by Mika Lane
“Oh my god, Tom, I’m so sorry.” I slammed my things into a cabinet behind the bar and grabbed an apron.
“Slow down, cowgirl,” Tom said. “We’re not that busy, and I was having fun hanging with your friend down at the end of the bar.”
I followed his gaze and found Matty sipping a martini. When I caught his eye, he waved at me frantically.
“I’m out of here, if you don’t mind. Have a good night,” Tom said.
I immediately took stock of the folks drinking at the bar to see who needed a refill and who wanted to pay their check. After I took care of a few patrons, I worked my way down to the bar toward Matty.
“Hi!” I told him. “You never come here. What’s up?” It was true. He thought the bar was a dump. It sort of was. But I think that’s what people liked about it.
“I had to hear about the dead guy’s house. Was it amazing? Tell me!” His eyes were wild with expectation. I couldn’t let him down.
But there was no need to. Grandpa’s house was that incredible. I told him every last detail, stopping when I had to serve some customers.
“So the house was unbelievable,” I told him, “but you should have seen the groundskeeper.”
“Oh my god, tell me,” he stage-whispered.
“He was like the Marlboro Man. Only better. And he didn’t smoke.” Matty laughed at that. “I’m pretty sure he was suspicious of my coming to see the house, though.”
“You little slut! I love it.” He clapped his hands together happily and stepped off his stool. “Well. My work here is done. I just wanted to hear the latest in your pre-millionaire adventures.”
“Shhh!” I hissed, looking around. “I don’t want anyone besides you to know about this.”
“Don’t worry, mum’s the word. I just want to know when you’re bringing me by the place. I want to see it so bad.”
“Okay. I’ll see if I can arrange it. But you have to be cool. You can’t let on what’s going on.”
“I’ll be good. I swear I’ll be good,” he assured me, and he made for the door, most likely to meet that evening’s date.
I wasn’t sure how I could get Matty there without really raising Win’s suspicions. But hell, what would I do if the place really did become mine some day? There’d be no hiding that. Shit, what if I ended up being Win’s boss?
Chapter 8
Ambrose “Brose”
My best buddy Win and I headed into the city to some dive bar to see a girl he’d taken a liking to.
“How did you meet her again?” I asked him as he wove his pickup truck through the typically heavy San Francisco traffic.
“Dude, it was the weirdest thing,” he started. “I saw her snooping around Cordy’s property. I was going to kick her the hell out but she was just so nice. Not to mention, hot as hell.”
That’s my buddy Win. Always thinking with his little head.
“So, what was she doing there?” I asked.
“Well, at first, I thought for sure she was casing the place. I even offered to show her the house, just to test her and see how she reacted. But she wasn’t interested in any of the valuables. Said she was looking into leasing the property. But Brose, she’s a freaking bartender. She can’t lease a mansion.”
I watched my friend shake his head. Win had a lot of street smarts, and if he felt something was off, it probably was.
“All right. So if it all seemed so fishy, why are you going to see her?” I gave him the side-eye, like I always did when I thought he was being an idiot.
He shrugged as he made an illegal left turn. Like I said, idiot.
“I…I can’t put my finger on it. She’s just cute. I want to know her more.” He looked over at me.
“I think you’ll like her, too,” he added.
“Ah, okay. I know where you’re going with this now. Why you wanted me to come.” I looked out the window and laughed. I should have figured this out when he insisted I join him.
“I don’t know, dude, don’t write it off. It worked out pretty well when we both dated Esme.
“Yeah. That was cool as shit. Until she moved back to France, anyway.”
Win nodded, wistfulness washing over his face. He’d really loved her. Hell, I had, too.
He pulled up to the curb in a funky South of Market neighborhood and headed for a non-descript door on a building with no street-facing windows.
“Guess I know why they call this Drive By. If you didn’t know it was here, you’d never notice it,” I said.
“Yeah, looks nice and dumpy. Just what the doctor ordered.” Win pulled the door open with a huge grin and let me enter first. He was in his element.
