I shouldn’t have been surprised that Kai didn’t show up for work, but somehow I was. Still, I couldn’t blame him, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to show my face in the bar again after our little falling out if I were him either, but it still ticked me off.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that he’d thrown me aside like an empty beer bottle, he was also too much of a coward to show up and face me. I was angry, probably much angrier than I had any right to be, but who would blame me?

Jason seemed to be keeping his distance from me, keeping quiet and letting me simmer, no doubt hoping that eventually I would calm down and get my shit together. All night long I’d been screwing up orders, burning food, you name it, just because I couldn’t get my head in the game. It was difficult to think about anything else, difficult to think that anything else mattered now that Kai and I were done.

As I dropped a basketful of chicken into the fryer and it sizzled to life, part of me wished that I could disappear. This was too much, and it was making me crazy trying to pretend like nothing was wrong, do the job that I did almost every day like my entire world hadn’t turned upside down in a matter of minutes.

In a lot of ways, I still couldn’t believe that Kai had broken it off with me. We’d hit it off so well, had had such an intense bond, and now, just like that, he was gone. How was I supposed to go back to my normal life, go on like I hadn’t been changed in some major way? For some reason, I didn’t think I would ever be the same again.

After two guys in the span of a little more than a year had chewed me up and spit me out, it would be hard not to be bitter and pissed off. It wasn’t fair what Kai had done to me, the way he’d made me think that we were going somewhere, only to turn on me when the heat got to be too much for him.

“Mike? Mike!?” Jason shouted, stirring me out of the daydream I’d been having while I watched the grease bubble and pop.

“What?!” I bellowed, whirling to face him.

“You couldn’t hear me calling you? Can you please come and help me for a few minutes, it’s crazy out here,” Jason said. Yeah, no shit it was, no thanks to Kai. It wasn’t bad enough we’d had had a falling out; he had to screw us both by calling in sick. We could barely keep up with the business since it was a weekend and it was supposed to be three of us on the floor. Dan had come in to help us cover since George was out of town tending to a family emergency of some sort that I hadn’t bothered to give a damn about until now, but it still wasn’t enough. We needed four, maybe even five people, not three.

“Sorry, coming,” I said, swallowing back my guilt for biting Jason’s head off. I smashed the timer on the front of the fryer so I wouldn’t burn the food yet again. Outside on the floor, I could barely move. There were people everywhere, and the noise from their conversations was overwhelming.

“There’s a table over there in the corner that wants refills, but I don’t know what they want since it wasn’t my table. Can you go check on them for me?” he asked, nodding toward the very back of the bar. I forced my way through the throng of people and got to the table in record time.

“I heard y’all were looking for refills. What can I get for you?” I asked. The woman sitting at the table looked at me with contempt, like she’d been waiting forever for somebody to come and take her order.

“Forget it, we’ve been waiting so long we’ve lost our thirst,” the woman said. I didn’t know what to say, but anger boiled in the back of my throat, and I knew if I stood there any longer I would snap at the woman. Thankfully, Jason’s hand on my arm jolted me out of my own body and back into reality.

“I’m so sorry about this. We’re very busy tonight, and someone called in sick, so we’re running behind. Here, how about a voucher to make up for it the next time you come in?” Jason asked, producing a little piece of cardboard out of the back of his pocket. He always kept them around, just in case something like this happened, though it rarely ever did.

“Thanks, but there probably ain’t gonna be a next time,” the woman said shortly and snatched the card out of his hand as she and the rest of her table stood up to leave.

“Wow, what a twatwaffle,” I muttered under my breath as I watched them leave the bar.

“Watch your mouth,” Jason said, looking around to make sure none of the other customers had heard. They hadn’t, not that I was concerned about it, but Jason’s arm was still on mine. He pulled me, literally pulled me, back into the kitchen and stood with his hands crossed over his chest, looking at me like he wanted an explanation of some sort.

“What?” I asked.

“Don’t give me that shit, you know exactly why I pulled you back here. You need to snap out of this, whatever it is,” he said.

“If only it were that easy,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You know, gettin’ dumped don’t exactly put a guy in the best kinda mood, especially when immediately afterward I’m forced to pick up the slack for my now ex-boyfriend.”

