A Toast to the Good Times

A Toast to the Good Times - By Liz Reinhardt

Chapter 1



I swipe a wet rag over the black laminate bar top, sending stray popcorn and mixed nuts flying across the room and onto the freshly swept floor.

Idiot.

“Well, that seems counter-productive, Landry.” Her normally tiny voice echoes in the old bar that reeks of beer, woozy fun, and bleary regret. “Where’s the broom?”

I glance up to look at Mila. Her hands are on her bony-ass hips, her dark bangs are half falling in her eyes, and her mouth is pursed in fake annoyance.

"In the corner." I jerk my head toward the thousand-year-old broom stashed off to the side and go back to wiping down the bar until it gleams. “I thought you were on your way outta town? What are you doing here?”

“I don’t leave until late tonight. I came by because I knew I’d find your scurvy ass here moping...oh, I mean working.” She winks at me, or tries to.

She always kind of wrinkles her face and blinks before she manages to get just one eye closed.

It’s ridiculously cute, like one of those sneezing panda videos I pretend to think are stupid but secretly kinda love. Just because I spend time breaking up raging fist fights and serving brew in my own personal dive bar doesn’t make me totally devoid of emotions.

“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, Landry. So, what are your plans? Please don’t tell me you’re really going to spend it sitting in this bar? Alone?”

I smile at her and refill the little bowls of pretzels and mixed nuts. “Nope. The bar’s gonna be open tomorrow. And the next day. No worries. I won’t be alone. Trust me, there’ll be plenty of sad saps who’ll be thrilled I’m here to keep the drinks flowing. We’ll have a great time ringing in the holiday.”

Mila clucks her tongue. “Seriously? That’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard. You can’t spend Christmas in a bar. What would your parents—” she stops herself from finishing.

I cut my eyes to the left and see that she’s grinning hopefully, the hope being that she didn’t piss me off by mentioning my family.

I haven’t seen them in over a year.

None of them.

Not my mom, or dad, or even my brother or sister. This is the first Christmas I won’t help them make popcorn strings to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve while we watch A Christmas Story and fight over who gets to put that deranged-looking Santa on the top. It’s the first year I won’t piss my mom off by stealing food off the trays before she’s ready to serve them.

Because the last time I saw my mom, it was just after she posted my bail.

Which happened the night after I ended up in jail because I got in a fist fight.

With my dad.

“Well, I know one thing for sure. Your mom would say you need a haircut.”

She reaches over the bar and ruffles a hand through the thick, curly hair I’ve always sort of hated, but haven’t gotten around to getting cut lately.

“You the fashion police?” I flick a peanut at her.

She blocks it with her still-mittened hand. “I like your long hair. It’s kinda cute. But I know you’ve been borrowing my shampoo, and it was okay when you had almost no hair. Now I think you’re using more than I am.”

“Now we’re even, because I know you used the last of my dental floss and then left the empty container in the drawer. That was lowdown, Mila. I had a popcorn kernel stuck in my tooth the other night, and it was hell. Pure hell.”

She winces. “Shit. Guilty as charged. Guess who’s getting a year’s supply of dental floss in his stocking this year?”

“Just put it on the shopping list when you’re done stealing it, thief.” I throw her my best charming smile. “And I’ll lay off your shampoo. It makes my hair so damn shiny and manageable, though.”

“Maybe Santa will get you some of that, then. I can’t believe you want lavender shampoo.” She wrinkles her nose at me, and I toss a piece of popcorn at her, which she catches in her mouth.

“You should be glad I like smelling nice. It makes living with me easier, right?”

“Truth,” she sighs, leaning on the bar and munching on a few cashews from the bowl.

Mila and I have been roommates since a few weeks after I moved to Boston from little old Branchville, New Jersey. I know everyone thinks we’re more than friends, but we aren’t and never have been.

“Listen, though, I’m serious about hating the idea of you spending the holidays in this bar. It’s beyond depressing. I feel like I have to step in and stop this madness.” She hops on a barstool and pulls off her hat and mittens, like she means business. Like she’s planning to stay a while.

Oh, shit.

