Mark
The first few nights at the Haven were busier than Mark had expected. He worked the door for the first couple of hours, standing outside in a coat and hat just to keep the cold off his body while he examined people’s identification to make sure they could legally enter the bar. But after a few hours, the shift changed, and he was moved to indoor security, watching over the crowd to make sure that nobody got rowdy or sloppily drunk. The job was easy enough, allowing Mark to switch off his brain and act as just a huge hunk of meat. That was fine by him, as long as the check cleared at the end of the week.
When he stepped inside the bar, heading to a dark corner where he wouldn’t get in the way of the crowd of patrons, he noticed Stella, looking stressed out as she hurriedly poured shot after shot after shot for various frat boys that shouted their orders at her so they could be heard over the booming bass of the music that filled the air around them.
For some reason, Mark shuffled a bit closer to the bar, just to make sure that the younger kids weren’t getting too pushy with Stella. It’s not like he cared or anything like that, but it was his job to make sure that her job went smoothly. And anyway she was basically the only person who worked here that he’d actually met, officially. He supposed he didn’t exactly hate her, even if she was ridiculously bubbly and enthusiastic about this shit job she’d landed.
“What’s that?” Stella yelled over the music. “I couldn’t hear you, say again!”
“I’ve told you my order like sixteen times already!” the twenty-something, pimple-covered college kid yelled back at her. “You know, fuck it, just hand me the closest bottle of vodka you’ve got and I’ll pay for the whole thing.”
“No, no, just tell me what you want! I can get it for you!” Stella screamed, wiping at her forehead to clear some sweat from her face. “You wanted two shots, or three?”
“Four! I wanted four!” the guy screamed. “Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you?”
That was it. Mark had had enough. He shuffled through the crowd until he reached the angry young man, clapping his hand down his shoulder, just hard enough to get his attention. “Out. Get out,” Mark said, nodding towards the door.
“What? I haven’t done anything!” the kid protested. “Look, we’re just trying to get our fucking drinks and this chick here can’t get her shit together, you should really—”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Mark said, shrugging dismissively. “Out. Now.”
The kid scoffed, but then when he looked up and down the length of Mark’s body, apparently surveying his muscles, his defiance melted away. He nodded at his friends and cut through the crowd, heading for the door. He shouted over his shoulder, in Mark and Stella’s general direction, “Like we’re ever coming back to this fucking dump again!”
Stella sighed deeply, loud enough that Mark heard it in between pulsing beats of the music above their heads, before cradling her head in her hands. There was a brief lull in the drink orders and the other bartender seemed to have things under control, so she at least had a few moments to collect herself. “You know, you didn’t have to do that,” she shouted at Mark once she straightened up and began wiping down the counter space directly in front of her. “I could have handled him.”
“I know,” Mark said. “He was just getting on my nerves.”
Stella smiled a little at that, reaching under the bar for some whiskey and pouring out two shots. She pushed one of them towards Mark. “Drink up,” she said. “Listen, I’d be careful about kicking people out of the bar willy-nilly. I don’t think Wesley would appreciate it if he knew you were tossing out every Tom, Dick, and Harry who happens to get an attitude with me.”
Mark shrugged and downed his shot, relishing the sweet burn of the whiskey in his stomach. This was one of the major benefits of working at a bar: free booze. “Look, I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission, you know what I mean? As long as the crowds keep coming, Wesley doesn’t have to know shit about who I’m throwing out.”
Stella laughed, tossing her head back a little bit, revealing the tempting skin of her neck. God, I’d like to reach over and grab her by the throat and sink my teeth right into that… Mark inwardly shook himself out of it, refusing to let his brain finish that thought. He focused instead on the geeky, unashamed way she was laughing, chuckling much more than was called-for in response to Mark’s non-joke. He told himself that she was annoying for taking so much delight and pleasure in Mark’s presence. What the hell was up with that? He was a broody, impolite asshole. Nobody ever liked being around him. So there must have been something wrong with her. That much was certain.
“Takin’ my smoke break, see you later,” Mark said gruffly, turning on his heels and heading towards the back exit.
“Hey, wait!” Stella called out after him. “I’ll go with you.”
He was tempted to turn back around and yell at her to stay put rather than irritate him on his break, but that would have been giving her a little bit too much verbal acknowledgement, and he’d already spoken to her enough today. He didn’t want to start up a habit of regular conversation with her, even if she was the most tolerable person in the building half the time.
