Play Maker by Katie McCoy
1
Nicole
All it took was one look and I knew exactly what he wanted. It was a gift, really. He crossed the crowded room, coming straight towards me, just like they all did, his gaze saying everything I needed to know. He stopped in front of me and licked his lips.
“Let me guess.” I leaned forward, watching his pupils dilate as he watched my deft hands do their magic. “Gin and tonic.” I slid the glass across the bar.
His eyes widened. “How did you know?”
I winked. “A good bartender can always tell.” And I was a good bartender. Hell, I was a great bartender. I could figure out someone’s drink of choice in an instant. You just had to know what to look for. He was wearing a slim fitting J Crew suit. That said he was young, modern, the kind of person that might be interested in the more artisanal style cocktails. But he didn’t have any of the patterns or flourishes that some men his age were embracing. So he still liked to keep things traditional. Something that Don Draper might have felt comfortable ordering. Gin and tonic was a drink that seemed to be gaining popularity, but still maintained an old-fashioned feel. And once you see it, you couldn’t unsee it. Mr. Gin-and-Tonic, through and through.
And now he was mine for the whole evening. He wouldn’t try ordering at the other end of the bar. Nope. He thought that I knew him. Which he liked. Because everyone liked feeling that way. Everyone wanted to be known, to be seen. All it took was a simple observation and I had him in the palm of my hand.
He tipped well and returned to the group he had come in with. But he kept looking back. The men always did. Because not only could I make a killer cocktail – the exact one they wanted before they even knew they wanted it – but I wore my uniform extremely well. The same curves that had gotten me teased in middle school were bringing grown men to their knees over ten years later.
Maya liked to call me the blonde Jessica Rabbit. All boobs and butt, both which strained against the black shirt, black pants and little black vest I had to wear for work. Even though I was completely covered up, I couldn’t change the way I always seemed to be on the verge of spilling out of my clothes. Not that I’d want to. Because if I couldn’t get a guy with a drink, I could always get him with a well deployed “bend and snap”, just like Elle Woods. But that was only used as a last resort.
The guy wasn’t bad looking – though a little on the skinny side for me – but unfortunately for him I just wasn’t in the mood tonight. I pulled my gaze away from that side of the room and pulled out a stick of gum from my purse. It was a bad habit of mine, but since barely anyone was in the bar, I popped a piece of doublemint gum into my mouth and started chewing. When the gum was soft enough, I started blowing bubbles. I could make them pretty big if I concentrated, but I mostly just loved the soft poof they let out when they deflated. Or the crackly pop they made when they burst.
My first bubble popped, causing Maya to glance over at me. She rolled her eyes. She didn’t understand my gum addiction, but I didn’t understand her love of juicing basically everything. Every day she came in with some new mixture she had made up in her juicer. She was convinced there was a tonic out there for any ailment. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it all basically tasted the same. Like liquid grass.
She sidled over to me now with today’s concoction. It smelled like old carrots, but she was sipping it like a martini.
“You are so weird,” I informed her.
“It’s good for the skin,” she insisted. “Not that you have a problem with that, you zit-less bitch.” It was said with love.
“Hey, I’d kill for your hair and you know that.” I told her. She did have beautiful hair.
She flipped it over her shoulder. “Juice, baby.”
I rolled my eyes. “Juice did not make your hair that way. That’s all genetics.”
But Maya wasn’t listening. “Love me, love my juice,” she said, heading back to her end of the bar.
“That’s why you’re still single,” I teased.
She gave me the finger. And a smile. Best friend ever.
We had just opened, so the bar was practically empty. Slow nights were pretty much the only time Maya and I could talk on the job.
I loved being a bartender, but weeknights were the absolute worst. Barely anyone came to the hotel bar during the week. We got a few guests, but most of the clientele worked nearby, so it was large groups coming for our Happy Hour deals. That meant a rush of people ordering before seven and then standing around nursing their $5 beers while they caught up on work gossip. Drinking was more perfunctory during the week, which didn’t really equal a flowing tap or chatting up the bartender. Everyone would be driving home afterwards and no one wanted to stay downtown too late. For me, that equaled a lot of time alone at the bar, standing on my feet and waiting for them to leave.
I lived for weekends, the bar filled with the crush of crowds from the hotel, convention center and all the nearby date joints. The air was always filled with excitement and sex, and the adrenaline could carry me all the way past closing and beyond. On a night like that, I might have held eye contact with Mr. Gin-and-Tonic for a few seconds longer. Direct eye contact was usually all it took to get him to book a room in the hotel.
And all my relationships were one night stands. I wasn’t interested in relationships and even if I was, my life just wasn’t set up for them. There were too many other things in my life that were way more important than coddling some man’s ego. Because that’s what relationships seemed to be. I had learned that the hard way. Some guy who had found my sexuality and sex appeal exciting until we started dating – then it had become a liability. Something to be guarded and monitored. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I found there was no room in those relationships for the person that mattered the most to me – my brother.