Chapter Text
The way you see it, being an athlete and being a bartender are basically the same thing.
To clarify, you don’t mean the same as the trying to look interested while your alcoholic Gen X ass unloads uncomfortable anecdotes because you’re the only tab open and I’m banking on your tip so I can make rent this week kind of bartender. Those poor fucks are just unlicensed therapists making a fraction of the income.
You also don’t mean the one-minute banter while you watch my Tito’s bottle-flipping theatrics and hope that your trust fund ass will still tip twenty percent on a fifteen-dollar well martini kind of bartender. Those fucks make absolute bank, but that side of the service industry requires, well, charm. And smiling.
You don’t do any of that bullshit.
No, Toni Shalifoe is all about fast-paced maneuvering between coworkers over a sticky beer mat, making four vodka crans in less than eight seconds, one-word exchanges with strangers that know not to chit-chat because there are twenty sweaty drunks in line behind them, and muscle memory so precise that you can shake and pour eight Washington apples without a single drop to spare every time.
(You still always accidentally over-pour shaken shots. Sometimes enough for two, which you usually share with Fatin—assuming you’re not both trashed already.)
(Alright, sometimes even then.)
It’s been almost five years since you were Varsity Captain of Hopewell Lake’s Women’s Basketball team, and this is the closest thing you’ve found since. It’s not because your coworkers are basically teammates, slapping each other’s asses as they pass, or because the Friday 9PM feels as exhausting and rewarding as a winning game, or even because you bounce at least twenty Bud Light bottle caps off the back wall and into the trash every night.
It’s because you’re good at it. Like, really fucking good at it.
After working for Fatin for a month, she’d put it this way:
“It’s like you were genetically engineered in a fucking lab to be the perfect Friday night bartender.”
“Fast.” Dot had supplied around a swig of beer. “You never get in the way behind the bar. And you don’t buckle under pressure.”
“Better under pressure and freakishly fast.” Fatin nodded. “Hot enough to draw attention but too gay to get hit on and hold up the line. Lowkey terrifying but not enough of a cunt to make people leave.” Her expression was almost awed. “Seriously, you have the most exquisite resting bitch face I’ve ever laid eyes upon.”
“Better than Rachel’s?” Dot raised a brow as she took another swig.
Fatin faltered, then, “The second-most exquisite resting bitch face I’ve ever laid eyes upon. But!” She raised a perfectly manicured finger. “Unlike Rachel, you actually look like you know how to have a good time. Drunk people can sense that shit, you know?”
“Wow.” You’d scoffed, their sort-of compliments making you feel warmer than they had any right to. “I’ll put that on my resumé under awards and distinctions—placed second in Resting Bitch Face.”
“I’m sorry, why do you need a new resumé?” Fatin leaned in close, raising a suspicious brow. “You prowling for a better job?”
“That means she likes you.” Dot stage-whispered.
“I’m a fucking catch, what can I say?”
“Cheers to that.” Fatin grinned, raising her Joker cider. “Looks like you’re stuck with us, bitch.”
“Looks like it.” You’d grinned back. “Cheers.”
The three of you clinked your near-empties together, you and Dot each taking home a $320 cut of the night’s tips when you left at 3:30 AM, and that’s how it’s been just about every Friday and Saturday for the last two years.
Yeah, other people work here, but as a temporary means to an end because usually they’re also students at one of the three post-secondary institutions that put Evetown, Minnesota on the map. Rachel has moved on, although she still celebrity bartends from time to time, and even Linh will probably ghost once she finishes her grad program next spring, and she basically helped Fatin open this place.
It’s really the three of you that make the bar what it is: Fatin brings in the student crowds because she’s some kind of marketing and event planning prodigy—also she’s hot and charming—and when shit gets crazy, you bring speed, efficiency, and the kind of don’t fuck with me energy that was never right for waiting tables but is perfect for bartending, while Dot is the steady rock that can see everything for what it is and always makes sure shit never gets too crazy. You’re an all-star team, and The Studio never fails to be the hottest weekend spot in this sorry-ass college town.
Which means getting roped into a solo weeknight shift fucking blows.
