Chapter Text
Thursday]
Your arms move with ease, the weight of the shaker tin unnoticed between your hands as you finish shaking, pop open the tin with a subtle whap from the palm of your hand, and strain the cocktail into the glass with a practiced ease. You put the cherry garnish in the glass, knowing it will likely be ignored by this asshole you just made his drink for and you'll inevitably dump it in the trash later. You slide the glass over the bartop and make eye contact with the guy who makes no effort to conceal the fact he was eyeing you up as you did your thing.
"Here you are, buddy." You say while holding eye contact with the guy. You hold it for a beat longer than most are comfortable with and…one..two..yup, he flushes and looks to the side.
"Heh, thanks for not putting it in a lady's glass like I asked." The guy says, trying to make it out like you were doing something extra just for him. You huff a small laugh, your eyes flicker to the side, and you look back up and make eye contact with the grinning douche.
You let the silence sit and wait for him to panic and try to say anything to fill it.
Just as he opens his mouth, you say slyly, "It was no big deal," and that simple sentence gets the drunk guy grinning bigger and he slaps a five-dollar bill on the bartop.
"Well it is a big deal to me, so this is just for you, all right?" He says this like you both now have a thing.
You just take the dollar bill, making sure each motion is practiced and flourished to show off as much of your bullshit feminine-yet-tough wiles as possible. You watch as the guy stomps off back to find his friends, you're sure he's going to talk about the cute bartender who did him a huge favor, he won't admit the favor was putting his cocktail into a glass without a stem just to protect his fragile masculinity, he'll be back to order another drink within ten. You've done this with nearly every customer tonight, and you will do it again every shift.
Hey, a girl has to pay for college somehow, right?
You lace your fingers together and stretch your arms in front of you, hearing a satisfying crack! Leaning forward onto your elbows on the bartop, you observe the club. It was busy, busier than usual on a Thursday night. The crowd was bustling and you couldn't easily see from one end of the room to another. It was dim and smelled warm and like too much perfume and cologne.
A smile pulls on your lips and you relinquish control of your "unbothered bartender" expression to stretch your facial muscles a bit. Despite the fact that you had to learn to either work with creeps hitting on you or just be uncomfortable, you have grown to enjoy being a bartender. The work requires minimal effort to be okay at, but a lot of conscious effort to excel at.
You look forward to busy nights like this one because they are when you really get to test your skills and see where you need to improve. Balancing taking orders from customers, ensuring each interaction has the maximum amount of charm put into it without delving too far into the "is the bartender hitting on me" range, crafting the drinks while putting on a show, keeping your space clean, it's a delicate balancing act. And of course you want it to look like minimal effort after all. Despite the pity tips you would get from looking like a harried young bartender girl, you would rather seem in control as much as possible. It's safer too if you seem like you know your shit.
Turns out a lot of guys like preying upon eager and unsure young service workers.
You shake your head, blegh. Regardless, it's extraordinarily busy for a Thursday night. This bar is near a pretty rigorous college and most of the students there actually care about grades. Of course there are the usual college party-goers, but a weeknight is normally less busy than this. You think it's because they are bringing in a new DJ to play tonight, and word got around. Management seemed pretty excited to have gotten this guy on board, and judging by the crowd, so is everyone else.
You idly polish a few glasses thinking that you'll just keep your head low and do your best to finish your shift as fast as possible, as usual.
"Hey sunshine, can I order something from you?" Someone calls out from behind you and you roll your eyes before turning around. There were two guys at the bar, a tall, blonde-nearly white-haired kinda good looking guy and an average brown haired guy. Ugh you zoned out again, you hope they weren't waiting too long, not good for the atmosphere to have this much stink hanging around. The latter was in front of you and giving you a cocky look and you figure he is the perpetrator of the cringey comment.
You open your mouth to respond when a deep, husky voice cuts through the noise of the club.
"Is the bartender available?"
You both look at the other guy who is staring at you, or you think he is, because though his head is turned to you, you can't actually see his eyes because this interrupting douche is wearing sunglasses. Indoors, in a dark club? You stifleyour reaction, set down your glass and walk over to him with a practiced nonchalant approach. The other customer can wait, it's what he deserves for calling you a nickname. You look up at the blonde guy through your eyelashes, tilt your head slightly, just enough so your hair bounces, and give an easy smile to try to mitigate any annoyance from waiting. You know this look is enough for any guy, and you do it enough it's boring at this point.