“I get it, I know you’re upset, and I’m not telling you you shouldn’t be, but you need to put a lid on it. It’s busy, people don’t have a lot of patience, and I’m terrified you’re gonna fly off at the mouth and say something you’ll live to regret. Can you promise me that you won’t do that?” He asked.

“Now you sound just like Kai,” I said. Jason narrowed his eyes at me, and almost immediately guilt swept over me. It was one thing to be mad at Kai, but it was another thing entirely to take it out on my best friend. He hadn’t known this was coming any more than I did, and as much as it sucked for me, it had to suck worst for him. He’d lost an employee and gotten saddled with another one who was saltier than the ocean. It was a shitty situation for all of us.

“Sorry,” I said meekly, staring down at the floor like a little boy.

“It’s fine like I said, I understand. But this can’t keep happening. I mean, you’re burning stuff, screwing up drinks, it’s a disaster,” he said.

“I know, I’m sorry, I’ll get it together, I promise,” I said and made to step around him, but he put his hand on my chest to stop me.

“You can say that, but I don’t think it’s true. Do we need to talk?” he asked.

“There’s no time for that, we can’t,” I said.

“Yes you can,” Dan said, his head popping through the swinging kitchen door. “I’ll keep them occupied out here for a few minutes so you two can have a breather, just, you know, make it fast.”

“Thanks,” Jason said, but I wasn’t exactly thankful for it myself. I didn’t want to talk about this, didn’t want to face it because I knew Jason was going to say whatever he thought I wanted to hear to make me feel better—and I doubted there was any damn thing in the world that would make me feel better right now.

“All right, spill it, all of it,” Jason said, cutting right to the chase. He’d never been one to beat around the bush, and in most cases, I appreciated that, but now it annoyed me. The only thing I wanted was to melt into the floor like the Wicked Witch, forget that any of this had happened, just lose myself in work, so I didn’t have to think about any of it.

“I’m pretty sure you overheard it all,” I said.

“I did, it was ugly. But the way you’re acting right now is even uglier, and I have a feeling it’s not going to go away until you get whatever is off your chest,” he said. “So scream at me, punch a fucking wall if you have to, just get it out. Otherwise, this already shitty night is only going to get worse.”

“Fine, if you insist,” I sighed.

“Then lay it on me,” he said.

“He broke up with me, the sneaky, shady little Swedish shit. He’s more worried about his damn trust fund than he was about what was going on between him and me. It’s bullshit, all of it, and I feel so stupid for being duped,” I admitted, choking on my own words as tears came to my eyes. I hadn’t meant for all that crap to come out, hadn’t meant to be so open and vulnerable, but if I couldn’t talk to Jason, then I couldn’t talk to anybody.

“I’m so sorry, brother, I am,” he said. “You know, more than anyone else, I’ve always wanted you to be happy. Especially after you slapped some sense into me when things were getting rough with Dan. I’ve always known you have a big heart, but that proved it to me.” His words were nice, and they did make me feel a little fuzzy inside, but they weren’t nothing more than words. They couldn’t take away how I was feeling, couldn’t fix things.

“Thanks,” I said with a shrug. “Unfortunately, some people don’t seem to know or agree with that, or they see it and know that they can take advantage of it,” I said.

“See, that’s where I disagree. I don’t think Kaid was trying to take advantage of you at all,” he said, and I raise my eyebrows at him.

“Who the hell’s side are you on here? If he wasn’t trying to take advantage of me, then why isn’t here right now? Why did he break up with me because of some trust fund money his parents were never gonna pay him in the first place? I was just a fling for him, something to occupy his time in this boring ass town while he waited to hear back from mommy and daddy,” I vented.

“Maybe it started out that way, but I think it went deeper than that. You haven’t seen the way he looks at you like I have, the way he seems to light up whenever you enter the room. Honestly, it’s encouraging, and I don’t think this is over yet,” he said.

