Just like all of them.
“Babe, I’ll be honest with you. Your ass is a little big for my taste, but I’d still fuck you. When’s your next break? Meet me at the bathroom?”
Ugh. My ass is perfect, if not a little big, and my waist is small. Guys like him feel like they need to knock women down a few notches in order to actually have a chance with them. My soul is too tired to hate this guy, though. That’s how much I’ve been broken before. I just want this night to be over with so I can crawl into bed, put some music on, and chill with Gia, my dog.
“Thanks, but I don’t date customers.” I smile politely.
“Who said anything about dating? Does it look like I’m asking your ass to go to dinner with me?” The man laughs crudely, pounding his fist over the counter to make sure his friends, who surround him, got the joke. It’s the first time I look at him—really look at him—and I guess he is around thirty. Maybe not even. He’s chubby, but not in an unattractive way, a little too hairy, a little too short, and way too big of an asshole to be considered a catch.
I turn around and smack Selene’s ass, because I’m allowed to, unlike him. She’s another girl who bartends with me here.
“Can you take care of Mr. Green Dress Shirt?” I elbow her on a wink. She smiles at me, and effortlessly I return one of my own. That’s me. Quinn, the happy-go-lucky girl.
“Sure thing. He giving you trouble, girl?” she asks in her Southern twang. I’m not asking where she’s from because a lot of the girls Graham picks up to work at his joints don’t want to talk about their pasts. It’s one thing if you decide to bring your past up yourself in a conversation and tell others your story, but here, we never ask.
I never told a soul.
I was never asked.
And I like it that way.
“Nah, he’s a real sweetheart, but he wants to chat, and I have a migraine.”
“Aw, there’s some Tylenol in my bag.” She shifts her eyes downward to the shelves behind the counter, and I nod.
“You’re the best.”
“Don’t I know it.”
The rest of the night goes by without incident. My eyes keep drifting to Carter, and Carter’s eyes keep drifting
to me. Cole Savage is here tonight, so all the ladies are losing their minds, asking for him to sign their tits and whatnot. When my shift is finally over, it’s four a.m.
I wipe the bar with a wet cloth, arrange the beer pints and wine glasses—all still warm from the industrial dishwasher—in a neat row behind the bar. I notice that Carter stares at me harder when I do those things. Arrange. Make sure all the glasses are in a straight line. I’m funny like that, but I’ve always been a neat person.
Maybe a little OCD.
Either way, he doesn’t mind.
When he sees me fussing over the exact angle of the glass, how I want it to be placed so it won’t be half an inch too close or too far to the next one, he tenses. Then when I get it right—and I always get it right—the tension melts away.
We’re both weird. I know that.
But I don’t dislike that.
If anything…it’s nice. To feel like someone sees you and understands. Not everything. He’ll never understand everything but the surface of things, and that’s more than I’m used to.
“I’m outta here, people. Have a good one!” I fling my bag over my shoulder, smack my lips with a fresh coat of lip-gloss, and move toward the back door. I blow kisses to the other bartenders and bouncers—everyone other than Carter. For some reason, it feels weird to do that to him. Not because I don’t like him. More because it’s a charade I feel like he shouldn’t be a part of. Like he deserves more than my lies. Then I walk away.
I leave through the back exit that leads to the alley behind the bar. It’s fall, and the air is fresh and crisp, but the stench of industrial food and empty bottles of alcohol is rising from the trash containers. I sigh and throw the garbage into the nearest trashcan. I turn around, beginning to walk out of the narrow, bricked alleyway and to the main street, when I feel a cold blade pressed against my neck. A cold hand snakes behind my back, the palm pressing against my lips. I shudder. I know this smell. Alcohol, salty peanuts, and despair.
My father.
“You know, Quinn, I always found it hard to believe when people told me you’d leave me. I thought to myself, ‘She’ll never do it. I’m her father, and I need her. I’m sick.’ But guess what? They were right, and I was wrong. Because here I am, chasing my fucked-up daughter in the middle of the night, or the beginning of the morning, depending on how you look at it, really, looking for favors.”
The first thing I think about is that he must be relatively sober. I don’t remember Dad forming such a long sentence in a very long time. My second thought is that I want him to just kill me. To get it over with. I’m done. This life means nothing to me anymore. I work, I take care of Gia, and I repeat. This is not a life worth living, and all I want is for it to end. I press my neck deeper into the blade, leaning into it, and he cringes behind me, groaning, obviously exasperated with my antics.
“You’re crazy. Just like your mother.”