1
Jamie
I don’t know how many times I’ve wiped the bar down, scrubbed water stains that I know won’t come off, restocked the already stocked bottles of beer, washed, dried and polished pint glasses, and watched the minute hand on the clock move painfully slowly. This is what a night at Bailey’s Bar and Grill looks like when there’s a huge concert happening in the big city; Bailey, North Carolina becomes a ghost town. Its population of seven hundred dispersed into caravans of buses, cars, and trucks, traveling south into Wilmington for a night of debauchery. Okay, maybe not a full night of corruption, but definitely a little wickedness. When we small town folks get out in the wild, we let our hair down. Sometimes a little too much. Sure as shit, a few of my friends will be arrested tonight, likely for public drunkenness or trying to start a fight because someone looked at them wrong. Not me though, this is one concert I was okay with missing.
The door opens with a loud bang taking my attention away from the slow-moving clock. My part-time boyfriend, Logan, is standing there with his hand on the door. He’s not supposed to be here. He was roped into going to the aforementioned concert with my two best friends, Dhara and Fletcher, but here he is looking pissed and with a quick tilt of my head, I see that it’s raining. However, that doesn’t explain why he’s here. He takes two steps in before Dhara and Fletcher come storming past him.
“Shouldn’t you be at the concert?” I ask the three of them as they sit at the bar. Each of them sighs dramatically, except Dhara. She takes everything to the extreme and puts her head down on the bar top.
“Someone forgot the tickets,” Logan says as I slide a pint of his favorite ale toward him. Dhara cries, Logan shakes his head and Fletcher mumbles something about how he’s waited years for this concert.
“Well, I’m sorry I made a mistake,” Dhara says through sobs. She’s now staring at Fletch, who’s refusing to look at her.
“Hey, I thought they were in your purse? You’ve been carrying them around for months.”
She looks at me. Her mascara has smeared onto her cheeks, her eyes are bloodshot, and her nose looks like Rudolph’s. “They are, but I swapped purses before we left and forgot to pull them out of the inside pocket.”
“Oh.” I know my mouth forms into a little O. I’ve been told I do this often when I don’t agree with what someone has said or have nothing concrete to add to the conversation. I glance at the guys. Fletcher’s clearly pissed while Logan is staring at his empty glass.
“Oh? That’s all you have to say to her?” Fletcher barks out. “For months we’ve been waiting –”
“You don’t think I know that, Fletch? I’ve been waiting to see Liam Page for years. Years! And this was my one chance. The one and only time 4225 West comes to Wilmington and I forgot the tickets. How do you think I feel? I am in love with that rock God!”
Fletcher rolls his eyes. Dhara’s right, she’s been in love with Liam Page since forever. The sad fact is, she still has posters of him up on her bedroom walls, which probably explains why she doesn’t have a steady boyfriend. Although, I shouldn’t criticize. Even though Logan and I have been seeing each other for about a year or so, it’s an every other weekend kind of thing. He wants to get serious. I don’t. He wants to be a father figure to my daughter. I’m afraid he’s going to run. The last person I was in love with ran. He ran so damn fast and far that I could barely catch him when I had to. So yeah, I’m okay with an every other weekend arrangement.
“Look, mistakes happen. There will be another show.” All three of them look at me and suddenly I feel about two feet tall. Clearly, this wasn’t the right thing to say.
“Do you know how much those tickets cost me?” Dhara asks. I nod because we’ve had many conversations about it.
“Do you know what it’s like to drive hours, listening to every song from this band, to stand in line for a couple more hours in the pouring rain, only to get to the front and have her…” Logan points directly at Dhara, who starts crying again, “…rummage frantically through her purse? She could’ve done that at any time while we were standing there, on the drive over or when I asked her if she had the tickets. There was time to go back, but no, she was so confident that she had them — adamant, really — and told me to not worry.”
“Eat a Snickers man, she made a mistake,” Fletch says, coming to Dhara’s rescue. I know he’s pissed, but I also know that he’s in love with her and has been since high school. She doesn’t see it. He’s her best friend. Her go to when life is… well, anything: Happy or sad, she tells him everything, and he listens, never passing judgement. Sometimes I feel sorry for him, but he won’t tell her how he feels. He’s afraid to ruin what they have.
