“Last call,” I tell the man at the bar.
“Another,” he points to his empty glass. The jukebox is on its last song of the night and the crowd has withered to almost nothing. It is almost three in the morning, and it’s a Friday night, which means everyone has shit to do tomorrow morning, whether it be a wedding, a sporting event, or coaching Little League. Everyone has something to do in just a few hours.
Except, apparently, the tall blonde sitting at my bar alone.
He doesn’t seem to be too worried about it being the end of the night. He doesn’t seem upset or uncomfortable with the fact that he’s one of the last lingering people in my bar. I pour his drink and hand it to him, but I don’t spend any more time thinking about him.
I’ve been in this business far too long to worry about what people’s stories are. If he wants me to know, he’ll tell me, and he won’t require any prodding.
People are weird when it comes to their hairdressers, but they’re even weirder when it comes to their bartenders. For some reason, people think they can trust us. They might now know our first names or anything about us, but they trust us.
Quickly, I move through the room and collect the rest of the glasses on empty tables. I carry everything back to the bar and start washing. With any luck, I’ll be out of here in the next half hour and then I can head home and crash.
It’s not that I have anywhere to be tomorrow. Drinking Games, my bar, is basically my life. On Sundays I go to church and on Tuesdays I go to the library and the rest of the time, I’m here, trying to figure out how to make the bar a better place, trying to figure out how I can increase my revenue.
I do my very best and sometimes it’s good enough. Sometimes it’s not.
“You’re here a lot,” the man says, and I know it’s time to put my listening hat on.
“You aren’t,” I point out. “I’ve only seen you a few times, if I remember correctly.” I don’t know his name. He hasn’t told me. I would have remembered.
I can’t remember every person I meet, but this guy?
This guy is different.
I definitely would have remembered Mr. Blue Eyes.
I definitely would have remembered the name that goes with that face.
“You are correct, Miss…?”
“Jennifer.”
“Dan,” he says.
“Pleasure.”
“Pleasure’s mine,” he says.
“So what brings you out tonight, Dan?” My other customers left slowly throughout the night. There was a bridal shower earlier, and even though the bride was the designated driver, she ended up having a great night with her girlfriends. The maid of honor went home with someone, and the rest of my patrons all seemed to enjoy themselves. They all seemed to lose themselves in the night, in the moment, except for this guy, and I’m not sure what’s so different about him.
I’m not sure why he’s here alone.
He’s handsome, and at first glance, he seems like the kind of guy you can trust. In my line of work, I have to be a good judge of character. There are no second chances in bartending. If I mess up someone’s drink or I spill something or ring up a charge incorrectly, they’ll never come back.
There are too many bars to choose from.
I don’t have the luxury of making mistakes.
Still, this guy is a mystery to me. Something about him seems familiar, but the truth is that I have no idea who he really is or why he comes here to drink alone. Maybe he’s hiding from a nagging wife or he’s got a possessive girlfriend. Hell, maybe he lives with his mother and she gives him crap constantly. I really don’t know.
The only thing I know is that he’s not my usual clientele, and I’m not sure what to do with him.
So I clean.
The jukebox shuts off and the man finishes his drink.
“Ready to close your tab?” I ask, coming back behind the bar.
“Yes and no,” he says slowly.
“I don’t understand.”
He sighs, and runs a hand through his hair. “I’ve come here three times,” he says. “Three times because I need to tell you something that I just haven’t.”
What could this stranger possibly have to tell me? No offense to the guy because he seems sweet, but if this is the part where he’s going to confess to have feelings for me or something crazy like that, then no thank you.
I have the police on speed dial for crazy guys like this.
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it can wait.”
“No, it can’t,” he says. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I just wasn’t sure how.” He takes a deep breath and then smiles, and suddenly, I realize exactly who he is.
Suddenly, I realize why his face seemed so familiar.
Suddenly, I realize why he’s here.
“Daniel Pensworth,” I whisper, and the smile that lights his face lights up my whole damn heart. It couldn’t possibly be him, and yet, somehow, he’s standing in front of me. Oh, he’s about a hundred pounds thinner, and time has aged him, but it’s the same Daniel I grew up with.
He looks so different that when he was just sitting here, I didn’t recognize him, but there’s no way I could forget that smile.
There’s no way I could forget the boy I’ve been pining over for the last fifteen years.
“Jen Jen,” he says, and I reach for his hand over the bar.
“What? Why? I mean…” I search for the right words, trying to keep myself from going into shock. “Why are you here now? How did you find me?”
“Facebook,” he says. “I know it’s creepy, but I looked you up. Your public profile shows that you work here. I figured I’d stop by.”
I laugh because I thought about looking him up online so many times, but didn’t want to be weird.
Apparently, I should have.
I shouldn’t have been so scared that I held myself back.
“It’s not creepy,” I lie, and we both laugh because it’s definitely, totally creepy. “What made you decide to look me up? Are you in town for long?”
“Actually,” he says slowly. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I just moved back to town.”
He has my full attention now.
“What? Why?”
I feel like all I’m saying is “why” and I’m sure I sound like a broken record, but my heart is doing so many crazy things right now. It’s beating slower and faster and stopping and pounding.
“I missed you,” he says slowly. “And I know this is crazy because we’ve been apart for years. When my parents moved away, I missed you like crazy, Jen Jen. I thought about you all the time. The phone calls, the letters, the emails…those things kept me going. I was so lonely after we moved, and I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too.”
“I know we grew apart. I know it’s what happens when you move away, but I never stopped thinking about you. I never stopped missing you, wishing for you.”
My heart stops and I wonder if this is real.
I must be dreaming.
I have to be dreaming.
“What happened to you?” I point to him. I’m being totally awkward, but I don’t really care right now. He came back for me. He came back to see me.
“I lost weight, joined the military, and got stationed overseas. I had a lot of time to think over there,” he says. “And mostly, what I thought about was you.”
“Why me?”
“You were the best friend I ever had, Jen Jen. I kept thinking about sending you messages on Facebook, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The military wasn’t the lifestyle I wanted forever, and I didn’t think it was fair to message you and ask you to give me a shot when we’d have to be long distance.”
“But now?”
“Now I’m here, asking you in person, Jen.”
“What are you asking me, Daniel?”
“Give me a shot, Jen. Let me try again. Let me try to win your heart the way I wanted to all those years ago. I was going to ask you to winter formal, you know, but I didn’t get the chance.”
He looks at me with those beautiful blue eyes, and I realize I don’t have a choice right now. Not anymore. Not after tonight.
After everything I went through opening this bar, after everything it took to get this place on the ground, I can’t say no to this.
I can’t say no to a second chance with the boy who got away.
I grab his shirt and pull him to me. I lean over the bar and I kiss him. I kiss him like it’s the first time, like it’s the last time, like it’s the only time. I kiss him like I mean it, and my heart soars because suddenly, everything feels like it’s going to be just fine.
Suddenly, everything feels like it’s going to be okay.
Suddenly, I feel like my world just got a whole lot better.
I think it just gave me my happy-ever-after.