* * *
It was dim inside, enough so that I had to let my eyes adjust to the lack of light. When I could finally see, we headed for a long, wooden bar that must have been a hundred years old. Definitely a neighborhood place from the look of the geezer patrons and a couple yuppies in the corner enjoying cheap beer. A young guy with tattoos and thick silver earrings approached us with a bar mop in hand.
“What can I get you, gentlemen?” he asked with a smile, wiping down the spot in front of us. The old bar’s wood was stained by years of patrons spilling and breaking things. Oh, the stories it could probably tell.
“Hey, man,” Win said. “How ‘bout a couple Buds?”
“Coming right up,” the bartender said.
I turned to Win. “Dude, you know I hate Budweiser. Why do you always insist on ordering me one?”
Win rolled his eyes, waving his arm in the air to beckon the bartender back. He gestured toward me.
“My fine friend here would like one of your floofy beers.”
“Blow me,” I said to Win. I looked at the amused bartender, who probably thought we were a bickering couple. “I’ll have a Sierra Nevada, please.”
“So Brosey,” Win said to me. “What’s up with the restaurant?”
I took a long draw on my beer. Damn, that was tasty. “It’s going good, I think. The head chef really seems to like my work. He’s giving me more to do and even asked my opinion about a couple new dishes he’s working on.”
“Shit, bro! That’s awesome.” He slapped me on the back.
Just then, the bar’s front door blew open, letting in a flash of sunlight. It was gone just as quickly, returning to its sleepy duskiness at the slam of the door.
But it hadn’t closed fast enough that I didn’t see the gorgeous woman who walked in. I immediately felt a little jolt in my pants, and I prayed she’d come sit by me.
She was tall with this wild long hair, dressed kind of tomboyish with a plain white T-shirt and Adidas, which was quite the contrast with her curvy-as-shit figure. She walked straight toward Win and me, her tits jiggling lightly in spite of the lacy bra visible through her shirt. Her nice round hips moved side to side just the right amount. She didn’t have to try to be sexy, like some girls did, which really just killed me.
“Win!” she said as if she’d found a long-lost friend. How well did he know her? And how could I get to know her?
She threw an arm around him in a half-hug.
“I was hoping you’d come by the bar.” She turned to me. “Who’s your friend here?”
Holy shit. This was Garnet? Now I understood why we drove across town in such shitty traffic.
“Garnet, I’d like you to meet my friend, Brose, chef extraordinaire.”
I popped off my seat and took Garnet’s hand. And then, because I couldn’t help myself, I slowly pulled it to my lips for a kiss. God, her skin smelled good. She dropped her head back and released a laugh that washed over me like some kind of damn music.
Shit. I hated it when this happened.
Win had known I’d like her. That’s why he’d dragged me there. Just like he’d dragged me to meet Esme, whom we’d both fallen hard for.
“Garnet, great to meet you,” I said in my best I am suave voice.
She turned bright pink, which really made my dick twitch, and let her hand linger in mine for a moment
. I glanced at Win, who wore one of his biggest “happy smirks.”
Win and I both pulled our stools to the side so we could squeeze another between us. She planted her pretty little ass on it.
“Tom?” she said, waving toward the bartender. “Can I have a Stella?” she asked.
“So, a Stella girl, huh?” I asked her.
She took a sip of her beer. “Yeah. Love Stella.” She looked at the two of us.
“So, how long you guys been friends? How do you know each other?”
“We went to elementary school together,” Win answered, nodding. Those were not happy days for either of us, but I liked to think that was all behind us now.
“It has been a long time that I’ve known this jerk,” I added, holding up my beer to him. “Cheers, buddy.”
Garnet joined us. Clicking bottles all around. “To new friends,” Win said.
Her face lit up with a huge—and may I say gorgeous—crooked smile.
“You two have known each other since you were kids? I have that with my friend Matty. It’s really something to have known someone for so long.”
“So Brose, what restaurant are you working in?” she asked.
“North by Northwest. Also known to regulars as NbN,” I said.