"She sure is, what can I getcha?" The words slide from your mouth and you look straight into his sunglasses, where his eyes would be and hold there, prepared to fluster him like every other guy with prolonged eye contact. Even if you can't see his eyes, undivided attention like this gets every drunk guy thinking with their nether region.
To his credit, the sunglasses-wearing douche doesn't balk at the eye contact, and after a moment one eyebrow twitches upwards and a slight smirk pulls at his mouth. He replies, "I'll take yer whisky sour." His voice is husky, accented with a slight Southern twang and audible over the loud din of the club, like a bubble was around just the two of you.
'Ugh hate making those/oh shit maaaaan that's a delicious sounding voice' pops into your head and you wet your lips despite yourself. This guy's smirk widens a little further and you're annoyed with yourself for giving away that much.
"Fourteen-fifty and comin' right up." You say and walk over to your well. Of course this sunglasses douche had to order an annoying drink that takes the longest time to make. As you prepare the cherry garnish and pour your ingredients, you subtly eye the guy.
He's pretty good looking (okay maybe disturbingly good looking). He fills space like it was built for him, wearing dark slacks that fit his legs just right, not too tight to accentuate his douche persona, but enough you could see the musculature and plump ass. His white polo is tucked into the pants, fitted in much of the same way, but the shining, silver belt buckle and popped collar ruin whatever anti-douche measures this guy was going for. His hair is a light blonde, nearly white, and is that perfect tousled and spiked look that is meant to look like low effort but probably took ten minutes to achieve this morning. He is clearly fit, tall, and has good facial structure from what you can see. Combined with the sunglasses, you can't tell if this guy is oblivious, or trying to go for the douche look.
He's attractive enough that your heart skips a beat despite yourself, and you almost don't want to look at him. You think he looks like somewhere in his 30s, but with his ethereal looks he could easily be in his 40s or 20s. You can't even bring yourself to care too much because he's just that disgustingly hot. If you look at him you have to acknowledge how hot he is, and how your body reacts instinctively, and you don't like that, but you can't stop peeking glances because the way his chest rises as he breathes and the lips pulled into that smirk…shit.
You realize he noticed your staring because one of his eyebrows cocked up a millimeter higher and you flush. You force your attention back to the drink. You had just finished dry shaking everything—gotta get that good and foamy—and you add six ice cubes to the tin, smack it shut, and begin shaking it again.
This is the part you always hate about making whisky sours. You have to shake it until the ice completely breaks apart and dissipates and it always takes way longer than you would think and you almost always have a crowd when someone orders one. Luckily the bar is still vacant except for this douche, and the other guy, but still, they're annoying. Plus you wore a low-cut tanktop today, and you know that shaking the tin for this long is prime time for looks. You can't tell if this guy is staring at your tits or not because of the shades, and…Well, you did wear this to get more tips, and you can reassure yourself that at least your arms look nice shaking the tin around too. Gotta put on a show after all.
You strain the cocktail into the coupe glass, make some pretty art on the foam with some bitters, and place the cherry garnish on top. Shit, you hope this guy won't make a fuss about the "girly glass," but with your luck he probably will ask you to remake it just to see your tits shake again. Especially after you clearly gave away that you find him attractive, damn.
You saunter over and place the drink in front of the guy, and grab the twenty off of the bartop. You turn to the register and the guy says behind you, "Keep the change."
After dealing with that you turn around to go handle the other customer, just to see the blonde guy still staring at you, the drink untouched. It's your turn to raise your eyebrow and he just leans back in his seat and nonchalantly stretches. The fabric of his shirt stretches across his built chest and somehow you can actually see the outline of his abs standing out like he is some hot guy drawn by a horny artist and—oh damn it he caught you staring again! The douche is smirking at you and oh, he did this on purpose, didn't he?
"Everything alright?" You ask, trying to pretend you're not slipping here.
He responds easily, "Sure is, just needed you to see my reaction to your drink." And if that isn't the most self-centered—
This hot asshole leans forward, close enough if he exhaled heavily the hot breath would hit you, and before you can do so much as blink he brings the glass up to his lips and takes a sip, presumably making eye contact with you behind his shades which you are realizing are mirrored because you can see every second of your fucking flustered response. Heedless of the logical side of your brain, your eyes flicker down to his lips and watch as this guy finishes sipping, licks the foam off of his lips, and you even go further into debauchery and watch as his adam's apple bobs as he swallows.