Fatin might’ve sweetened the deal with the promise of buying your dinner this Friday, but there are still only so many things that can happen on a Monday night in mid-August, none of which you really have the patience for. Like a midnight 21st birthday bar crawl of basic white Barbies that storms in for a round of shots when you’ve already started closing down the bar, because it’s fucking empty when they walk in, and of course they want chocolate cake shots.
“You’ll love it.” The Barbie that demanded the shots nudges the definitely-hammered Barbie whose ID says she’s 21 as of only an hour ago. She turns to you again. “You know how to make it, right? With the sugar lemon?” She sways a little on the spot as you check the last of the eight out-of-state IDs, talking to you over the bar like you haven’t been doing this since before she could legally drink. She must mistake your blank stare for total stupidity because she fails to hide an eye roll and reaches into her glittery purse for an equally glittery iPhone. On the back, you notice two stickers: one with Greek letters over a pink crest, and the other a red shield with the letters C-U-M-N divided into a quadrant by a large white cross at the center, because of fucking course you had to close out tonight with a group of Bible-thumping sorority girls. She smiles at you condescendingly as she offers, “Here, I’ll even Google the recipe for you.”
Your grip on the bar becomes white-knuckled as you lie impulsively, “We’re out of sugar,” because there’s absolutely no way that a group like this won’t end up being more of a pain in the ass than their tip will be worth.
Condescending cunt Barbie raises a too-perfect brow at you over her phone. “Out of sugar.” She repeats slowly.
“Sorry.” You add with absolutely no sincerity.
She purses her ridiculous glossy lips and pointedly glances down at something near your right hand and fuck. Whoever was working Daybar left a shallow dish of sugar out. There’s also the chance it could be—
“That’s salt.” You say, then swallow, because you don’t really know for sure.
Cunt Barbie looks completely unconvinced and actually stares you down for several seconds. “Is it.” She says flatly, but what is she gonna fucking do, right? It’s not like she’d lick her finger and reach over—
“The fuck—hey.” You snarl, because a blonde ponytail Barbie to the right of Cunt Barbie is doing exactly that: pushing herself onto the bar and dipping a wet pointer finger into the dish next to your hand so she can call your bluff.
She bounces back with a c-click of her heels over the hardwood floor, meets your glare with a small smirk, and slowly lifts her probably-sugar-but-hopefully-salt-covered finger to her mouth. And thank fucking god her face screws up with disgust the second her lips close around it. Serves her fucking right.
Cunt Barbie practically sulks at being proven wrong, even as the other Barbies drunkenly giggle at blonde ponytail Barbie getting a mouthful of salt. “Fine.” She bites at you, then turns to the rest of the herd. “What do we think then, girls? Tequila?”
“Tequilaaaa!” The birthday Barbie squeals obnoxiously.
“Might as well.” The blonde Barbie grimaces, holding up her licked-clean finger to illustrate. “I’m halfway there.”
A huff unexpectedly escapes you at the joke and you roll your eyes, pulling the well tequila before anyone can suggest baby Guinness shots or some other bullshit. You wait for someone’s nod of approval before lining up eight shot glasses—the blonde Barbie is the one that gives it.
You haven’t even started pouring when Cunt Barbie tosses a twenty onto the bar. “Keep the change.” She says, and you’re not sure if she’s deliberately being a cunt or if she’s just oblivious, because twenty dollars covers exactly eight shots of well tequila, which leaves zero change for you to keep as a tip. “We’ll just be over by the pool table.” She adds over her shoulder before you can bite back there is no change, you fucking cunt.
You breathe tersely through your nose and try to keep it cool as the rest of her little Barbie herd follows her to the other side of the floor, near the darts and the pool table in question, and far away from you. Meaning you’ll have to carry eight tequilas, limes, and a salt shaker over to them on a tray, like a fucking cocktail waitress. Without even having been tipped for your labor.
God, Fatin better bring you the most bougie-ass takeout for picking up Linh’s stupid damn shift. She knows this isn’t your thing.