“Get out! I’ve never been there but have heard it’s all the rage right now. That’s so cool.”
“Maybe you can come in some time. I’m the sous chef there. We have a slamming menu. You’d probably like it.”
Win piped up. “Brose’s real dream is to have his own restaurant some day. Just wait ‘til you try his cooking.”
She looked between the two of use. Could she already know what we were thinking?
“What are we waiting for? We should go right now.” She threw her head back for another one of her beautiful laughs.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I was just kidding. For one, I am supposed to be working in,” she looked at her watch, “four minutes. But let’s do it another time. And you guys are welcome to hang out. Hell, if you’re nice to me, I may even give you a free beer or two.”
I looked at Win, and we laughed. Did this woman know us, or what?
Garnet hustled over behind the bar and got to work, serving the customers who were just arriving, and greeting them like long-lost friends.
“So,” Win said to me.
“So, yourself,” I said back.
“You enjoying your fancy beer?” he asked, his head tilting toward my Sierra.
“Yup. You enjoying your shitty beer?”
“Yup.”
A few silent minutes slipped by. Without meaning to, we both watched Garnet smiling and laughing as she did her thing.
I broke the quiet.
“I don’t know about her leasing the house, but I definitely would like to get to know her better. How do you feel about that?” I asked.
Win looked at me and nodded slowly. We’d navigated this before. Women were not something we fought about. We’d been through too much together, and our friendship was much more important than getting our rocks off.
“She’s a cool girl. What do you say we each go out with her and see how she feels about things?”
“It’s a plan,” I said, watching her gorgeous ass hustle from one end of the bar to the other.
Chapter 9
Garnet
“Hey, it’s about time you got your ass out of bed,” Matty shrieked at me over the phone, waking me from a dead sleep.
“Ugh. Matty. I closed last night. I didn’t get home ‘til two a.m. I should at least be able to sleep until nine-thirty or ten. And don’t you have work to do, anyway?” I needed a cushy receptionist job like he had, where I could gab on the phone half the day with my friends and cruise the online dating sites the other half.
I pushed myself to sitting, stuffing pillows behind me. The usual San Francisco fog billowed past my window, socking in the city.
“So have you spoken to the lawyer?” he asked. “What’s the latest on Grandpa’s estate?”
“Nothing new. Mr. Jones told me to call him if I found a husband. How ridiculous is that?” Honestly, I couldn’t believe he was able to say that with a straight face.
“Ugh. What a dick. Is he single, by any chance?” That was my Matty. Always looking for a lay.
“I have no idea, nor do I know if he even plays for your team. But somehow, I think that would be a massive conflict of interest. Anyway, I’m thinking I might have found some husband prospects.” Ugh. That sounded so creepy.
He sucked his breath in with interest. “Seriously? Prospects? With an ‘s’ on the end, like plural?”
“Yeah, can you believe it? I mean, maybe I’m imagining things, but who knows. The first guy is Nat, the accountant the lawyer put me in touch with. He’s blond, sort of a preppy Ralph Lauren-looking guy. I told you about him already. He’s kind of uptight and seems to work really hard.”
“Oh my god. Marry him so I can look at him at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner! He sounds delicious,” Matty squealed.
“Down boy,” I said. “Then there’s Linc, the guy who owns the gym with his brother. He’s tall and buff, seems shy, but is super sweet. He’s the one who rescued me from that Craigslist creep.”
“Ohhh, right. He’s sounds like a god. Maybe he has a big d—”
“C’mon Matty. I’m trying to be serious here.”
Big sigh, followed by a big huff.
“Okay,” I continued. “Then there are two guys who are friends. Win reminds me of the Marlboro Man with his craggy, tan face. He’s the groundskeeper at Grandpa’s mansion, and his best friend, Brose, a gorgeous bald, black guy with a neck tattoo and pierced ears, is a chef at North by Northwest.”
“Damn, that’s like an encyclopedia of men. I’ll take your leftovers if any of them want to try a walk on the wild side.”
