“Well, I should be building my portfolio to start looking for a real job, but I’m a brilliant procrastinator,” I tell him. “The video games call to me.”
Luke considers this. “Portfolio? Where’d you go to school?”
“UCSD. Graduated last spring. Graphic design.”
He looks confused, glancing to the colored bottles of liquor over my shoulder, to the rest of the bar, and then back to me. “And yet you’re here.”
“I am,” I say, and he seems to let it drop for now.
Luke and I fucked and we aren’t really even friends, so I have to give him credit for not asking why I’m tending bar at Fred’s instead of using the degree I obviously paid a small fortune for. Points for the boy.
“What about you?” I ask. “There were some hefty stacks of books at your place.”
“I graduated last spring, too. Studied poli-sci.”
“Wow,” I say, impressed. “What about sports?”
“Soccer for fun, water polo more seriously.”
Water polo. I give myself a mental high five for having guessed this the first time I saw him, and then my heart dips a little. The UCSD men’s water polo team won two national championships while we were there. Luke has to be an amazing athlete.
I swipe a bar towel across the prep space in front of me. “Wow,” I say quietly. “Water polo. That’s . . .” Impressive.
He waves this off. “So you spend all day surfing and work here at night, somehow perfecting your man-crushing gamer talents in your downtime.”
“Pretty much,” I tell him.
“Are you woman enough for a rematch?”
I’m about to remind him that no, last night was a one-time thing, when the outside door opens and a slice of the setting sun cuts across the floor. It’s Mia, followed by towering, gangly Ansel.
I smile and she bounces on her feet, waving. It’s only when I turn back to Luke that I see he’s followed the shift in my attention, and he’s looking right at my friend and her oversexed husband. Luke’s sixty-watt smile dims and he blinks quickly down to his beer, continuing to spin the coaster beneath it.
When I turn, I see that Ansel has his arms wrapped around Mia’s front, and is steering them both toward a booth in the far corner. Luke still hasn’t said anything.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out there’s some sort of connection between Luke and Mia, especially since I did see them in conversation the other day, I recall. So I guess it’s up to me to decide if I care enough to ask.
I’m not sure I do.
“Well, as fun as this has been, I have a few more things to grab,” I say, stepping out from behind the bar.
Luke still doesn’t seem to have snapped out of whatever was bothering him, and quietly nods in my general direction.
I wave at Fred as I head back to the stockroom. Fred was recovering from a slipped disk when I started, and Harlow basically threatened to hang his balls from the dartboard if she caught him lifting anything heavier than a bottle of Bombay.
I’m still getting to know Harlow, but I’ve learned enough to know that she’s 1) nosy, 2) really nosy when she cares about someone, and 3) in possession of one hell of a temper. I’ll carry as many boxes from the storeroom as it takes to never experience that temper firsthand.
When I get back to the bar—arms full—Luke slides off his stool to greet me.
“Jesus, let me help you,” he says, taking the cardboard box off my hands.
“Thanks,” I say, and shake out my arms. “That one was heavier than it looked.”
“How many more of those do you have?” he asks, looking back over my shoulder.
“Just a few,” I tell him, cutting the tape open to check the contents inside.
“Show me where they are and I’ll help you. I helped my sister move a few weeks ago, and according to her I missed my calling in manual labor.”
“No, I can—” I start to say, but he’s already shaking his head.
“I’m not offering because of some chivalrous bullshit reason or because you’re a girl and I think you can’t do it alone—I think we both know you can probably do whatever the hell you want,” he says with a wink. “I’m offering because the sooner you’re done, the sooner I can monopolize more of your time.”
“Thanks,” I say again, ignoring the way his words make my blood vibrate in unexpected pleasure, and motioning for him to follow me. “But there’ll be no hanging out going on back there. No being a friend. Just to clarify.”
“I know, I know,” Luke says, rounding the bar and offering Fred the requisite Man Nod as we pass. I don’t miss Fred’s smug I told you so expression when his gaze flickers to me, and I give him a threatening look before ducking around the corner and down the hall.
It’s so much quieter back here, away from the sharp crack of the pool table, the clink of glasses, or shouts aimed at the TVs.
Luke peeks inside Fred’s office, and then stops just outside our tiny break room. It’s more of a kitchen, really, with a refrigerator and a microwave, and sometimes after work I fall asleep in the worn leather chair in the corner.