of me telling everyone I was single, especially so soon after we'd gotten back together. I just wouldn't tell him. I knew he'd never show up at the bar while I was working, because he didn't want to risk getting me in trouble like last time.

He went on to explain about the different kind of people that came into the bar as he showed me around the working end of the counter. He said that anyone who ordered a Cuba Libre was just a pretentious moron who tipped a dollar at most. They only wanted to sound smoother than they really were, because it was only a Rum and Coke with a lime wedge.

While he instructed me on the way the shelves were organized, I could feel my brain starting to spark and smoke as he also explained what to do in the cases where they didn't know what they wanted. Make girls a vodka tonic, and just give guys a mug of beer. Never make Long Island Iced Teas, they were too messy. In fact, I was supposed to avoid making them at all costs unless someone specifically asked for it. At the end of the rant, I could tell he had some kind of personal vendetta against the Long Island Iced Tea.

He was droning on and on a lot faster than I could possibly keep up with and manage to remember. I didn't know if he was testing my will, or determination, or if he had completely forgotten that I was new to this, but my lips were scrambling noiselessly as I tried to picture myself writing the words down in a notebook of some kind. It seemed to help a little, but it didn't stop the headache that was forming right above my eyes.

Every time I felt lost, I'd look at the green of Derrick's shirt and try to think of Brian's eyes, just so I had something to look forward to. Following my stomach's internal clock, I could tell that it was nearing lunch time, but I had the feeling that he'd never stop talking. His slow, emotionless speech seemed to preserve his energy and drain mine as I fought with my eyes, not wanting to look like he was tiring me.

"Went through everything faster than I thought," he said, stopping behind the counter, turning back to me as I clenched my stomach, trying to stop it from growling. Rubbing his head, thinking deeply, he disappeared from view, only coming up when he found a large binder and dropping it on the counter in front of me, "we're good for today. Come back tomorrow for five and you can start your first day. I switched with Joe, so you'll be stuck with me again. Take this with you, and try to learn what you can."

"All right," I said, prying my exhausted body from the only thing that had been supporting me, since my head was too fried to even let me stand up straight. He held out a hand and I shook it; his grip was firmer than I would have guessed, "thanks for everything, Derrick. Can't thank you enough for giving me the chance."

"No one else seemed to want the job, so it's like it was made just for you. Even got the will the keep at it. It's a miracle you kept up with everything. Last guy I trained didn't show up the next day," he said as I reached out for the binder, inwardly sighing as I saw how big it was. I hoped they were sorted by popularity and not by letter, but I knew I'd probably have no such luck.

"I'll definitely be seeing you tomorrow," I said, smiling as I backed towards the door. He broke away his gaze and returned to looking at the counter. The door chimed shut behind me and I squinted my eyes against the sun that was flooding onto the packed snow, blinding me.

Shielding my face, I walked quickly back to the car. I knew I hadn't eaten anything other than that microwaved breakfast sandwich, but I also knew I needed to get home as quickly as possible so I could try to write down some of the things he'd said to me before it all overflowed and fell out of my skull, never to be seen again.

I had been hoping I'd get to go to lunch with Brian, but he'd probably already had it. As I slammed the car door shut behind me, I shivered as I was trapped with the winter air. I felt bad, because even when the sun was out, it hovered around freezing, and all I could do was picture him shivering as he walked.

I hoped he'd be understanding as long as I was there to pick him up from work, but I wondered if I'd even have the time or mental capacity to do anything after I got home, because I knew I had to write down the novel's worth of information Derrick had thrown at me. Pulling out of the parking lot, I forced myself to stop thinking lest I forgot anything.

The moment I started pounding up the stairs, I was already flipping through the pages of the book, trying to reignite the embers of my memory. Surprisingly, it was a lot easier than I would've thought, because all I had to do was think about how Derrick's voice elongated every syllable and eventually the words all fell together.

I knew I'd forgotten my coat in the car as slight shivers ran up my arm, and I knew that the apartment would likely be freezing, but as I skated over the first page of the book, I tried to make myself forget about the cold, like I always did. Fumbling around with the key, I hesitantly pulled my eyes from the book and stumbled through the door.

Dropping the book on the table beside the newspapers, I looked around the room for some kind of paper, or anything. It was always when I needed paper that Brian had used it all. Yanking a half empty notebook from the bottom of a drawer in the bedroom, I looked at Jack who still sat on the bed.

"Did you keep everything safe while I was gone?" I asked, but my question fell on deaf ears.

I fell deeper into the couch the longer I sat in it, but I scribbled as quickly and as legibly as I possibly could. He'd said the main things I needed to remember were Gin, Tequila, Vodka, Whiskey, Rum and Triple Sec. I'd always been a Vodka person myself, so I knew mixes with that one the best, even if I only knew the names.

Continually looking between my phone for a call, or the clock to make sure I'd be able to pick Brian up on time, I managed to jot down about ten pages of incredibly messy notes that were strewn about the page, or crammed into the margins. Massaging my forehead, hoping to ease away the forming tension, I stared at the page wondering what the hell I was doing.

I was playing into everything that Brian had been afraid of; the bar was going to be crowded, and I'd be working late every night, and I wouldn't be able to see him except for my days off or an hour after he got out of work. No matter how much I hoped it'd just work out, I knew that he wouldn't be content to fall right back into the same pattern, so I'd need to stop that the best I could.

I knew that keeping everyone else happy would end with me getting about four hours of sleep a night, but I didn't want to risk losing everything again. I'd be doing it for Brian. My head flashed back to the day I'd been fired and started to run through the things he'd said, or the way he'd acted. He hadn't been content with good enough then, even though I was breaking my back for him, so why would he just accept it now?

Looking at the clock again, I groaned and slid off the couch, wishing I could just go to sleep, but I had to pick Brian up. He'd ask how everything had gone, then he'd ask about my boss, and he'd switch to his joking tone of voice, just to ask if I thought he was cute. It seemed harmless enough of a question, but if I admitted that I thought he was, then everything would break apart again.

I hoped that Brian wouldn't be as jealous or self-conscious as usual, and that our night together would've fix all that, but people were always too set in their ways to just change overnight. As long as I tried to change myself and stop my need to always be right, eventually he'd start trying to change himself, and things would break even. Eventually, we'd be happy. Being honest wasn't as easy as I'd hoped, because it seemed I was damned if I told the truth, and damned if I lied.

Hiding the notebook and binder in the cabinet underneath the television, I looked into the bedroom and saw Jack lying with his stomach on the bed. I wished I could sit around and sleep all day like he did, but I had a barrage of questions and personal inadequacies to deal with, on top of all the bills I had yet to pay.

"Can you just pick up Brian for me, so I can go to sleep?" I asked, but he kept his back to me. It wouldn't matter, anyway, because Brian would hold me to my plans to spend time with him tonight, and he'd be cranky if I broke them. I could just study more after he went to sleep, even if I'd have to be up to take him to work.

Locking the door and jogging down the stairs, I shook my head in the cold air, hoping I could wake myself up, but my muscles seemed to have weakened to the point where they forgot how to move. Sitting in the car, I knew I didn't have to take Brian to work, but if I did, that'd give me time to sit in the coffee shop and study more and see him on his lunch break.

I'd be tired and running on empty at every hour of the day, but I wouldn't have to deal with Brian being upset and I'd be able to get in good with Derrick so I could get that bartender job. I knew it'd take a lot of studying, but if I practiced and looked over that book with every free second I had, it couldn't take more than a week.