~ Nick
It’s a slow night, the rain that’s been pouring all week keeping all but the diehard customers away. By the time the last ones have cleared out, it’s just me and Tony left and it’s still an hour till closing time.
“You wanna head home?” he asks. “I’ll lock up.”
I shake my head as I grab a cloth to wipe down the tables. “It’s okay, you go,” I tell him. “I’ll do it tonight.”
I head over to the booths, grabbing the last of the glasses and wiping down tables before heading back to the bar. Tony is standing there watching me, arms crossed over his chest and a weird expression on his face.
“What?” I ask, moving behind the bar to drop off the glasses.
“I should be asking you the same thing,” he says, still staring at me.
I glance up; give him a look that I hope conveys whatever before I head back out to stack the chairs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit,” he says. “You’ve been in a mood all fucking week, which has been bad enough, but volunteering to do everyone’s lock-ups? I mean I know you own the place, dude, but seriously what the fuck?”
I shake my head, not looking at him as I say, “It’s nothing.”
“Again, bullshit,” Tony says, emphasising the second word. “What the fuck is going on here, Nick?”
I ignore his comment, moving around the room as I stack chairs onto the tables and try to come up with some plausible explanation that he’ll buy. But I’ve got nothing because the truth is: there’s only one reason I’ve been in a mood, as he so eloquently puts it, and only one reason I’ve been staying back to lock up every night.
Emma.
I want to see her. And I’ve been waiting to see if she’ll come back.
Despite my rules, I want her to come back, hope she does so I can explain everything.
But I’m not about to tell him that and I’m certainly not about to explain that me doing lock-up every night is a perfect way to not only distract myself but gives me an excuse to stay until closing. I mean it’s not like my other plan has panned out at that well.
“Nick, dude?”
I stop and look up. Tony is wearing an expression that’s a mix between annoyance and total disbelief.
“What?” I ask, straightening.
“What the fuck is going on with you?”
I shrug. “Nothing.”
“Okay, this is getting ridiculous,” he says. I watch as he grabs a couple of beers from the fridge, twisting off the caps before sliding one down the bar in my direction, the other staying in his own hand.
“Beer,” he says, pointing at the bottle he slid to me. “Drink,” he says, miming the action. “Fucking talk,” he adds, pointing at me this time.
I shake my head, walking over to the bar and grabbing the beer. I down half the bottle in one go, mostly because I’m not sure what else he wants me to do. Also because I don’t know what he expects me to say in response to his order.
“Nick, fuck, come on,” he says, when it’s apparent I’m not going to say anything. “What the hell is going on with you?”
I lower my beer, rest the bottle on the bar and finally meet his stare. Tony stares back at me for a second longer than I expect and then as though a light bulb of clarity goes off he finally smiles.
“Hol-y shit…you totally fell for her, didn’t you?”
I look away, finishing my beer before throwing the bottle towards the bucket at the back. The glass smashes, the sound echoing throughout the now silent bar. I turn back to Tony but he hasn’t moved, he’s still standing there, arms crossed, beer in one hand and a smug fucking smile all over his face.
“What?” I spit out at him.
He shakes his head. “I knew it. I knew you fucking liked her.”
“And?” I ask, almost accusingly.
“And nothing,” he says, shrugging. “It’s about fucking time is all. Jesus.”
I shake my head again, heading back to the dark and useless kitchen to grab an empty beer bucket. Tony says nothing more, just watches me as I switch out the full one behind the bar, walking it back to the kitchen for recycling, before walking back out to the bar again.
“Shit man, stop fucking staring at me,” I eventually say, his scrutiny becoming borderline annoying.
Tony chuckles a little now as though he’s finding all of this incredibly amusing. “So,” he says, putting his beer on the bar. “What’s the story with you and the tiny one then?”
“The what?” I ask, glancing up. Almost immediately I regret my reaction, the smile on Tony’s face telling me he knows so much more than he’s letting on.
“What?” he says, nonchalantly. “She is tiny. It’s not an insult.”
I exhale hard, my eyes closing as I silently beg for Tony to suddenly have an urgent need to leave the bar and fuck off home so I don’t have to deal with his shit any longer.
“Emma,” I state, forcing my eyes open. “Her name is Emma.”
“Course it is,” he says, taking another sip. “But my question was, what’s the story between you two?” He gestures towards me, as though I’ve got no clue what he’s talking about. I roll my eyes in response but it only makes his smile grow wider, the smug look on his face intensifying as he continues to watch me, waiting for answers.
“Nothing,” I eventually say, just wanting to end this interrogation. “There’s nothing going on alright.”
Tony says nothing for a bit, just watches me as I continue to clean up the bar, doing anything that means I don’t have to keep talking about this. But I can feel him watching me the whole time and even without looking, I know he can tell I’m full of shit. That it isn’t nothing between us. At least it wasn’t a week ago.
“What happened?” he eventually asks, a little more sympathetically this time. I continue cleaning; doing far more than is normal for a lock-up. “Nick,” he says. “Come on man, talk to me.”
I finally stop. Tony is still watching me only the smugness has gone, replaced with something that might be concern. I shake my head again, know I’m going to regret this as I walk towards the bar, pull out one of the stools and take a seat.
“She saw the tattoo,” I tell him. Tony stares as me, his eyes flicking between my forearm and my face. “The other one,” I eventually say.
“Oh,” he says, brow scrunched. “Ohhhh,” he adds, a smile breaking out on his face.
“No, not ohhh,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Oh.”
“It was bad?” he asks.
“Really bad.”
“Did you explain?” he asks, the joking now over.
I take a deep breath, exhaling hard as I stare at the ink running up my arm. It’s not that I’ve ever regretted my tattoo, far from it. But this is the first time I’ve wondered if maybe I should have done it differently.
“Nick?” he asks, stepping closer.
We’re opposite each other now, Tony standing on one side of the bar and me sitting on the other. He’s the closest thing I have to a best friend and still I can’t bring myself to talk to him about this, about any of it. Even though he already knows so much because he was there too.
I shake my head.
“Why?” he asks, reaching for another beer for me.
I lift the bottle to my mouth and take a long pull. “I don’t know,” I tell him, my eyes on the bar. “It just…it just all went to shit.”
Tony grabs another beer for himself before walking around and pulling out another stool and sitting beside me. “Do you want to explain it to her?”
I nod, my eyes still on the bar.
He lets out a deep breath, finally getting it. “And that’s why you wait each night?” he asks.
I nod again and Tony says nothing more except a mumbled shit as we both sit in silence and drink our beers.