So instead he went out through the back, pulling his cigs out of his pocket and lighting up by the time Stella rushed up next to him, a wide, hopeful smile plastered over face. “Can I have one?” she asked, gesturing toward the pack of cigarettes.
“No,” Mark said, not adding any excuse for his rejection. He did have a reason, though. Cigarettes were fucking expensive, and even with this new job it wasn’t like Mark had a lot of disposable income. He wasn’t about to give her one, especially since he didn’t want to encourage her to follow him out on every smoke break he took from now on.
But Stella didn’t seem offended. She just shrugged and leaned back against the brick wall of the building behind them. “Well, anyways, I like this job so far. Do you?”
Mark shrugged, barely lifting his shoulders up in the barest possible acknowledgement of her question.
“My last job was a lot like this, except not as busy most days. I used to work a lot of the morning and afternoon shifts, too, so it wasn’t this crowded. But I like it! It’s nice being surrounded by a bunch of people, having lots of shit to do. It keeps you distracted, keeps the mind from wandering places.”
Mark was tempted to ask her where, exactly, her mind wandered to, but he held himself back. He sucked hard on his cigarette just to keep his mouth occupied, preventing him from engaging in conversation with her.
“Well, anyway, it’s a nice change of pace. I used to only serve drinks to bikers, can you believe that? I think that everybody in this town just thinks that’s normal, like that’s the expected everyday course of events or something, to have a goddamned biker gang run everything in town. But most people here have never lived anywhere else. I came here when I was 10, so I have some memory of living in the city before, and I know how normal people live, you know? Normal people don’t just wait hand and foot on the biggest, meanest guy in the room. Like, they’ve evolved past that. But not here. Here, we’re all living and dying according to the word of the guy that we think might kill us. Because that’s a normal way to live, right?” She scoffed through her shaking teeth, rubbing her bare shoulders against the cold.
“What?” Mark said, completely befuddled as to what was going on with this unexpected rambling rant. “Are you high or something?”
Stella chuckled and shook her head, blowing into her hands for warmth. “Well, I might as well be, with all the mysterious smoke rolling around in the air in there,” she said with a sharp, high laugh.
Mark couldn’t help himself. The sound of her laughter was contagious, bubbling up inside of him until he had to let it out, fogging up the cold air around them with his breath.
That only made Stella laugh harder, clutching her stomach for no reason. There was something frustratingly charming about that—the fact that she seemed to be so easily tickled by the simplest, stupidest things.
Mark finished sucking on his cigarette, flicking it away on the pavement under his feet. “You shouldn’t litter, you know,” Stella said a second later, bending over to pick the fragments of his cigarette into her hand. “I’ll throw this away inside.”
“Nobody actually cares about the environment,” Mark said, the words slipping out of his mouth before his brain had a chance to stop them.
Stella turned around and scowled at him, although the frown on her face soon melted into a sheepish smile. “I don’t know, I guess I’ve always been a stupid softie that way. What about you? Why don’t you care about littering or conservation or whatever?”
Mark really considered the question. For some reason it felt much more serious than it should have, poking at his thoughts insistently until he landed on an equally serious answer. “I guess because of the war. You stop caring about the earth when you see a lot of people die over it.”
“Jesus,” Stella exhaled heavily, stopping in her tracks to turn and look at Mark, her green eyes looking like they could pierce right through his chest. “That’s fucking real. What branch were you?”
“Army,” Mark said. Already he’d told her more about himself than he’d said to anyone since he got discharged. What the hell was going on with him? This wasn’t like Mark at all. He must have been feeling a little woozy from all the heat inside the crowded bar, that was all.
“My father was, too,” Stella said. “Shit’s rough, man.”
“Yeah,” Mark said, holding himself back from saying anything else that might prolong this conversation, although at the same time his chest felt lighter than it had in months, at least. “Yeah,” he said again, gesturing for them to walk back inside, as they’d already exceeded the 3-minute smoke break policy.
