Reborn(8)

Chloe bit the end of the pen between her teeth. “Don’t even feed me that line of bullshit about how you’re unlovable.”

She teased out another smile, this one wanton, as she added, “Evan asked about you yesterday.”

My interest was piqued and it got the better of me. “He did? What did he say?”

“He asked what you were doing. Said we should call you up and invite you out after our shift was over.” She twirled the pen. “I texted you, but you never answered.”

My heart sank. She had texted me. And I’d ignored it because I’d been watching movies with Aggie. But if she’d told me in the first text that Evan wanted me to hang out with the group, I would have answered. All she’d said was, Hey. That was it. Chloe was the kind of person who would talk your ear off face-to-face, but her texts were sparse. One word. Sometimes two. Never strung together in a coherent sentence.

“Are you guys going out tonight?” I asked.

She nodded. “But we’re hitting up Arrow.”

“Oh.” Arrow was a nightclub that was eighteen and over, and I wouldn’t be eighteen for a few more months.

The back door opened and then slammed shut. Evan sauntered into the break room a few seconds later, his eyes heavy and bloodshot. His Merv’s Bar & Grill polo was wrinkled and untucked, and his blond hair was unkempt. He dropped into the chair next to Chloe and rested his head on his arms.

“Feeling good today?” Chloe asked him, to which he replied with merely a grunt.

I stared at the back of his head, at the long blond hair hanging over the collar of his polo.

“My fucking head is pounding,” he said. “Whose idea was it to buy a fifth of Jäger last night?”

“Um, yours,” Chloe said. “I tried talking you out of it.”

“Well, you clearly didn’t try hard enough.” He sat up and glanced at me. “Hey, Lis. How come you didn’t come out with us last night?”

I shrugged. “I fell asleep early.”

Chloe arched a brow my way, but I ignored it.

Evan leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out. “Maybe that was for the best. Considering I feel like shit today.”

“You look like shit, too,” Chloe said.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why are we friends? You’re always so mean to me, Emily.”

Chloe scowled in return. She hated being called by her first name. Chloe was her middle name, and she’d been using it as long as anyone could remember. I’d known of Chloe before I started working at Merv’s. She was friends with some of my friends, but we hadn’t been properly introduced.

I didn’t get to know her until last year, when I’d nearly had a panic attack in the middle of Merv’s while Aggie and I were there for dinner. Chloe had been the one to sweep me away to the bathroom where, by some miracle, she’d been able to talk me down.

We’d been close ever since. She was the one who convinced me it might be a good idea to apply at the restaurant. “When you can’t stand being inside your own head, getting out, being around other people helps,” she’d said. I hadn’t believed her at the time, but I was a believer now. Though I was nowhere near mentally healthy, I’d been doing a lot better since starting a part-time job.

Merv, of “Bar & Grill” fame, came into the back room and clapped his hands. “Chop-chop, people!”

Evan winced. “Merv. God. Too loud.”

Merv bent over and shouted into Evan’s ear. “Is this better?”

Evan covered his eyes with one hand and his exposed ear with the other. “I’m calling in sick.”

“Too late,” Merv said. “You’re already here.”

Evan rose slowly out of the chair and made his way toward the front of the restaurant. Merv glanced at Chloe and me. “Ladies. That means you, too.”

Chloe grinned as she breezed past Merv. “I’m off in five minutes anyway.”

“Then make the most of them!”

I tied my apron on and slid my order pad into the front pocket along with a handful of pens. They had a tendency to disappear—probably because Chloe liked chewing on them. It was a good idea to have extras.

“Lissy,” Merv said, and I slowed. “You all right today?”

I glanced up at him. Merv was six foot four, and slight as a rail. He had warm, kind eyes, and a nice smile, and dark brown hair that went every which way. He was also extremely good at reading people. Like, to the point that it seemed like a superpower.

Despite the fact that I was damaged, erratic, sullen most of the time, and sometimes so depressed I could barely get out of bed, Merv hired me six months ago on the spot. I didn’t even have experience. I suspected Chloe had had something to do with that, but I wasn’t complaining. And I wasn’t about to let Merv down.