Sweet Forty-Two(11)

She stood at the tap for a minute, filling three pint glasses. She gracefully navigated through the crowd in several-inch high black high heels to a table in the back.

“See something you like over there?” Lissa took my empty plate from my hands.

“Why does she do that?”

“Who do what?” Lissa looked around behind me.

“Georgia. Dress like that.” I looked away as Georgia bent over to give a beer to someone across their table.

Lissa frowned slightly, almost sardonically. “Surely you’ve been in a bar or two in your day.” She stepped back, holding her arms out and turning once.

I could see she wasn’t dressed much differently than Georgia. Lissa was wearing an electric blue skirt that matched the highlights in her hair, and a black tank top without straps. I think my sister had called that a tube top. She was right. At nearly every bar I’d been in, the female bartenders played up their assets. That’s just part of the culture. But as I chewed my lip and stared into my empty pint glass, I wished it wasn’t.

The familiar clip-clop of Georgia’s dangerously high heels signaled her return. Peeking up slightly, I caught Lissa staring at me for a few seconds before she returned to the other end of the bar.

“Regan,” Georgia set the empty tray down in front of me, “I wanted to run something by you.”

“Shoot.” I wished she were still wearing those old jeans and that purple tank top. Purple did killer things for her eyes.

“Well,” she said as she leaned forward the way I’d seen her do all last night. I didn’t want her thinking I expected that from her. “The apartment across from mine is open. It’s right on the water. Like, leave door, cross street, fall off small cliff into the ocean. I know it seems far from here, but it’s only about a twenty-five minu—”

“Yes!” My tongue and my lips produced the answer before my brain caught up. “But, why the hell didn’t you mention this earlier?”

She shrugged, her cheeks seeming to blush a little. “I didn’t know if you’d be interested. From what CJ told me last night, you were intent on live down here in South Park.”

“It seems like an awesome neighborhood, but I just can’t find a place...” I ran a hand through my hair, then tied it back.

“You could always stay with me,” Lissa piped in. “Where’d you tell him there was an opening, G?”

Georgia shooed Lissa away with a wave of her hand. “Mind your own damn business for once.”

“Fine,” Lissa exaggerated a sigh, “guess I’ll just have to go flirt with CJ.”

I looked behind me and found him reentering the bar, stretching his arms overhead.

“Don’t worry.” I laughed a little. “You won’t have to do that much work. He’s kind of a sure thing.”

“Funny,” Lissa looked between Georgia and me, “that’s what she said last night. You two share a brain or something?”

Georgia shook her head. “No, we just know CJ. So,” she turned back to me, “want to come look at the place tomorrow? I’ll get the key and show you around.”

“That’d be great.” Relieved and overwhelmed at the turn my housing search had taken, I smiled and slapped the edge of the bar.

“Georgia! Order up!” A stern male voice hollered from the back.

She curled her lip, flaring the nostril that held that tiny stud. A look that would have told the guy to shut the hell up, had he been able to see it. “All right, off again. Good luck tonight.”

Georgia darted back to the kitchen, returning with a full tray of food and hurried off to three different tables.

“What was that about?” CJ asked as he sat down.

“I think I just found a place to live.”

“With Georgia? Lucky...”

“No, hormone central, the place across from hers.”

CJ ordered a beer from a very attentive Lissa. “That’s going to be one hell of an adventure.”

I looked over to the corner of the bar at those tiny red shorts, wondering what I’d done in my moment of housing desperation.

“I’m sure it will, Ceej.”





Georgia



“Here ya go, Jake.”

Jake winked at me as I set his beer down, leaning back in his chair just far enough to study the length of my shorts from behind.

“Thanks, sugar.” He licked his lips.

I smacked the back of his head. “You know I hate that nickname.”

“Aw, come on. It’s sweet, just like we were.”

His friends whistled in mock-reverence at his apparent accomplishment of getting me in bed.

“Sweet? We?” I tapped the pad of my index finger on my bottom lip as I looked up at the lights. “Ah, yes, as sweet as five minutes can be.” I strode away from the table as the whistles turned into jeers and teasing.

That boy didn’t have a goddamn clue. It was a shame, too, given what a Ken Doll he was. I’d left the bar with Jake six weeks ago, and, bless his heart, he returned every single Saturday and Sunday since, asking for “another chance.”

“Last night that good?” Lissa bumped her bony hip into mine once I got back behind the bar.

“What?”