“I guess it’s on the house,” I told frat boy. He leaned over the bar, motioning me closer. Wanting to be done with him, I leaned in, hoping he’d leave me alone so I could get onto the next customer.
He raised the hand filled with cash, grabbing the top of my cami and slamming me against the edge of the bar. “And this is on me,” he said, shoving the bills down the center of the scrap of fabric.
My training from Patrick had been so all-encompassing that I reacted without thinking. Before he released the money he was attempting to bury deeper, I grabbed his hand. It felt like a house-of-cards in my grip. I slid it up and out of my shirt, squeezing it in the process, hearing the same kinds of sounds my Rice Krispies made. Snap, crackle, pop.
The pain on his face was instant, followed by his mouth falling open, although no sound came out—at first.
“Don’t touch me,” I warned him, trying not to think about the last time a man had touched me and how it had been so different—tender . . . timid.
Frat boy’s vocal chords exploded, sending out a sound I imagined a dog would make after being hit by a car. I released his hand and he pulled it towards his chest, cradling it with his other hand.
“Why you holding your hand like it’s a little babydoll, Tony?” Mikey asked, handing off two filled shot glasses to a couple of girls plastered up against the counter, wearing tops similar to the one I was wearing, although their excess spilt out in a way that would have made me blush had I not been quivering from Tony’s hand snaking down my skin.
“My hand!” Tony screamed. “Mikey, she busted my hand up something fierce.”
Mikey laughed and after winking at his customers with the ample assets, he wiped his hands with a dishtowel. “Come on, ya sissy.” He tilted his head my direction. “She’s a girl. Stop acting like she just pounded your hand with a hammer.”
Beads of sweat were bursting from Tony’s skin, a pallid white blanketing his face.
“Oh, boy,” Mikey said, leaping over the counter. “I’ve seen that face before. He’s going down.”
The herd of customers circling Tony scattered just as Mikey got to him, breaking his fall. “Tracy!” Mikey called out to the newcomer who’d just crawled under the bar, wearing the same outfit I was, minus the boots and cami. “You’re late!”
“I’m here, ain’t I?” she called back, tying back her crimson hair into a knot, shouldering past me without making any kind of acknowledgement. “Quit busting my balls.” She grabbed a shot glass at the same time she reached for the bottle closest to her. Liquid overflowed the glass before she tossed it back, slamming down the glass and pouring another one.
“I gotta run Tony to emergency,” Mikey called back to her, not noticing or caring she was pouring her third shot—perhaps one of the employee perks he’d forgotten to mention, not that it was one I’d benefit from. “You got things here?”
The glass at her lips, she waved her hand dismissively at him, shooing him through the crowd. “Yeah, yeah. You can count on me.”
I watched Mikey hoist the comatose Tony over his shoulders and weave through the crowd packed into the hallway, the regret of my action sinking in. A simple hand smack could have sent the same message—leave me alone—why couldn’t I have settled for that? I tried to drown out the answer, not wanting to be reminded that there was destruction flowing in every molecule of my makeup.
“You taking Marie’s spot?” Tracy asked, crossing her arms in a way that led me to the conclusion her and Marie had been friends and she was not happy I’d slid into her spot.
I nodded, ignoring the hands waving around the counter, their voices charging up in volume. I crossed my arms too, trying to look tough, like I belonged in a pair of painted-on leather pants, serving whiskey to tourists, smack dab in heathen-central.
She smiled, shaking her head. “First night, poor thing.” She looked up, her eyes pointing at the first man she saw.
“Whiskey,” he called out, smacking a bill down on the counter. “One for me and one for you,” he smiled at her, leaving nothing to the imagination as to what was going through his.
Tracy flipped a couple of glasses on the counter, tilted a bottle on its side, pocketing the bill at the same time. She handed him his shot, clinking glasses before tipping them back. She slammed the glass down, grasped the man’s face with her hands, and locked her lips over his like he was headed off to sea for a year long deployment. Pushing him away a few seconds later, she turned to me, licking her lips. Pouring another shot, she tilted it my way. “Here’s to popping your cherry at the Rue St. Jersey.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
RUE ST. JERSEY
Had I still been Mortal, I would have been draped over the nearest chair, hoping death would find me before I had to work another night at this place. As it was, my head was throbbing, and not for the same reason the majority of the Rue St. Jersey’s patrons could claim.
The place had vibrated with music and been sucked dry of every drop of alcohol a little before five in the morning. When Tracy had told me we work until the alcohol runs dry, she’d meant it. Had I been asked to guess how long it would take to run out—after viewing the lines of kegs and rows of bottles we’d opened with—I would have said one month, maybe two. But alas, the Rue St. Jersey’s customers were thirsty and their pockets had been full.
“Ninety-one, ninety-two,” Tracy mumbled, sitting with legs spread on the counter with the tip jar’s contents blanketing her lower half.