Hot Mess (LBSC #1) | Completed

Chapter 5

"You can do this, Reese." I repeated to myself as I approached Day Glo's rear entry. "Big girl panties. Big. Girl. Panties."

I stopped at the door and took a deep breath, slowly releasing it before trudging upstairs. Quinn was already behind the counter checking our liquor levels. A grey, crocheted beanie sat haphazardly on his head, and his face was lined with stubble. God, he looked good. He glanced up as I entered, his expression revealing nothing.

"Hey, Reese."

He greeted me nonchalantly, as if I hadn't left a ridiculously embarrassing and pathetic voicemail on his phone. Maybe I got lucky and he hadn't heard it. Or maybe it didn't go through! A little spark of hope flared into life within me.

"Quinn," I answered coolly. I slid my messenger bag over my head.

"That was some message," he said. His face was obscured below the counter, but I could definitely hear a note of amusement in his tone.

And just like that, my little flame of hope was extinguished. My bag slipped through my fingers to the floor. "Quinn–"

He held up a hand and popped up from behind the counter. "Don't worry about it. Everyone has one of those nights. Forgotten, okay?"

Rendered mute by mortification, I nodded my head.

Quinn focused his gaze on me and lifted one corner of his mouth. "And just for the record, you being black has nothing to do with it."

So there was another reason Quinn wasn't interested?

I decided to pocket that thought for another time because at the moment I prayed for the floor to open up and swallow me.

****

Monday night shifts were always miserable–hardly anyone came to the bar on Monday except for super seniors, the guys and girls working on year five or six of their undergraduate career, who should've been studying for classes. After our first awkward encounter, Quinn and I had pretty much been keeping to ourselves. Even though he said that the voicemail was forgotten, there was a weird vibe between us that I hated.

I sighed and folded my arms on the bar. What else could go wrong in my life right now?

"Hey there, pretty lady," Spencer Malone said as he strutted to the bar, faster than I'd ever seen him move before. With his slow I'll-get-there-when-I-get-there gait and his heavy-lidded eyes I'd once remarked to Quinn that he reminded me of a sloth. His head was a mop of greasy, ginger-colored coils flattened by a filthy, green baseball cap, a perfect match for a face covered in a week's worth of beard growth.

I remember seeing Spencer at the bar when I was still a freshman. He was definitely older than me, in his early thirties at least, but still working on his undergraduate degree. The fact that he spent seventy-five percent of his day stoned probably had something to do with that. At least Spencer would provide a much-needed distraction for the time being.

"How's it going?" I asked.

"Killer news." He wouldn't–or couldn't–stop fidgeting, his fingers twisting the bottom of his raggedy t-shirt, then moving to the red curls on the crown of his head.

I lifted an eyebrow.

"I'm graduating!"

"What?!"

"I'm graduating!"

"Graduating what?" I asked. It was a fair question.

"School!" Spencer beamed. "I finally have enough credits to graduate in December. Can you believe it?"