“I’ll be sure to let them know, Matty.” I stretched, dragging my butt out of bed. “It would be nice if things worked out but c’mon, how likely is it that anyone finds someone to marry in thirty days? Seriously.”
Ugh. Why did Grandpa fuck me up like this?
“Are you gonna tell them about the money?”
“Hell no. I already tried being up front about the money on that stupid Craigslist ad and look what happened. I attracted every creep in the Bay Area.”
“Then how the hell are you going to get one of them to marry you by the end of the month?”
“I don’t know. What would you do if you were me?”
He cackled. “I know exactly what I’d do. I’d go out with all of them and pick the guy with the biggest dick!”
That’s my Matty. But he had a point.
* * *
I walked to work to clear my head and ended up getting there early. On the way, I passed my usual posse of homeless buddies and stopped to say hi to them. God, they broke my heart.
“Hey, Tom,” I said, grabbing a seat at the bar. Since we were in-between lunch and happy hour, the place was empty. While I liked the bar when it was hopping with activity, it was also kind of magical when it was quiet, like it was waiting for something to happen, waiting for the explosion of activity that was sure to come.
“Hey, sweetie,” he said as he filled the cooler with bottles of beer. “Seems like you’ve had a busy social life lately.”
Damn. Was it that obvious? “You know how it is, when it rains, it pours.” I laughed as nonchalantly as I could force myself to. Shit, did he know about Grandpa and the money?
“Yeah, you got yourself some suitors.”
I shrugged. “I guess. We’ll see what comes of it.”
He leaned onto the bar before me. “What else is going on? Still thinking about that sommelier course?”
I sighed deeply. I’d been trying not to think about it, but with Grandpa’s money, I might be able to finally make my dream happen.
“I do think about it. A lot. Probably too much.”
“What? How can you be thinking about your dream too much?�
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I felt a lump growing in my throat. Tom was right. What was wrong with letting yourself have dreams?
In spite of myself, my voice cracked. “You’re right. I need to give myself permission to want more than this.” I gestured throughout the bar. “Not that there’s anything wrong with this.”
“Garnet. There is nothing wrong with wanting more than the Drive By Saloon. In fact, I think there would be something wrong with not wanting more.” The compassion on his face made the tears really come. Thank goodness no one was in the bar, yet.
Tom came around the bar and took a seat next to me.
“Hey, what’s going on?” He put an arm around my shoulder. He and his wife were like a big brother and sister to me.
I wiped my nose on a bar napkin. “Sorry, Tom. I just have a lot going on. It’s going to be fine, though, really.”
He pulled me into a hug. “Hey, why don’t you come by the house sometime soon? I know Ingrid would love to see you.”
“Thank you, Tom. You guys are so good to me.” They really were.
The first happy hour customers began to trickle in. We weren’t busy enough yet for me to get to work so Tom served them. It was going to be a busy night, and I wanted to save my feet for as long as possible.
When I finally joined him behind the bar, I saw Grandpa’s seat occupied by a stranger. It felt strange.
“Hey, Tom, remember that old guy who used to sit at the end of the bar, the one we called Grandpa?”
“Sure. The one who always kept to himself?”
“And was a lousy tipper,” we both said in unison.
“Well, he passed away,” I said.
“Oh, I didn’t know that. How’d you find out?” he asked.
Shit, now I’d done it. “Um…I can’t remember. Someone must have told me.”
“Well, that’s a shame. Hopefully he had a good life. Now, are you ready to get to work? Because I’ve been here for hours and am exhausted.”
“I’m ready, Tom. I really am.”
* * *
Nat was picking me up at my apartment in an hour, but I was already ready. It wasn’t like me to be ahead of schedule, but it was so seldom I had a date, I was a nervous wreck. Not that he would ever know that. No, I was wearing a nice fitted wrap top that accentuated my shape, as well as the comfortable shoes he’d instructed me to wear—why he recommended footwear for our outing, I wasn’t sure, but I guess I’d soon find out. Anyway, I’d gotten a new MAC lipstick, curled my hair with my wand, and actually felt pretty freaking good.