was with the owner of the bar, Henry. Because no matter what, I figured I was going to need some time off—and that meant talking to the boss man.
I took one more sip of coffee, then set the mug down on what passed as the windowsill in my tiny apartment and headed for the bedroom, already putting together my outfit for the day and working on the speech I’d started rehearsing last night when I went to bed.
I needed time off, and I needed Henry to give it to me. And if my previous experience with Henry was any indication, that meant going in there with a terrific script and a bulletproof reason for why I needed said time off.
The man was a romantic at heart, but he was also a businessman. So I was going to need more than “I fell in love with a man and I have to go find him.”
I strolled into the bar—closed right now, since it was past six a.m. and not yet eight at night—and looked around, going through that weird transition when you see a place you know like the back of your hand and it looks nothing like it does when you usually see it.
It was almost always crowded in this bar and seeing it empty was weird. I mean yeah, it was empty after closing time at three, but there were always the bouncers and another bartender around, and from three to six, I was usually busy with cleaning and trying to get organized for opening again.
There were also, on occasion, the people I let sleep there because they’d passed out and I just didn’t have the heart to move them. And I always had music playing and the dishwasher running and the sound of the broom or mop or something else to keep the silence at bay.
So seeing it right now, in the complete quiet, with no peanut shells on the floor and no dishwasher running or bartender in the kitchen, was weird.
But I jerked myself out of that little observation and headed for the office, where Henry had said he’d be waiting. Standing around and staring at the bar in all its glorious silence wasn’t going to get this meeting over with, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to get me my time off. I needed to get this done, so I could start figuring out what the next step was going to be.
The office was down the hall and right next to the kitchen, and it took me about ten steps to get there, given how tiny the bar was once you were out of the main seating area. I ducked into the office and found Henry at his usual place at the desk, going over finances, stacks and stacks of papers surrounding him.
“Anything good in all that?” I asked, smiling.
He turned around and smiled back. “Lots of good stuff,” he replied. “Too many numbers, but most of them are good. They’ll be even better once I convince you to start playing here on the weekends instead of going to that other bar, whose name I won’t mention.”
I sat in the one other seat and rolled my eyes. “I’ll start playing here when I can afford to not be working. Right now, you and I both know that’s not an option.”
He reached out and grasped my arm, squeezing it gently. “And you and I both know that I will be at the front of the room when it finally happens, yelling my lungs out and jumping up and down like a complete idiot.”
I laughed out loud at that, because he probably would be. I’d only known Henry for the year that I’d been working here, but he’d always been one of my biggest cheerleaders. He was constantly asking me to play on the open mic nights, and though I usually couldn’t, since I was the one working the bar on those nights—because I had to pay the bills—he’d never stopped asking. Or cheering.
I’d seen him at a few shows I’d performed in other venues. And he was indeed a very enthusiastic audience member.
And that thought gave me the guts I needed to leap into why I’d come. Because Henry had always believed in me, even when my own parents didn’t. If anyone could give me advice about what to do about Francisco—and maybe even some ideas about how to make it happen—it was him.
“Speaking of dreams,” I started. “I have a problem. And I need some