a big enough crowd that I’m on my feet constantly.
Roger loads up another tray with drinks for me and I’m off, unloading them onto my assigned tables and carrying away empties I gather deftly.
One of my tables is really chatty, a load of blokes who look like they’ve only just started their twenties. They’ve still got some baby fat on their cheeks and haven’t quite figured out that less is more when it comes to hair product.
“Hey, my friend is wondering if you’re single,” one of them says to me, nodding his head to another guy at the table who’s gone totally red in the face. When I smile nicely at him, he looks down, probably wishing he could disappear altogether.
“Well you can tell your friend that I think he’s quite nice-looking, but I’m not in the market for anything at the moment.”
They all laugh and carry on while I walk away with their empty beer bottles.
Roger’s heard it all go down and he smiles when I post up against the bar, taking a load off for a moment.
“Aren’t you going to take him up on his offer?”
I scrunch my nose. “I don’t go for younger men, unfortunately. He looks like he’s barely gone through puberty.”
“Right. So then it doesn’t have anything to do with Logan Matthews?”
Good going, Roger. I’d nearly gone three whole seconds without thinking of him and now you’ve ruined it.
I feign total innocence. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But of course, Roger was here the night Logan came in with his friends and left me his number along with that ridiculous “tip”. He knows something is going on with Logan and me.
“So you aren’t dating him?”
“We’re just friends,” I reply like some well-trained diplomat.
“Friends? Not likely.” He nods his head behind him, to the absolutely ridiculous bouquet of flowers sitting on the back counter of the bar.
“What in the hell are those?”
“Roses, if I’m not mistaken.”
The bouquet is bigger than my head! Bigger than the coffee table in my flat! I’ll have to just set the vase on the floor and have Kat and Yasmine walk around it. There’re enough roses to fill an English garden, all of them blood red and dripping with intent. There’s no note nestled in the blooms, which seems even more romantic. It’s like Logan knows I know who they’re from and that’s all that matters.
Of course, I wonder how the hell I’ll manage to tote them home at the end of my shift. It’ll make my subway commute quite a calamity, but then I shouldn’t have worried. Pat is waiting out in front of District when I leave, looking down at his mobile until he sees me walking (or rather stumbling) out on the sidewalk, struggling with the bouquet, and he hops out of the black SUV to help me.
“Pat! What are you doing here?!”
I assume, at first, that it’s a total coincidence. I’m sure he must have just been in the neighborhood on business, but then he announces, “I’m driving you home.”
He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Of course Pat would drive me home from work. How silly of me to assume I’d have to hop on the subway like every other New Yorker!
He takes the massive arrangement from me and sets it in the back seat of the SUV. Once it’s buckled into place, he opens the front passenger door for me, continuing our tradition.
“You all set?” he asks as I hop in.
“Sure, but you really didn’t need to sit out here and wait for me like this. I’ll bet you were bloody bored.”
He holds up his mobile, and there’s some kind of sports game on it. It’s too small for me to make out what it is though.
“I was watching an old World Series game. You know you can watch just about anything you want on YouTube these days?” He sounds like he thinks it’s the best invention since sliced bread. “World Series game seven from the 80s—bam! Right at your fingertips.”
I grin. “You’ll have to tell me more about it on the way home.”
We chat so much the drive flies by, and before I know it, I’m carrying that massive bouquet of flowers up the rickety stairs toward my flat. I unlock the door and try to be quiet as I arrange the vase on the TV stand. I know Yasmine and Kat are both asleep; I envy them. It’s late, and I’ve got to be up early