“Yeah,” Cody says. “Starbucks downtown.”
“Actually . . . I work downtown,” Dylan says quietly and we all turn to look at him, confused. Dylan has a way of carrying on three lives, two of which remain completely unknown to us. I’ve known him since we were freshmen, but if you asked me what he does all day, I would guess he reads, surfs, goes for long walks, and gets lost.
“Wait, what?” I say. “Since when do you have a job?”
He shrugs. “Since, like, Sept—”
“We came here tonight,” Andrew begins, interrupting us, “because you, Luke, banged the bartender where I wanted to go, and—”
“Wait, hold up,” Daniel says, finally turning back to the table. “Luke banged the bartender at Mighty Brew?”
I groan. “She wasn’t the bartender. She was a—”
Dylan cuts me off. “I think Andrew means that you slept with the bartender at Fred’s,” he says, more quietly. I can hear the question embedded there: Did you fuck London, Luke?
Andrew shakes his head, confused. “Luke banged the new bartender at Fred’s? I was talking about the redhead at Stone at Liberty Station.”
Dylan gets up with a huff and heads toward the bathroom. Cody groans, saying, “Pretty soon we won’t be able to go anywhere without someone crying in the bathroom over Luke.”
“Jesus Christ.” I rest my head in my hands and Andrew slides a half-finished beer into my line of sight.
“Here. Drink this.”
“Can I get you guys anything else?” a voice asks at the far end of the table.
“Two more of these,” Andrew says, and then points to me, saying loud enough for our server to hear, “Luke, you’re not allowed to bang this waitress. They serve Ruination here and I’ll be pissed if we can’t come back.”
“Okay,” I mumble, closing my eyes and keeping my head down. Is this a conversation that would have made me laugh a week ago? Right now it makes me feel faintly sleazy.
“She’s hot,” Daniel says a few seconds later, “in that single-serving kind of way.”
“Dan—” Dylan starts, having returned surprisingly quickly.
I hold up my hand for him to wait, leaning in so I can hear Daniel better, repeating, “That ‘single-serving’ kind of way?” What the fuck is he talking about?
“You guys,” Dylan says with more intent.
But Daniel continues, turning and planting his elbows on the table. “That thing you have, a little treat, that fills you up but you forget it pretty quickly. A Twinkie, a bag of chips. An energy drink. Cute girl, nice body . . . single serving.”
In spite of myself I laugh at this shit—Daniel can be such a dick—finally lifting my head and taking a sip of my beer. But straight across from me stands Dylan, hunched over the table, wearing a shut the fuck up expression. He looks at my face and then widens his eyes when he looks over my shoulder, meaningfully.
I turn, and see that the waitress is right behind me, her back to us as she writes something down on her pad. Her wheat-colored ponytail brushes her shoulder when she straightens, takes a deep breath, and sticks her pen behind her ear. When she turns to us, smile plastered on her face, my heart immediately bottoms out.
“Two Ruinations. Anything else?” she asks, her dimple poking into her cheek as she swallows.
The table falls silent, but my heart is now somewhere under my chair.
London.
London is our waitress.
Her eyes meet mine, and I can’t tell. I just can’t tell at all if she heard, and if so, how much. Did she hear the part about my apparent penchant for female bartenders? Did she hear what Daniel said? And, oh shit, did she hear me laugh?
“We’re good,” Daniel croaks.
With a little nod and smile, London turns and walks back to the bar.
Daniel bursts out laughing and makes a wry face. “Oops!”
“Dude,” Dylan hisses, shaking his head at me. “If she heard you assholes I’m going to be pissed. London is a nice person, and you guys are dicks.”
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Fuuuck.”
Dylan nods at me, disappointment making his normally happy face more somber before he turns and heads toward the bathroom in earnest this time. I feel like a complete ass.
Andrew shrugs and immediately moves on, saying something about the U.S. Men’s Water Polo team, the Olympics, whether we’re all going together to Tokyo to watch them, but I can’t do much more than stare into my beer.
We came here tonight because you, Luke, banged the bartender where I wanted to go.
Luke banged the new bartender at Fred’s? I was talking about the redhead at Stone at Liberty Station.
She’s hot, in that single-serving kind of way.