“Yeah,” Riley confirms. “And he said he probably won’t be herenext week, so we’ll see him at Adrian’s.”
“I might skip next week, too,” Jake says. I raise an eyebrow, and he goes on. “There’s a bunch of stuff going on at work—regional meetings and assorted bureaucratic fun—but a night in WeHo sounds like the perfect way to recover from that.”
“Weird. I usually have to recover from the night in WeHo,” I say.
“Gotta start choosing a bed over a bathroom stall,” Jake teases.
Riley works on restocking the half of the bar I abandoned for the night. Once I’ve closed another couple out, I pull up the Trailhead socials again and scroll through anything new since the last time I liked and commented my way through it all. A few minutes in, I find something that gets my brain rolling.
“Hey, do either of you ever read the things people say about this place online?”
“Like reviews and stuff?” Riley asks, a rack of glasses in their hands.
“Nah, more like questions and comments on all the social media accounts Adrian set up for us.”
Jake takes too long to swallow a sip of his beer and then shrugs. “I haven’t been on any of my accounts for months.”
“Yeah, I deleted most of my stuff a while ago,” Riley says, dropping the rack onto one of the coolers to unload the glasses.
I lower my phone and put my hand on my hip. “Most?”
“I’m not on anything where I’ll find an official Trailhead account. And why are you asking? Is something wrong?”
“Not at all, but I—someone asked if we have live music here,and someone else said no, and then someone else said, ‘Oh, it would be sooooooo cool if they had a band come in like once a week,’ and a bunch of people liked that.”
Jake nods. “And now you’re wondering whether that’s the next big thing V should consider.”
He’s right, of course, and I look around the bar from where I stand. We host trivia and karaoke from the dance floor, but that’s probably not a great option for a band when people will want to dance to any live music being played. Rearranging the high-top tables and stools on the other side of the dance floor would make some room, but I don’t think cramming the band and dancers next to each other is much better. The pool tables are too much of a draw to go anywhere, but there’s the—
I almost smack myself in the forehead, because I could’ve saved myself some trouble by starting with the one area that’s been ignored more often than not lately.
“Nobody really rides the bull anymore,” I say. “I think we could probably do a small stage setup over there if V would go for it.”
“Might be worth looking into,” Jake agrees. “But she’d have a lot of numbers to run before you go telling everyone it’s a sure thing, so you’re gonna have to bite your tongue for a minute.”
“Or you could bite it for me.”
It’s out of my mouth before I can stop it, certainly no worse than a thousand other things I’ve said to anyone I’ve served in my years here, but still weirdly dangerous when Jake’s looking at me the way he is. Riley doesn’t take me nearly as seriously and shakes their head instead.
“Talk to V, let her decide, and then you can go wild with all the little people in your phone if she says yes. Of course, then she’d also have to find an actual band, so maybe you can ask those same people for help.”
“You mean you can’t find us a band from your super-secret site?”
Riley treats me to a very pretty eye roll and wanders off to finish anything they need to do before they go home. Jake taps his glass against his coaster a couple of times, and I don’t miss that he’s got less than half his beer left to drink. It has me shoving my phone into my back pocket so I can lean across the bar and give him my full attention.
He grins. “You slowed down.”
“That I did. But you’re not gonna be here much longer.”
“No, I have to be at work early tomorrow morning.”
“And a lot next week,” I add. “So, I probably won’t see you then.”
“You probably won’t. But you could come home with me after the gallery opening.”
It’s bold, maybe. Or would be in a hundred other scenarios, but I already crossed more deeply drawn lines when I told Jake I want him to fuck me, and an invitation like this is nothing at all.
It’s everything, too. I’m far too smart to pretend otherwise.