I toss the sticky rag back under the bar and it sloshes around in the bucket of brown water.

“Look, Mila, it’s not a big deal. I’ll be fine.”

“I know. I mean, I know you’ll be alive and buzzed and stuffed on stale pretzels. But think about your soul.”

She puts one hand over the red scarf she still has tied around her neck. She always has a scarf on, even at home, I guess for weird girly fashion? Or maybe because it’s always so bitter cold in our tiny, uninsulated dump of an apartment, she just has to keep warm anyway she can.

“I have no soul,” I gripe, and she laughs at me.

“You are a calamity. You are a Christmas miracle just waiting to happen.” She hops back off the barstool, sweeps the pile of unmentionably disgusting crap into the dustpan, and throws it out before leaning on the broom handle and looking at me with that bad-idea look she gets so often. “Hey, since you’re going to be serving brew on Christmas, and I refuse to trade my last shred of humanity in by joining you, we should do a little shindig tonight. You up for it?”

“You’re sweet. I appreciate it. I do. But shift isn’t over for five hours, and I don’t think I’ll be able to face one more sauced person wearing a Santa hat and wishing me a Merry Christmas after I’m done. Rain check?”

I hold out a hand for the broom, and she passes it to me.

“Just me and you, then. We’ll unironically watch It’s a Wonderful Life, I’ll scrounge up some delicious food, and we can sit in sleeping bags on the couch and attempt to keep warm. What do you say? Say ‘yes.’ Oh, and do you like cranberry sauce with the berries?” She wrinkles her nose. “Or without? You seem like a ‘without the berries’ kinda guy. Am I right? You know what? I’ll just pick up both. Okay?”

Maybe I could have managed to let her down gently, let her know I’m really not in the mood at all. But she does the two-eyed baby-panda-sneeze wink.

It is two days before Christmas.

And I do, I guess, have a tiny shred of soul buried deep inside somewhere.

“Okay. Okay, sounds...fun.” I attempt to not look completely unexcited and she narrows her eyes.

“You’re the worst liar. Ever. Anyone ever tell you that?” She backs to the door, pulling her hat over her dark, messy hair streaked with fire-engine red pieces. “But this will be epic, Landry! Epic merriness, and it will make me feel better. To spread some Christmas cheer to the ultimate Grinch!” She throws her skinny arms up and knocks into the bells above the door. “Ho ho ho!”

I can’t help smiling, and it turns into a laugh fast. Mila is definitely a little dorky, but she’s got this irresistible cheerfulness that always manages to crack me up, no matter how hard I try to wallow in my own stubborn depression.

She’s probably the reason I didn’t leave Boston with my tail between my legs the first month, when everything felt like it had gone to overwhelming shit, and I felt like a huge failure. And it wasn’t just because she picked up half the rent.

Mila was someone dependable. Comfortable. Someone who wasn’t after anything from me.

She was someone to watch cartoons with in the mornings and never bitched that it was juvenile.

And even if she didn’t remember to replace my dental floss, she always remembered to pick up milk, so we could eat our Lucky Charms the way they were intended to be eaten and not with water or juice, both of which I had sadly attempted, unsuccessfully, pre-Mila.

She danced around the kitchen to awful girly pop music while she cooked even more awful food, and then, as she forced me to eat her inedible cooking, she told me stories about the people who came to the library where she worked and who were so freaking unbelievably crazy, they had me rolling even on my worst days.

She and I were both pigs, so our apartment was almost always a warzone, but Mila added some kind of magical touch that still made it feel homey, gym-sock stink and all.

Living with Mila was like having a sister-like person around.

Only less annoying.

Maybe like a pretty cool cousin.

Or, I guess, I could call her a best friend.

I start to restock glasses and think about the fact that she’s been, possibly, my only true friend here. There was this guy who came with me from my hometown, Tyler. We were supposed to see about buying this bar to run together. But he wound up sleeping with my girlfriend at the time, and we beat the piss out of each other when I caught him. So it seemed like a good idea to let that partnership go.

I find myself slamming the glass in my hand down a little harder than I mean to when I remember Heather, naked, on top of Tyler.

In my bed.