They headed back into the crowded bar, going to their respective positions to tend to the bustling group of people, which had only grown larger since they’d been away. The minutes passed by without incident, and midnight slid into one a.m. slid into two a.m., which crashed into closing time. Little by little, the crowds thinned out on their own, but near the very end of the night Mark noticed one guy close to the door. He was clutching his coat in his hands and staring across the bar at Stella. Mark felt his heart harden in his chest as he put two and two together and realized what the guy was doing. He was waiting for Stella’s shift to finish in order to hit on her as she walked home from work. Fucking scum-ball piece of shit, Mark thought as he marched over to the entrance area of the bar, fixing his hardest glare on the creep’s face.
“It’s not fucking happening tonight,” Mark said between gritted teeth. “Go home. Now.”
The middle-aged guy scoffed and narrowed his eyes in disbelief. Evidently he hadn’t noticed Mark’s build or he was otherwise just out of his mind, given how much smaller and frailer he looked in comparison. “Listen, the lady’s going to finish up here, and I told her I’d wait on her, okay? So why don’t you back off and leave us alone?”
Mark chuckled, honestly amused by the blatant dishonesty and misplaced confidence of this sad, silly little man. He yelled over in the direction of the bar, “Yo! Stella!”
She looked up from the bar, which she was scrubbing furiously with a hand towel, relief seeming to wash over her as she locked eyes with Mark. “Hey, what’s up?”
“This guy says you’re going home with him tonight. Is that true?”
She froze for a second, glancing down at the man, who clenched his fists and practically growled in anger.
“Uh, nope. Not true. Not sure where he got that from,” Stella said, which as far as Mark was concerned was the nicest possible reaction she could have given to the situation.
“Fucking bitch,” the old guy muttered under his breath.
“Yeah, okay, time to go, buddy,” Mark said, turning on the little guy and grabbing him by the fabric of his shirt, shuffling them both to the front door until he could toss him out into the late winter snow.
He slipped back into the warmth of the now officially closed bar, locking up the front door for good measure before leaning back at it to stare at Stella, who was still cleaning up around the bar area.
“Thank you,” Stella murmured, not looking up from the bar. It was almost like she was embarrassed by the whole thing, as if it was at all her fault.
Mark shrugged. “It’s no problem. It’s my job, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Stella said with a smile, putting the dirty dishrag in its designated spot before grabbing a broom behind the bar to sweep the floors. “But still. It’s nice to have you around. At least I know here I don’t have to worry about random guys getting in my face.”
“It was like that where you used to work?” Mark asked, curious despite himself. More and more he was slipping into the trap of actually initiating conversation with her.
Stella considered the question for a moment before shaking her head. “It wasn’t like guys got into my face or anything. My ex-boyfriend ran the joint and anyone would get curb-stomped if they tried anything, but he could always come up behind me and bother me and distract me from my work and stuff. It got annoying real quick.”
“Well, I’ll make sure people stay out of your way,” Mark said, watching as Stella quickly swept up the dust and grime from the floors, eventually leaving the place about as spotless as it was before any of the customers had come in earlier that night.
As she put the broom away and shrugged her jacket on, Mark noticed that Stella was biting at the edge of her lips, clearly conflicted about something.
“What’s up?” he finally asked her. It made him uncomfortable, seeing her mentally struggle without saying anything.
“I was just wondering if maybe you could walk me home?” Stella asked, looking up at him through her bountiful eyelashes, as if she was too bashful to meet his eyes directly. “It’s just that the guy from earlier might be waiting down the block for me or something, and I clearly pissed him off, so I was just wondering…” She trailed off, shaking her head at herself. “It’s fine, though. I’m sure he’s not doing anything.”
“I can give you a ride,” Mark said, grabbing his car keys out of his pocket. “Come on. Let’s go.”
They passed the ride home in almost complete silence, but it wasn’t awkward or anything. It felt almost as comfortable and relaxed as Mark felt when he was riding by himself. Maybe it was just because Stella was tired, but she didn’t seem as motivated to run her mouth. But for some reason, as he dropped her off at her shabby little apartment and watched her walk inside to safety, he missed the sound of her voice a little bit. Clearly, some wiring in his brain had misfired, because he never wanted to hear anybody talk, ever. But there was just something about Stella. She got under his skin, much too easily for his liking.
If he was being honest with himself, it scared the shit out of him. I’ll ask for different shifts tomorrow at work, he told himself as he drove back to his own place. But somehow he already knew that wasn’t going to happen. He would see her the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, until he became so accustomed to seeing her face that it would be the first thing he looked forward to when he woke up in the morning.
Fuck, he thought as he climbed into bed. This is not good.