Connor

by Daryl Banner

  “Bro, you’re smiling.”

  I look up from the phone. “What? Oh. It’s this guy from—”

  “—from the airport? Lex told me. I’ve been all about me-me-me tonight. What’s going on with you and this sexy new airport guy? You should bring him by the place sometime! I wanna meet him and do the whole best-bro-approval thing.”

  I fight off my annoyingly persistent blush. “It’s still kinda new,” I reply vaguely. “He took me out to dinner after my first day interning. We’ve met up a couple times this week. I don’t want to rush it, you know?”

  “Hey, I don’t wanna pressure you or nothing, but you can’t go at your slow Oklahoma country-boy pace, bro. Not here. Things here happen fast.” He snaps his fingers, then looks up. “Oh. He’s here.”

  I blink. “Who? Alan?” I follow his gaze.

  “My guy,” he says, then wrinkles his face and looks at me. “How would I know what Alan looks like?” He laughs, then quickly draws quiet as he watches his baby-faced, slender, freckly twink come in. The guy looks like an angry gamer who just rage-quitted his favorite game. He wears shorts and a band t-shirt with a sideways cap over his messy red hair, and despite his total baby-face, he wears a permanent scowl, like he was just grounded.

  I lift an eyebrow. “That’s your type? You look like you could sit on him.”

  “Wish me luck,” he tells me, then scoots away from the table at once and makes his way for the bar, taking a seat right by the angry gamer. It isn’t ten seconds before he points at something, gets the twink’s attention, and then the pair of them chat. He makes the twink crack a smile.

  “It’s Kansas,” I correct him belatedly to myself, then smile and watch them as I sip my drink. I’m gathering Brett doesn’t retain information easily.

  Watching him open right up to that guy at the bar, I suddenly find myself wondering why I haven’t gotten up the nerve to tell Brett about my whole job-hunting dilemma. All week, I have been hopping around behind his back to go on job interviews, put in applications, and seek anyone who’s employing. I pretended my internship went late every day this week. I lied yesterday morning about why I got up two hours earlier than usual to head off, insisting I was being called in by my boss.

  All this stress is doing something to me.

  I should come clean—and soon.

  10

  It’s been one exhausting morning of ten-second interviews, applications, rejections, and several very irritable fingers pointing at “online applications only” signs. I’m already feeling like I’ve had a ten-hour day when I drag myself into Wales Weekly, take the long elevator ride up, and meet with Brenda and the others in the workroom.

  “Where’s our coffee?” asks Jay haughtily when we are in the middle of a tedious assignment, his cool, gray eyes flicking among us. I swear, that guy has never slouched in his life. “We need a coffee boy to handle these menial tasks. Think they’ll let us borrow one of the rat interns from downstairs?”

  An intern named Dave chuckles at that. “They have enough on their plate. You ever been to that floor? I stopped by on my way out last week, and it was nothing but mayhem.”

  “You sound envious,” notes Jay dryly.

  Dave stares at Jay, stammering. “I … N-No, I mean, I’m not …” He clears his throat, then stiffens his back. “I meant, I doubt they have someone to spare. For, uh, coffee runs.”

  “Some people aren’t made for upper-level work and management,” Jay goes on as if he didn’t hear him, typing on his laptop. “Maybe you belong with the rats downstairs. Chasing stories. Sweating for word counts. Doing the dirty work.”

  Dave looks like he’s halfway to a coronary as his face flickers past thirty different responses, then at last settles on none at all, bending over his own laptop as he frowns and types away.

  Bree in the corner of the room catches my eye, then shakes her head and continues thumbing over files in a cabinet.

  “How about you, Connor?” asks Jay suddenly.

  I lift my eyes from an article I’m reading. “Uh, what?”

  “You want to be one of the rats downstairs?”

  I notice a few of the other interns are looking at me. Why do I get the feeling everyone is as darkly hungry for me to say the wrong thing as Jay is? Is this a common workplace thing, to be so desperate for your peers to crash and burn?

