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Ruby knows Nicole’s type.
She makes a point to ignore the way Nicole leans against the window to bullshit with Pickles. “So, like, mine would be Nana’s Protein Bar.” Nicole’s nose crinkles when she giggles that faux-ditzy laugh, the one men scramble over each other for a chance to hear again.
“I already have a food truck! It’s called Just Pickles—”
“Yeah, we know, Pickles. What about you, Ruby?”
It catches Ruby off guard, the casual way Nicole uses her name. She glances up from the half-chopped onion on her cutting board and sees a dozen past and future heartbreaks in the quirk of Nicole’s lips. “I don’t play games.” The words come out with a bite finely-honed by years survived as the only woman in the kitchen.
“Okay?” Nicole scoffs. She turns her attention to Nico, puts on a show of interest in his response until he hands her a still-sizzling plate of french fries. She tosses a loose curl over her shoulder, dumps the fries in her to-go box, and plunks the plate into the sink with a splash. Harold howls obscenities after her as she sweeps back into the dining room to get on with her day.
Ruby brushes past Nicole and Bridgette on her way back from the bathroom. Like any other day, they titter about nothing in particular while they punch tickets into the computer. Nicole points across the restaurant with a flick of her sharp blue eyes; Ruby traces the arc of her gaze. It lands at the bar, where Clint mixes some bank-breaking fancy cocktail.
Nicole twirls her hair between her fingers. “Now, we have Clint.”
Bridgette holds a hand to her chest, lost in some fantasy. “Wait…Nicole, how do you know?”
The nonchalant shrug of Nicole’s shoulders is all Ruby needs to imagine the salacious details; she rolls her eyes and throws open the door to the kitchen. Her sleeve catches on the handle. When she turns to untangle herself, Ruby could swear that for a fraction of a second, Nicole’s stare settles on her. But then the door swings shut, and when she focuses through the muggy window, Nicole’s back is turned. She writes it off as a trick of the light and carries on with her shift like it never happened.
Ruby nurses a glass of Duvel after close, coat in her lap and bare elbows settled against the bar.
Nicole clinks a shot of something strong and clear to Brad’s Glencairn of whiskey, shoots it straight, and slides the glass over to Deb. As she passes on her way to the door, Nicole reaches out and traces the outline of a skull tattooed on Ruby’s bicep.
Ruby freezes with her beer halfway to her lips.
“Cool ink,” Nicole says. Then she’s gone, swallowed up by the neon light of L.A. after sunset.
The impatient drum of Deb’s week-old manicure on the counter snaps Ruby back into the moment. She downs the last of her shift drink. Deb wears that all-too-knowing look of an experienced bartender with unsolicited advice perched on the tip of her tongue; Ruby hurries out before she can offer it. She shoves past Nico and Pickles where they share a blunt outside and takes a deep breath of the smoky air. She smells nothing but the remembered zing of blackberry sage body spray.
Ruby thought she knew Nicole’s type, but sometimes even she second-guesses her own impeccable judgment. Sure, Nicole still hides from customers to bullshit with the kitchen, but ever since Terry forced the servers to tip out the back-of-house staff, she doesn’t fish for free fries from Nico—she demands them. To her credit, Nico seems to like it more when she’s bossy.
The problem is Ruby does too.
The other problem is Ruby no longer ignores every word that comes out of Nicole’s mouth. She overhears it on her way to warn Amber about the to-go order Pickles splattered all over the floor. “Bridgey-Boo,” Nicole says. The clink of glasses and low roar of conversation dim away. “You are so cute, and so pathetic at the same time.” Bridgette frames her angelic face on her hands, and Ruby recognizes fondness in the way Nicole rolls her eyes with fake exasperation; it’s a fondness she’s worn herself—always, always directed at women she’s accepted she can’t have. Ruby connects dots she assumed before were galaxies apart as the sound of the restaurant rushes back into place.
Amber interrupts her epiphany. “Does Joey need me?” She tilts her head, voice coy and lips curled into a smile that two seconds ago might have melted Ruby on the spot. “Is he mad?”
“It’ll be another fifteen on that Santa Fe chicken.”
Her smile drops. “Oh.” Then her eyes widen in panic. “You can’t be serious, the dasher’s been waiting ten minutes already.”
Ruby shrugs. “I’m just the messenger.”