“I did, and I’m sorry. No one wanted to see them more than I did. I’ll make it up to you, Logan.” When the tickets went on sale, she automatically bought three. Normally, I would’ve gone but the opening act… I’m not a fan. I waited until the last minute before I told her I couldn’t go and begged Logan to take the extra ticket to the sold-out show.
Logan shakes his head and sighs. I pull the tap after placing a clean pint glass on the tray and hand him another beer. He’ll stay with me tonight because my daughter, Evelyn, is with my parents. Logan and Evelyn know each other, and we do what’s considered “family things” together. When we’re out, people refer to him as her father and he doesn’t bat an eyelash. I’m the one who will lay awake at night, running scenarios through my head, plotting out how Logan is going to leave one day.
Honestly, I’m not sure how or why he puts up with me. I’m honest with him about my past… to a point. He knows I was hurt, and deeply. He doesn’t know by whom, yet often suspects it’s Evelyn’s father. I’ve never had the courage to correct Logan or tell him about my past. Those are days I want to keep buried forever.
After an hour, the activity in the bar starts to pick up. Normally, we have a band playing. We alternate between country and rock, giving everyone something to listen to. Tonight though, it’s quiet and when the jukebox isn’t playing, there’s a lull. You can hear people talking, telling their friends about their day or as is the case tonight, complaining about missing the concert.
“I can’t believe our seats are empty right now,” Dhara sighs. I finally gave her and Fletcher something to drink and ordered them up some food. The three of them seem content to sit at the bar while I work. At least they aren’t trying to kill each other, and for the most part, Dhara’s tears have stopped.
That is until her favorite song comes on and her tears start flowing again. She’s on the dance floor, swaying. People are watching, some are pointing. My best friend is having a colossal meltdown over a missed concert. Fletcher finally goes to her, bringing her back to the bar.
“Dhara, it’s only a concert. There will be others,” I say to her.
“But, I’m in love with the lead singer.”
“Dhara, singers are just…” I stop myself from finishing my statement. It’s pointless to remind her because her head is in the clouds right now. In a few days, after reality is done slapping her in the face, she’ll realize how over dramatic she was during this whole thing and hopefully learn a lesson. What that lesson is, I’m not sure. But knowing her, she’ll find a way to turn this into something positive.
“Singers are what?” Logan asks.
“Nothing,” I say quickly.
Fletcher leans forward so he can see down the bar. “Jamie prefers drummers,” he says, winking at me. It takes everything in me to not pummel his face into the wooden top. He’s an ass.
“Is that so?”
“Yep, something about them banging harder.”
My hand comes to my face just as my eyes close. Of all the things to say, he has to be crass. I finally look at him and tell him to shut the fuck up before I go to the other end of the bar and help some new customers. I stay down there as long as possible. I’m far too angry to deal with Fletcher and know Logan will have something to say. He’ll want to know more, ask if he should take drum lessons or pretend to play imaginary drums with a knife and fork all because of Fletcher’s big stupid mouth.
When two a.m. rolls around, I breathe a sigh of relief. The cook out back turns the music up loud just as I lock the door to the bar. Fletch is taking Dhara home and will probably end up crashing on her couch just in case she needs him in the middle of the night, and Logan is waiting for me in the parking lot. If he didn’t live so far away, I’d tell him to go home, that it’s been a long night and I just want to sleep. However, he would be hurt and that’s the last thing I want to do.
Thankfully, the small crowd means that clean-up is easy. I kept the bar fairly stocked through the night and made sure my dirty glasses didn’t stack up. With the bottles taken to recycle, the floor mopped, the only thing left to do is turn out the lights. I tell the guys out back that I’m leaving, and one offers to walk me out. I decline, knowing Logan is waiting.
Outside, he’s leaning against his car with his eyes held steady on the bar. He makes me feel safe, secure. I know that when I’m with him, his training as a Marine is never far from his mind. Six months ago, he was injured, hurt in a training accident. It’s been nice having him around more, but that’ll end when he returns to active duty.
He stands tall when I approach. He’s just over six feet with dirty blond hair and green eyes. Even though he’s no longer required to, he keeps his hair short. Logan goes to the passenger side of his car and opens the door for me. He waits until I’m situated before closing it and walking to the other side.
“I found a playlist that you might like.” He presses his phone a few times and a cacophony of drummers beat through the speakers. Fletcher will die tomorrow. I will torture the shit out of him, pulling each and every finger nail off with pliers. He shouldn’t have said anything, and I don’t have the heart to tell Logan that I don’t want to listen.