  I give Jay a light smile. “Did you know the rat comes first in the Chinese zodiac? Those born in the year of the rat are thought to share its traits, such as creativity, honesty, and generosity.”

  Eyes shift uncomfortably around the room.

  Jay stares at me hard. After a frosty moment’s thought, he lets out a private chuckle. “I doubt a trait like ‘generosity’ ever served anyone important when you’re at our level … let alone a rat.”

  His amused chuckle is met with a few others’, including Dave’s, who appears determined as ever to win over Jay’s approval.

  I shrug, taking Jay’s snide comment as I would anyone else’s. “Of course, there’s one other trait of the rat I failed to mention …”

  Jay’s lips twist with an unimpressed smirk at my words as he awaits the rest of my sentence.

  I smile lightly. “Ambition.”

  His eyes darken.

  Then Brenda comes in, and our moment ends.

  At the end of our day, Bree and I ride down the elevator together again. And after its dutiful stop on what we’ll endearingly call the “rats’ floor”, Bree leans into me and mutters, “Is there an animal in the Chinese zodiac to represent a conceited, self-important bag of dicks?”

  The small pinch of victory I feel after leaving my internship is quickly quashed by a deathly cold splash of reality. A glance at my phone reveals four more instant job rejections, three “I’m sorry, we’re no longer hiring” emails, and a skillfully written text that says, in a nutshell, I’m overqualified.

  I could have been saved a whole lot of time if the city itself would just grow a giant mouth and say no one is hiring at all, and if they are, I’m not wanted, needed, or fitting to even flip a burger.

  I’m going to have to tell Brett tonight.

  And hope he doesn’t kick me out.

  After emerging from the depths of the subway, a random decision to take a different route home has me passing the fateful alley down which the neon eggplant-shaped sign for Aubergines flashes, catching my eye. Feeling like I could use a pick-me-up drink before facing my roommate, I head right down the alley and flash my ID at the bouncer.

  In no time, I’m sitting at a table by myself, I’ve already drained my whiskey sour with cherry, and now I’m staring at the stage, forlorn, no smile left on my lips. Everyone looks irritating somehow. I keep noticing a group of loud and obnoxious men near the stage guffawing over the loud club music and cheering on the dancers.

  One of the men peers over his shoulder with an annoyed scowl. “Where the hell’s our shots??”

  I glance at the bar. A tray full of shots sits on the counter, ready, likely left there by the bartender who prepared them. With another glance, I spot the server—wearing nothing but a bowtie and a pair of tight purple bootie shorts with big black boots—standing by the curtain of the main stage, gossiping and laughing with someone backstage.

  I roll my eyes, tired of it all, and ditch my glass to head for the bar. I grab the tray myself, lift it onto a shoulder with ease, then bring it to the table of hooting men. “Here you go, boys,” I say with mock sassiness.

  The man looks me up and down, then frowns. “Is tonight’s theme business attire or something?”

  “More ‘or something’ than ‘business attire’,” I tease him. “Can I get you boys anything else?”

  He twirls a finger in the air. “Give me a little spin-around, that’d be nice. How’s your ass look in those slacks? They fit you like a glove.”

  “You can see it for yourself as I walk away,” I throw back at him, feeling smart, or perhaps simply a bit loose from my one drink, then turn around.
<
br />   A finger slips into the waist of my pants.

  I spin around to protest … until I realize it’s a twenty-dollar bill he just tucked into my waistband.

  “I, uh …” I pull it out, suddenly feeling wrong. “I … don’t actually work here. I can’t accept this.”

  “You will accept it,” says the man, “and that is a damned shame, because I’d pay to see your sweet ass every night.” He squints at me. “You’ve got a bit of a twang. You from Arkansas?”

  I’m going to get people guessing every damned state in the south before someone actually gets it right. “Kansas,” I tell him, the twenty pinched between my fingers, “and thank you, but I still can’t accept—”

  He pushes the twenty to my chest. “You can.”

  Then the dancers on stage start to do a clever maneuver around the same pole, and a new wave of cheering erupts from the men at the table. I walk away with that twenty pinched between my fingers, my eyes wide, my mouth unable to close.

