As much as this wasn’t my world, I was learning how to navigate it, and it felt good. I still felt mostly like a fraud, but I was a Williams, and business was in my blood. In my case, it was simply buried beneath many layers of wanting to drink, party and fuck instead.
After I shut down for the day, I freed my neck from the confines of my tie and left both it and the jacket in my car. Much better.
Lucky’s was a dive bar across town. It wasn’t a place frequented by any of the socialites or business partners I tried to avoid when relaxing and for that, I loved it. Plus, the drinks were cheap, and the food was fried and good. Much more my speed than the cafés, bistros and fancy restaurants uptown, downtown and around town I spent so much time in.
Shawn and Bart were already seated when I walked in, but Tanner wasn’t anywhere to be seen yet. I glanced down at my watch, an oversized timepiece that had belonged to my grandfather and was ostentatious, but I never took it off anyway.
“Only twenty minutes late,” I remarked, sliding into the booth next to Bart. “Which means I’m in under the wire and Tanner gets the food.”
Shawn grinned and slid the pitcher of beer across the scuffed wooden table to me, along with a glass that still had small droplets of water on it from a recent wash. “I love that rule. Helps keep your tardy asses from making me wait four hours every night.”
“Tardy?” Bart echoed in mock disbelief, staring at Shawn over the thick rims of his glasses. “I’m never late. In fact, I came up with the ‘half an hour leeway or you buy’ rule.”
Shawn lifted his shoulders and shot Bart a ‘what can you do’ look. “Hey, I’m just saying I got here first tonight.”
“Tonight,” Bart insisted, reaching for the pitcher when I was done and refilling his drink.
Lucky’s was a typical darkened, low-ceilinged bar that still smelled faintly of tobacco and probably hadn’t been redecorated since it opened. Somewhere along the nineteen thirties, if I had to guess.
The booths were covered in thick, red fabric with cigarette burns and stuffing peeking through them and along the stapled edges. The only hints of the age we were in were the flat screens mounted above the bar, the register and the sound system playing classic rock music.
Tanner dropped into the seat next to Shawn and reached for the pitcher immediately. “Are we arguing about the rules again?”
“No, we’re arguing about whose watch kept time better today.” I looked between Bart and Shawn. “Apparently, it was Shawn’s.”
Tanner rolled his eyes and downed half a glass of beer, wiped his mouth with his forearm and grinned. “Well done, Shawn. You win… nothing. We’ve never been more proud.”
“I win free pizza,” Shawn corrected with a smug smile. If I’d heard this exact argument once, I’d heard it a thousand times.
It was the same one we’d been having since high school. Shawn and Bart were sticklers for punctuality, while Tanner and I tended to see set times more as guidelines. It was the cause of many detention sessions for us, and of course of having to bribe Bart and Shawn for notes and class information.
Professionally, we were both on point with being on time. It wasn’t like one of Tanner’s games or my meetings could start without us, but in our personal lives, it was just part of who we were.
The easy banter with the boys, and being able to be myself, was something I appreciated now more than ever. These weren’t the rich, high-class snobs I spent time with at work or while out with contacts or investors. They were my high school friends. With them, I could relax and get back to myself.
Tanner’s voice interrupted my thoughts, pulling me back to the present where they were getting caught up with the events of the week. “What’s new with you, Jer? How’s that project coming?”
“It’s starting to take shape,” I told them, sipping my beer as I filled them in. “It would’ve been going a lot faster if I had a secretary.”
“What happened to Jannie?” Bart asked.
“The old man gave her the boot,” Shawn told him, signaling the waitress for another pitcher of beer when he picked ours up to realize it was nearly empty. “Caught her trying to help out with more than work-related tasks.”
“Not one of my finest moments,” I admitted. “Remind me never to give in to retreat temptation again.”
“Ahh, retreat sex,” Shawn said reminiscently. “It never ends well, but damn it’s good in the moment.”
I nodded my agreement. “True that, but it always comes back to bite you in the ass.”
“That’s why I stick to fans and cheerleaders,” Tanner said, then frowned and shrugged. “Come to think of it, it’s kind of the same with the cheerleaders.”
“Fucking where you work then, in general, is a bad idea,” Bart concluded. “All agreed?”
Beer sloshed over the sides of our glasses as we smashed them together over the center of the table and voiced our agreement. Shawn chugged his beer, and the empty glass made a dull sound when he set it down hard on the table, sliding his dark eyes to mine.
“If Jannie’s gone, you should probably get a straight guy or an old, married woman to replace her. MJ can hook you up, I’m sure she’s got contacts.”
“If she does, she didn’t offer any of them up for the job.” The waitress delivered our next pitcher and lingered, trying to capture our attention by leaning over the table to slowly wipe up the spilled beer with her cleavage in all our faces, but no one took the bait.