I was one hundred percent ready to get back to New Jersey and lick my wounds as fast as I could after that day. But I bumped into Mila while I was drinking away my sorrows at some bar and I wound up telling her my entire sad story. She mentioned that she was looking for an apartment and also might know a few good bartenders who’d be willing to help me cover shifts for cheap. It wasn’t the way I imagined it would be moving out on my own to big, bad Boston, but it wound up working.

Even if her cheerful exuberance is sometimes more than I want to deal with.

Also, she has a small lightsaber collection, and she wore a freakishly detailed Princess Leia costume for Halloween to give out candy. It isn’t that bad, but, still, she’s putting one toe dangerously close to the line of complete, hopeless dork-dom.

The bells above the door ring, and three regular girls who temp at the law offices down the street fall through the doorway, giggling.

“Hey, Landry!” the cute redhead, Lori, calls out. “The girls wanted to go somewhere nice for our pre-party buzz, but I had to come and see if you were standing under any mistletoe.”

I point above my head at the dark-beamed ceiling. “Nothing but dust and cobwebs up there. If you want a kiss, you don’t have to use some lame made-up Christmas tradition. I’m easy like that.”

I mix three quick rum and gingers, just to keep the ridiculous holiday spirit in the air, put them down in front of the girls, and lean over the bar. I cup Lori’s chin in my hands and kiss her, quick and soft enough that she won’t get any funny ideas, but long and hard enough that my lips are definitely coated with some kind of peppermint-smelling lip stuff.

Her blush is so pink, it almost blots out her freckles. She toasts with her cat-calling friends and takes a sip. “Mmm. What’s in this?”

“Bartenders’ code. I can’t spill secret info like that. If you knew what I put in it, you’d have no reason to come back and see me.” I like the way her blush gets even darker.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Lori leans in and looks at me with big, sweet doe eyes. “The drinks are way better at Dominick’s. I come here for the view.”

Lori is petite, but curvy in all the right places. I like the way she moves. I like the way she flirts. I like her laugh. And having her come home with me would be a great way to kick off some of the holiday blues.

But Mila is planning a whole laid back thing, and I can’t screw it all up on Christmas like that for her. She takes all this holiday stuff seriously.

So I keep the flirting with pretty little Lori on a low simmer, and I let her hints for more drop over and over until her friends sigh and pull her to the next hot spot. My libido hurts when she looks at me over her shoulder one last time, but I seriously don’t need the complication of holiday sex, no matter how badly I want it.

Everything gets crazier around the holidays, and, while I love Lori’s little visits to the bar, she isn’t girlfriend material. I wouldn’t want her to think there’s more to the whole thing than there really is, and holiday sex is just the kind of confusing ingredient I don’t need to add to an easy sort-of friendship like ours.

Maybe after the New Year I’ll reconsider my no-sex-with-Lori stance. But by then, we’ll be getting dangerously close to Valentine’s Day, and that brings a whole other set of complications.

The next few hours blip by, and I’m finally pouring one last whiskey for Joe McHarris, an old, ornery regular who hates the holidays as much as I do.

“Mention Christmas, and I won’t leave you a tip,” he warns before he throws the shot back.

“You never leave me a tip, Joe. But you won’t get any holiday cheer from me. I’ll be glad when all this bullshit is over and we can get back to plain old, cold, depressing winter.”

I cash out my tips and pour one more shot for Joe that he doesn’t need.

His smile is bleary. “I’ll drink to that.”

I leave him when my enthusiastic and gorgeous bartender, Emma, takes her place behind the bar, turns the Christmas music up, and gets a smile from old Joe, who, apparently can appreciate the season when it’s being celebrated by a bouncy brunette in a too-tight reindeer t-shirt.

Maybe I’ve got more of Joe’s traitorous holiday appreciation than I thought, because I’m looking forward to chilling with Mila on the couch, watching movies, and eating turkey. And cranberry sauce, no berries. If I have to celebrate this stupid holiday, it might as well be with a friend as cool as Mila.

I jog up the freezing stairway and down the poorly-lit hallway to our door, where I slide the key in, and my mouth drops open.