Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
All night I’d been running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to attend to everyone. We’d just finished a rush that had lasted for two hours, complete with me screwing up food orders, drink orders, and receipts. A snowstorm was rolling through Amberfield tonight, and the usual late-night suspects seemed to be coming in early and getting the hell out to make it home.
I let out a long breath as I made my way to the other side of the bar where Grace was toweling off the counter.
“Surviving?” she asked.
“Barely,” I said. “But yes.”
“You know I’m here for any questions you have,” she said.
I breathed deep. “I feel like I should be better at this already. How hard can it be to get people the drinks they ask for and not fuck them up?”
“Bartending is way harder than anyone realizes,” Grace said. “Been doing it for half my life and I only now feel like I’ve got a handle on it.”
“Clearly I’ve got a long way to go,” I said.
“Cosmopolitan guy giving you trouble?” she said quietly.
I nodded. “Just a little.”
“He comes in with a new date every few weeks. Can be a lot to handle, but I promise he’s a good guy underneath it all.”
“Oh, I am getting the absolute fuck out of here,” the Cosmo guy across the bar said, looking at his phone in his hand. His date was also furrowing his brow. “This storm is supposed to roll through in an hour, and my parakeet doesn’t have her blanket over her cage. She’s going to be so scared!”
“Okay, even I have to admit that’s adorable,” I whispered to Grace.
“He’s right,” Red said, coming from the back office behind the bar. He was decked out in his signature cowboy boots, tight denim, and half-unbuttoned collared shirt.
“Had no idea you were a parakeet expert,” I told him.
Red cocked his head, giving me a wry smile. “I don’t know anything about birds. But I do know this snowstorm isn’t a joke. Predicted to be the biggest one that’s hit Amberfield in a decade.”
I lifted an eyebrow. If Red was even worried about it, the storm was probably going to be bigger than I thought.
The guy across the bar started freaking out and thankfully Red took over. I could already tell that he was very good at calming people down, and I definitely hadn’t developed that skill yet. I took a five minute break, stepping out from behind the bar and grabbing my phone as I cleared trash off of a few tall tables.
I dialed Zach.
“Hey, Dad,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Zachie. You’re at home, right?”
“Where else would I be?” I heard the telltale sign of him clicking away at his keyboard. He was clearly playing some video game.
“Hey, no need for the attitude,” I said.
“Sorry. It’s not really attitude,” Zach said, “it’s just… I told you I don’t have any friends here. Of course I’m at home.”
“You don’t have any friends here yet,” I said. “Yet. That word is very important.”
He gave me a half-hearted groan in response.
I tried to ignore the pang in my heart. Of course Zach always been a bit of a homebody, but at least in Chicago, he had a friend or two who would come over for gaming nights.
“You know about this storm coming through, right, honey?”
“Everybody was talking about it today at the shelter, yeah.”
Today had been Zach’s first trip to the dog shelter, and I’d been trying hard not to “make a big deal about it,” as Zach would say. But I was extremely proud of him, and extremely thankful to Evan for taking him along. From what I could glean, it sounded like everything had gone well.
“Yes,” I said. “There is a big snowstorm coming tonight. Probably the kind we saw every year in Chicago, but down here, people... aren’t as used to it. They freak out.”
“What’s that mean?”
I glanced over at Parakeet Man, who was now standing up, wildly flapping his arms around in distress, and nearly shouting. He honestly looked a little bit like a parakeet himself.
“Nothing. It’s just that this town doesn’t have the same snow preparedness as the city did. I need to know if you’ll be okay if I can’t drive home tonight.”
“Sure,” he said.
I trusted Zach completely, but I also hated the idea of him being totally alone, even for one night. He was fourteen, almost fifteen years old, and he could handle it, but…
I knew Jess wouldn’t have liked it. And that guilt wasn’t the kind of thing that just disappeared overnight.
“You mean it?” I confirmed with Zach. “There’s plenty of food in the fridge, I went to the store yesterday. The house has a generator if the power gives out, and I tested it when we moved in. You need to call me if anything happens, though.”