Your breath escapes you shakily and this guy. Just. Chuckles. His mirth is low and rumbling and you feel it in your chest and you twitch. He leans back, finally, and nods once, "Good job." And with that he walks off into the crowd. You defiantly don't watch his ass and turn to the other customer.
The whole interaction felt like it took an hour, yet was less than five minutes. Fucking asshole. You walk over to the nickname-customer and say, "Thanks for your patience, what can I get you?"
The guy unfortunately wants to talk and instead says, "Man what was that douche's problem? He was all up in your business, and who the fuck wears sunglasses indoors?"
You couldn't agree more. You just want to do your job and move on so you just say, "Beats me, what do you want to order?"
Guy doesn't get the hint though and continues, "Ugh I can't believe pretty girls like you have to deal with guys like that! It's totally unfair that you have to watch out like that!" Oh of course, and you're different from them all, aren't you?
You make a noncommital sound, not wanting to continue the conversation and try to ask for a third time what alcohol this guy needs, but the dude just keeps going, "It's really unfair, but I got your back! Just let me know if he comes back, okay?"
And dear god. Your eye twitches and you feel your smile straining. "I will if you order something in the next ten seconds."
After getting the guy a rum and coke you are again left alone and feel like you're going to explode. You take a deep breath and begin rinsing your dishes and just then the lights dim. You look up and see that the new DJ must be about to take stage because everyone has turned their attention to it.
The smoke machines start going, and orange dots of light begin flickering behind it, and several airhorns go off which incites the crowd to begin cheering loudly. The lights do several more fancy tricks, some beats start in the background and all you can think is 'Who the heck is this asshole, who needs this much pomp?" And then onto the stage steps…oh no.
It's him. The hot guy. He steps onto the stage in all his unreal-hot glory, and the crowd goes wild. You can hear some feminine voices screaming, was that one proclaiming her love? This douche is the DJ, the new DJ that was hired to work at this club, you're going to have to see him more often. You wanted to never see his unfairly good looks again and forget he existed. Now you might have to see him every night.
The bar is directly across the room from the stage and you swear the DJ looks over the crowd directly at you. He holds something in the air and you squint your eyes. It's the cherry from the whisky sour. The DJ holds it over the crowd and they cheer rancously. He points to you and the crowd follows his finger, "Shoutout to bartender girl there."
Holding it above his head the DJ tilts his head and opens his mouth, tongue hanging out. He drops the cherry into his mouth and the crowd literally goes silent. You're panicking, what is this, this is so unreal?!
After a moment the DJ reaches into his mouth and pulls out something that is way too small for you to see and the crowd literally cheers so hard you can see glasses shaking on your shelves. This is so stupid.
Then the DJ walks over to his setup with his turntables and starts his set, and then you get a surge of college students begging for any cocktail with a cherry and the rest of the night is a busy blur.
The bar is closed, there are a few stragglers helping their drunk friends out the door, but the building is quiet as everyone works on closing. You're finishing polishing the last bottles when you hear a husky voice call out from behind you. You turn around to see none other than the DJ. He's posed with his arms folded, his muscles bulging in that way that means you can't keep your eyes off of them, and that damned smirk on his face. You both stare at each other for a minute before you get frustrated and huffed slightly. You hated how this guy unwraveles your cool and collected bartender persona so easily, how can one douche get you this off-kilter?
Just to fill the silence, you look off to the side and say, "Good job." Belatedly you realize you were mimicking this guy's words from earlier. You try to recover and tack on, "On the set of course, the crowd seemed to love it," but the sensual chuckle you are rewarded with that sends a shiver down your spine tells you that you were too late and he already saw that.
"Glad to hear you enjoyed me...and my beats." The DJ drawls out and you hate where he put emphasis in that sentence and what it implied.
He takes one half-step forward and tosses something onto your clean bartop. You pick it up and stare at it in confusion. It's…a cherry stem? You look up at him and he nods at the stem in your hands so you look back and notice it was tied in a knot. Understanding dawns in your mind and your jaw drops and you whip your head up to say something but the DJ was already gone. You whip your head side to side but there is literally no sight of the platinum-blonde guy.
You make some noise halfway between a sigh and a growl in frustration and bury your face in your hands on the bartop you now have to clean again. You flush at his cocky actions and hate how much they affected you. This guy…this guy…