“A misunderstanding? Oh no, I think it’s clear as piss, he doesn’t want anything to do with me. I’m just a pathetic old man who gave him a good roll in the hay, and maybe that’s all he ever wanted outta me,” I said, fighting back the tears again. It wasn’t the first person who’d rejected me, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. All my life, except Jason, I’d never had a lick of good luck finding friends who stuck around. So why was I surprised Kai wasn’t any different?

“Now you’re just being defeatist,” he said. “Look, I don’t blame him for being afraid of retribution from his parents overseas. They’ve got a lot of power over him, and he’s got a lot to prove to them after whatever happened before he got sent here.”

“I understand that I do, but I can’t think of any other reason why he would bail out on me after what we shared,” I said. “I got to know him, Jason. He’s not some shallow piece of muscle like everyone thinks he is. I thought we had something really special, something I didn’t think I would ever find again after Scott bailed on me, but I guess I thought wrong.”

“And I think you’re thinking wrong again right now. Look, I don’t know how else to say this, so I guess I’ll just beat you over the head with it. He wants to be with you; he wants to figure it all out. But it’s hard to do when he’s got the threat of a nice future being taken away from him hanging over his head. In the end, I think he’ll come to his senses, but you’re gonna have to push him a little bit to get there,” Jason said.

“What the hell are you talkin’ about? What am I supposed to do? It’s not like I can just go over to his place and tell him that he should be with me because I can take care of him. Jesus, Jason, I work in a bar, I can barely provide for myself, let alone the both of us,” I said. Still, the idea of living with Kai, maybe saving things, gave me a little bit of hope, lifted my mood a bit.

“You know, not everything’s about money. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from living in a small town, from working-class people like us, it’s that the little things matter a lot more in the end. They add a hell of a lot more to our happiness than any amount of money ever could. I think he saw that with you, and more than anything else, I think it scared him,” Jason said. “Think about it; you threw his whole world into chaos, his whole future.”

“Then why the hell couldn’t he just say that? Why couldn’t he just tell me that things were moving too fast, that maybe we needed to slow down while he figured his shit out?” I asked.

“Because he’s young, and he hasn’t had a lot of experience out in the real world. I mean, put yourself in his shoes, if you’d grown up the way that he had with a silver spoon in your mouth, would you be equipped to dig deep into your thoughts and articulate why you couldn’t do something? I mean, you’re not exactly the world’s greatest communicator either, you know,” Jason said with a smirk. He was the only one in the world who could talk to me like that.

Maybe he was right. Maybe Kai did want to be with me; maybe he’d only pushed me away like this because he was afraid of what came next if we continued getting closer and closer. I couldn’t exactly blame him for that; the thought had crossed my mind too. What kind of future could we have, if any? And how would it change my life?

My whole life I’d lived in Beauclaire, stayed pretty much invisible thanks to my overwhelming averageness, so getting together with the son of movie stars, even if they were foreign and not popular in the US, would change that in ways I couldn't even imagine.

But I didn’t care about it, didn’t for a second think that that could be a reason why I shouldn’t pursue being with Kai. God dammit, I liked him, maybe even loved him, saw a lot of myself in him, and I wanted him back. I didn’t want to see him go, didn’t want this to end before it even began. More than that, after a year spent moping about my bad luck with guys, I'd finally climbed out, and I was determined not to go tumbling right back into that hole.

I deserved to be happy. I’d worked for it, and though Kai wasn’t exactly flawless, neither was I. Maybe that was what made us so good together. We saw each other’s flaws, but also saw each other’s potential, the diamonds in the rough or whatever, and brought them out. We could grow together; we could push each other.

“What the hell do I do now?” I asked.

“What does your gut tell you?” Jason fired back with a smirk, and I almost punched him.

“You’ve been waitin’ to use that one, ain’t you?”

“Did it work?”

“It did.”

“Then why are you still standing here?” he asked.

“What about you and Dan?”

“We’ll manage. Go. You aren’t gonna get another chance,” he said. I stood frozen while my mind whirled like a plow.

“Thank you, Jason.”

“Please, I owe you, remember? Now don’t make me tell you again,” he said and swatted me away.

“But I don’t even know where he lives,” I said.

“One step ahead of you,” he said and reached into his pocket to pull out a piece of paper with his chicken scratch handwriting. It was Kai’s address.

I ran out of the bar.