“Hey Amber, you should see the way Joey’s screaming at Pickles right now, you would just die. It’s getting me a little hot and bothered, and I’ve been there, done that.” Nicole rounds the corner and comes face-to-face with Ruby. She doesn’t miss a beat. “What about you, Ruby? Do you like it when daddy is daddying?”
Disgust tickles the back of Ruby’s throat. She gestures to herself. “Do I look like daddies are my type?”
Nicole snorts. “I mean, no, but it’s rude to assume, right?” Her pointed words bounce around Ruby’s head for the rest of her shift.
“Man, for a free cruise I would have no shame, I don’t give a fuck.”
Ruby intended to sit this conversation out and focus on her prep work, but she can’t contain herself. That Nicole is at the center of the debate might play a small role in her need to join the banter. The mirepoix can wait. “Really? You’d let some seventy-year-olds treat you like a beach ball so you could get trapped on a floating toilet?” Nico’s indignant response blends into the pop of the deep fryer and the clatter of plates in the dish pit; all Ruby can focus on is the breathless pressure that blooms in her ribcage when Nicole’s attention locks onto her.
“Ruby you’re not a fan of cruises?” Nicole’s voice drips like fresh caramel from her tongue.
Ruby doubts her dumbass coworkers see anything more than friendly in the exchange; Nico still makes passes at her six months after she told him in as many words she’s a lesbian. Besides, Ruby’s not embarrassed that she’s able to command Nicole’s interest in a crowd—she lives for the stolen bursts of fireworks throughout the day. The easiest way to light them off is with a fight. “They’re trash.”
As expected, Nicole pushes back. “You just haven’t been on a good cruise.”
“Are you gonna take me on a “good” cruise?” Ruby raises her eyebrows—a challenge.
A huffed laugh. That lock of hair, twisted between Nicole’s fingers. “Dream on, I never pay for my own cruise.”
Pickles butts in, oblivious as ever. “Who pays for ‘em?”
The moment is shattered. Nicole’s focus drifts away, a saucepan taken off the burner before it can boil over. “Whoever I’m dating, duh.”
Back to the mirepoix. It doesn’t matter that Nicole clarifies she means men, because Ruby knows something nobody else in the room suspects. Nobody, she hopes, but Nicole.
Ruby doesn’t hoot her appreciation alongside Joey, Nico, and Pickles when Nicole shows up for Halloween in a low-cut, lace-lined nurse costume, but it’s an all-night struggle to stay behind the line where she belongs.
A green sprig of mistletoe hangs in the back between the kitchen and the walk-in. Ruby finds Nico and Pickles nearby. They chat, voices too loud with all the appliances shut down, poised to weasel a kiss out of whichever pretty girl walks into the trap.
Ruby joins them. “You know there’s no way in hell this works, right?”
“You just walked under it, didn’t you?” Nico asks. He puckers his lips and leans in, laughs when Ruby shoves him away. “It’s only a matter of time before Nicole comes back here looking for someone to keep her company, and I’m gonna be the first in line.”
“I’m hoping for Bridgette,” Pickles confides—as if Trick doesn’t already have her locked down for the night. “Are you waiting to kiss someone too?”
Ruby’s stomach does a series of impressive somersaults, but she manages to maintain the stoic indifference on her face. “Well it’s not either of you.”
Brad throws open the door—it’s clear he pre-gamed the party in light of Terry’s two-drink rule. “Hey, Pickles, bag of Skittles for your drink tickets?”
Pickles’s eyes light up at the offer. “Okay!” They make the exchange; Ruby decides not to point out they’re caught under the mistletoe.
“You can have mine too, bro. I’m California sober.”
A red-manicured hand snatches the tickets from Nico before Brad can claim his VIP experience with the Ghost of Christmas Hangovers Future. Nicole wears a black sweater embroidered with an enormous Santa Claus and sequins that spell out “Santa’s Favorite”. She’d look perfect with that sweater on the floor of Ruby’s apartment, tangled together amidst the miniature Christmas village that’s overtaken her spare bedroom. “Gotta be quick around me.”
“Oh, I will be,” Brad shoots back.
An expectant grin. “Stop iiiit.”
Holiday tradition says Nicole goes home with Brad tonight, but there’s still time to change that. “Stop iiiiit,” Ruby mocks, arms crossed over her chest. “Nicole, you know you’re supposed to wear an ugly Christmas sweater?”
