* * *
The bar is called Pint House. It sits two blocks from campus on University Avenue, sandwiched between a vape shop and a laundromat.
The floor is sticky. The lighting is yellow. The jukebox hasn't worked since before I started.
I've been here eleven months. Wednesday through Saturday, five to close, four dollars above minimum wage plus tips.
Gary runs the place with the attentiveness of a man who won the bar in a divorce settlement and doesn't know what to do with it.
Tonight is Thursday, so it’s the usual mix.
College kids in WVU gear celebrating something or mourning something, hard to tell which because the drinking looks the same either way.
Construction workers at the end of the bar, boots still on, talking about a job site on Beechurst.
Marissa is working the other end, laughing too loud at a joke a frat boy made. She's good at this. The smiling, the leaning in, the casual touch on a forearm that doubles her tips.
I've never been able to do it. Never wanted to. I pour, I serve, I move.
Around nine, a man sits down at my section. Late thirties, maybe forty.
Baseball cap, flannel, hands like he works with them. He orders a Bud Light and a shot of Jameson.
I pour both and set them in front of him.
He drinks the shot, chases it with beer, orders another round. I pour it. He drinks it.
Orders a third.
By the fourth round, he's leaning forward on his elbows, watching me move behind the bar with an attention I can feel on my skin like a sunburn.
"You go to school here?" His voice is loose. Not slurring, but the consonants are starting to soften at the edges.
I set his beer down without making eye contact. "Yeah."
"What are you studying?"
"Social work."
He nods like this means something to him. Takes a pull of his beer. "My cousin's kid is at WVU. Business major. You know a Tyler Booth?"
"No."
He grins. "Good-looking kid. You'd remember him."
I move to the other end of the bar. Wipe down a section that doesn't need wiping. Help a girl with pink hair figure out which cider she wants.
When I come back, his glass is empty, and he's waving me over.
I pour another Bud Light and set it down.
His hand closes over mine on the glass.
Not aggressive. Not violent. His fingers wrap around my wrist and squeeze once, firm, the way you'd grip a doorknob to see if it turns.
"You don't smile much, do you?"
I pull my hand back. "Don't touch me."