  Well, at least I’m not going home empty-handed.

  I return the tray to the bartender, who is too busy cleaning glasses to acknowledge me, enjoying the lack of customers, no doubt. I quickly pull out my phone to text Alan about what just happened.

  I’m halfway through typing the sentence “I just got tipped twenty dollars at a bar for doing someone else’s job” when I feel a presence at my side. I look up to find a round-bellied man in a tight leather vest and matching pants, with a thick bushel of hair on his chest and absolutely none on his pale, freckly head.

  A pair of glasses rests at the end of his big nose. He peers at me over them. “Hey, you,” he says in a curt, clipped manner—no hint of suggestiveness in his tone. “Why’re you doing my shot boy’s work?”

  “I … Sorry, what?”

  “I’m the general manager here at Aubergines. I asked you a question. Hey, why’re you looking at me with those doe eyes like I’m speaking Russian? I saw you bring those men their shots.”

  “I’m sorry,” I blurt, finally pulling out of my daze. “I didn’t mean to do your shot boy’s work.”

  “Of course you did, hon. You saw a distressed customer, and you took the right action. I’m Larry. Everyone’s heard of me, even if they haven’t.”

  “Hi. I’m Connor. Am I … in trouble …?”

  “Sweetie, are you always this skittish? I saw you here the other night with Brett. He’s a good guy. If he trusts you, I trust you. Tell you what.” He sniffs loudly, his reddened bulb of a nose jumping. “You ever work in a nightclub before?”

  I blink, staring at him wet-eyed. “No.”

  “I happen to be in need of a new shot boy. My last one was fired. By me. Just now. You want the job or not? I got shit to do, hon, just say yes.”

  11

  “Are you serious??”

  “Yep! Just like that!” I exclaim to Alan, then let out a bubbly burst of laughter. “I’m still in shock. I can’t even describe to you how much rejection I’ve been facing, left and right. It isn’t easy getting a job here! Shoot, back home …”

  “Aw, shoot,” teases Alan, mimicking my twang.

  I scowl playfully at him. “Back home, I could pick up extra work in a snap, no problem. Are you gonna eat that?” I ask, then reach and grab the pickle off his deli plate, crunching my teeth into it.

  Alan watches with a smile across his face. His smile is so big, his cheeks flush warmly. “You are so adorable, Connor. Do you even know that?” He gazes dreamily into my eyes. “Do you even know how fucking cute you are?”

  I stop chewing, half the pickle hanging out of my mouth, and stare at him wide-eyed. “Cute?” I ask through my mouthful, lifting my eyebrows.

  He chuckles lightly, glances at his phone, then squints at me across the table. “Want to come over to my place? See the stupid-high tower I live in? I don’t feel like being alone yet tonight.”

  I swallow my last bite of pickle, then smile. “I’ll do it if you agree to one thing.”

  Alan quirks an eyebrow. “One thing?”

  I wave my hand at a nearby server. “Check please!” Then I whip out the twenty-dollar tip I got and fling it down onto the table. “Late-night deli sandwiches are on me.”

  Alan smirks. “Is that the ‘one thing’ …?”

  “Nope.” I wink mischievously at him. “My one thing is something else you’ll have to find out.”

  He squints suspiciously at me.

  Alan, I’ve learned, does not like surprises.

  And I’m certain he won’t like the one I’ve got planned.

  His high-rise building is sleek, appearing like a giant slate of glass reaching up towards the night sky. He even has a front desk receptionist, who gives a stiff smile at each of us as we pass through the pristine lobby and to the elevator, which takes us promptly to the seventeenth floor.

  Alan’s apartment is easily five times bigger than mine and Brett’s. An entire wall of the living room is a floor-to-ceiling glass window, in front of which sits a stylish white sectional and a large mounted flatscreen on the opposite wall. An open-concept kitchen overlooks the living space complete with a long marble countertop with stools. Everything is perfectly in its place, from each throw pillow on the couch—which are an assortment of complementing colors, tones of aqua, sunset orange, and vivid teal against the couch’s white backdrop—to the dishes in the doorless cabinets. A single potted plant kisses an archway leading down a hall to two bedrooms—one being used as an office—and a bathroom.