Nicole drags her eyes over Ruby’s body, slow and deliberate. “I can’t help that everything looks cute on me.”
A hot blush sears the nape of Ruby’s neck. “Careful.”
Brad and Nicole don’t show up for Dirty Santa. It’s fine. Ruby abandons the game and wanders over to the bar, where she hands her first drink ticket over to Deb.
“Duvel, extra head?”
“Vodka tonic. Please.”
Eyebrows raised, Deb pulls a bottle of Tito’s down from the shelf. “Don’t tell Terry or he’ll have a conniption,” she says as she mixes the drink.
“Yes ma’am.”
Brad stumbles over, garish suit jacket unbuttoned, undershirt half-untucked. There are messy tracks through his mussed hair, just wide enough to fit Nicole’s fingers. His words slur as he waves a drink ticket across the bar. “I found another one.”
Deb stares him down, her festive reindeer antlers at odds with her flat disapproval. “I better not see you back at my bar after this.” She plucks the ticket from his fist. “And you’re gettin’ whatever’s in the well.”
Eager, Brad accepts the bottom-of-the-barrel whiskey and waltzes away. A deep pink hickey blooms on his neck, perched just above his collar. “You’re the best, Deb!” he calls over his shoulder.
“Damn right I am.”
Ruby slides over her last ticket. “Make it a double.”
Open concern colors Deb’s expression, but she doesn’t say no.
Ruby’s not the type to sit around and wait for a woman to make the first move, but she does know how to bide her time. Her head is a little hazy—it wasn’t her smartest idea to pound two strong drinks in a row on an empty stomach—and time slips away as the holiday party descends into predictable chaos. Terry disappears into the kitchen with Clint while Amber cajoles Joey to join her quest for mistletoe. Bridgette chats with Trick, pressed together in the corner booth. Nico tokes up behind the host stand; Pickles and Aaron are locked in an intense game of dreidel.
Nicole adjusts Brad’s collar, but his attention is elsewhere. He ducks out of her grasp and steals a stray drink ticket from a nearby table. “I’m gonna…gonna get us something.” He struggles to get one foot in front of the other as he wanders off toward the bar.
After hours of constant company, Nicole is alone.
Ruby catches her eye and gestures to her own end of the community table. She curls a hand over her mouth to hide the grin that creeps across her lips as Nicole sprawls onto the chair across from her. “Finally lose Hollywood?”
Nicole settles her chin in one hand and sighs, shoulders slumped in resignation as she watches the men swarm Deb at the bar. “He does this literally every year.”
“Kind of a shitty holiday tradition.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the thing about traditions, right?” She pulls off her headband and shakes out curls that have lost shape over the course of the evening. Ruby’s fingers itch to bury themselves among the strands. “They’re just kind of something you do. It’s whatever.” The way Nicole says it, just loud enough to hear over the beachy Christmas music that drowns out the rest of the party—it’s almost vulnerable.
Ruby leans forward on folded arms, voice low and serious. “You deserve more than “whatever”.”
Nicole’s eyes slide away from the bar to fix on Ruby’s. That smirk is back, eyebrow quirked as she asks, “You think you can give me what I deserve?”
Ruby’s up from her seat before she can second-guess herself, cantilevered over the table to whisper—breath hot on the shell of Nicole’s ear—“I know where the mistletoe is.”
Across the restaurant, Deb tosses her bottle opener aside and storms out; Brad declares open season on the bar. And in the scramble to drink as much free booze as possible before Terry notices Deb is gone, Ruby laces her hand into Nicole’s and drags her out of the dining room.
Nicole’s tongue is Christmas in motion—a mix of Kahlúa and peppermint schnapps and fire. Her fingers burn trails up the back of Ruby’s neck, twist into her hair. She tugs Ruby down to her level, urgent, like she might fall apart if she doesn’t hold on tight enough.
Ruby drinks her in, greedy for the electric rush that sparks down her spine every time she pulls away to catch her breath and Nicole chases her lips back for more.
Ruby knows Nicole’s type. It’s the faux-casual way Nicole slips into the kitchen before open the next day, the soft, “Hi,” she offers, the genuine smile. She’s never been shy about flings with coworkers, but this…this is different—and if she wants to keep this fling to herself, Ruby’s not the type to rush. They can share the secret for now, just the two of them.
…and apparently Harold.