  “This is quite the pad,” I note as my short tour comes to a stop at his bedroom door. “And where is the door to this infamously terrifying balcony you’ve never stepped foot on?”

  “There are two, actually,” he answers vaguely.

  I lift an eyebrow. “And they are …?”

  “One in the living room by the couch, and …” He nods ahead. “One here in my bedroom.”

  “Good. Take my hand,” I tell him, reaching.

  Alan stares at it suspiciously. “What?”

  “Take my hand.”

  “Why?”

  He’s already caught on. He isn’t dumb. But I press on anyway. “Remember that ‘one thing’ you agreed to? This is it.”

  “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” he says.

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” I retort, then take hold of his hand, which I note is already sweaty. “I’m gonna be right there with you, Alan. Let’s do it. You’ll be a whole new man afterwards.”

  “I’m man enough already, thanks.”

  “The trembling in your otherwise husky voice suggests otherwise,” I tease him. “Hey, aren’t you a man of your word? You can’t back out now.”

  Alan glares at me.

  I’m not sure it’s entirely playful.

  But in time, the pair of us stand at the opened glass door to his balcony, which I realize is a long and narrow one, like a walkway, wrapping around to connect to the living room balcony.

  The wind plays in our hair. The city stretches out beyond us, noisy yet far away, its night lights twinkling like stars.

  “One step at a time,” I encourage him. “I won’t let go. You’ve got me.”

  “Okay.” Alan closes his eyes. “Okay, okay.”

  “One step, alright?”

  “Okay.”

  We take a step together.

  I feel Alan shaking through our clasped hands.

  “Wow,” I murmur. “You really are scared.”

  “Are we done?” he asks sourly.

  We’re basically still standing at the door. “You have such a beautiful view out here, Alan. It’s such a shame it has to go to waste. One more step?”

  “Ugh,” is his answer.

  But despite my doubts that he’ll push himself much farther, he dares to take another step with me. That step is soon followed by another, and before we know it, I’ve brought Alan to the railing, seventeen stories above the streets.

  “My heart is racing,” he whispers to the wind.

 
“I’ve got you,” I tell him. “Open your eyes.”

  “No.”

  “C’mon, Alan. There’s nothing to fear.”

  He grasps my hips suddenly, clinging to me. I feel his whole body trembling. “It’s irrational, my fear, I know.” He takes a deep, steeling breath. “It’s a fear I’ve always had. I fell off a jungle gym once. I fell off a ladder, too. My dad once said he’d catch me when I jumped off a swing set, and he didn’t.”

  “So you have trust issues with height.”

  “Full blown bad relationship and breakup.”

  “Well, here’s to reconciling. If you open your eyes, I’ll kiss you.”

  Startled by my declaration, his eyes flash open and he looks at me in surprise. “You’ll what?”

  I press my lips to his at once, tasting him.

  He crumbles against me as I kiss him, all of his big confidence turned into putty in my arms.

  “That,” he murmurs between our kisses, “was very … very cruel.”

  I pull my face away from him to get a look into his eyes. He stares at me, the wind tossing our hair. In this moment, any notion of height is so far away from his mind, we might as well be kissing down on the streets again.

  Alan shakes his head. “You surprise me.”

  “I like you, Alan,” I tell him. “A lot. And sure, you might see me as some kinda sheltered country boy, but I’ve had a boyfriend or two growing up. I’ve got sides of me you haven’t seen. I’m daring, Alan. I’m not just a lovesick puppy who’s got stars in his eyes for the hot guy from the airport.”

  Alan’s eyes drop to my lips. Remarkably, he still isn’t the least bit concerned with the fact that he’s standing on his balcony for the first time ever.

  “Me, too,” he says suddenly, then brings his gaze up to mine. “You aren’t like anyone I’ve ever met, Connor. Maybe I like that this place hasn’t put its teeth into you yet. I like that sweetness in your eyes … that innocence, that openness …”