You also pour a double tequila for yourself, gulping it down before you bring their tray over. The blonde Barbie is in the middle of taking duck-faced selfies with the whole herd and you grit your teeth at their asinine giggling and plastic bullshit, and—
—settle down. They’re shitty, but they’re harmless, you think as you wordlessly set the tray down at a table near them. Someone thanks you, and you can’t manage more than pressing your lips into a tight smile before returning to your sacred space behind the bar. You immediately power off the jukebox before any of them can sniff it out to put on Taylor Swift or some bullshit, cranking up the Young Fathers song currently playing over your Spotify because if you’re gonna suffer through the rest of tonight, you’re gonna do it on your own terms. Fucking bullshit. It all uncomfortably reminds you of being a Hopewell Lake high schooler serving racist, entitled assholes, spending the entire time biting your tongue and somehow still getting fired.
Thank god Fatin is your boss, but also, fuck Fatin right now. You pull out your phone.
Fatin💅🏽
|i’ll take my filet mignon med rare|
|and a side of caviar|
|Aw shit, that bad?|
You frown at her reply coming less than a minute later.
|what the fuck fatin i thought you were busy tonight why am i fucking here|
|yes that bad|
|8 cum girls, no tip on a round of shots, no other customers rn bad|
|Jesus christ that’s fucked. I’m sorry🥺🥺🥺|
|I’m on a date he’s just in the bathroom atm, I would never lie to u bby ur my 1 tru luv|
|throw in a 100 year pinot grigio and i’ll forgive you|
|Bitch you don’t cellar a pinot grigio also you don’t pair whites with red meat|
|Fucking barbaric shalifoe|
|pinot grigio isn't a red?? shit|
|What|
|K cool if anyone ever asks you for wine recommendations you send them to me|
|Or dorothy|
|Or literally anyone else|
|so is that a no on the pinot grigio|
|I’ll get you a nice cabernet but only if you promise to drink it from an actual wine glass.|
|Or two.|
|👀|
|Save it for a special occasion perhaps😏😏👅🌈|
|i literally don’t own a wine glass|
|Yeah but martha does|
|how’s your date btw where did you guys end up going|
|Don’t deflect shalihoe I’m tired of watching girls hit on you every weekend|
|My bedroom. 💦💋🍆|
|gross|
|also wtf are you talking about girls don’t—|
“Hey.” A voice interrupts before you can finish the text. You grit your teeth, turning to face blonde ponytail Barbie as she says in an almost comically southern drawl that you hadn’t noticed before, “Here’s your tray’n all.”
She’d brought the serving tray back, with all eight empty shot glasses, used limes, and the salt shaker gathered neatly in the middle on a cocktail napkin. “Oh.” You blurt, because most people don’t clean up after themselves. Certainly not a group like this. You set your phone down.
“Thanks for bringin’ ‘em over.” Face-to-face with her again, you can’t help but notice that she’s really the most classically Barbie out of all of them: doe-eyed and pretty in the kind of Disney way that actually makes her hard to look at directly—like looking at the sun. “Maddie tip you alright?”
You smile tersely and nod because that’s bartender etiquette, but you’ve never been very good at hiding your feelings and you don’t think she buys it. She bites her lip, then glances over her shoulder at the rest of the Barbie herd, her ridiculous, perfect curl of a high ponytail whipping around her with the motion.
She turns back and looks you dead in the eye. “What’s your favorite shot?”
You roll your eyes before you can stop it from happening, because god at this point tonight you really don’t have it in you to even attempt the charming bartender act. If ever.
Blonde Barbie notices. “If I was buyin’, what would you wanna shoot?” She leans forward on the bar, as if ready to keep a secret.
It’s so irritating, the way she juts her jaw out and rests it over her knuckles with a cheeky, tipsy smile—like you’re besties, or something. It’s the same kind of eyelash-batting friendliness girls sometimes use thinking it’ll get them free drinks. That shit never works on you. You can’t help but be an asshole about it, especially after the shit she pulled with the salt, so you offer the easiest and nastiest option you can think of with a small, knowing smirk:
“Prairie fire.”
Blonde Barbie tilts her head. “What’s that?”
You just shrug, like guess you’ll have to order and find out, and the prospect of watching the entire herd of Barbies take shots of terrible whiskey topped with a few dashes of Tabasco is almost enough to make this whole shift worth it.
“Well alright, then.” Blonde Barbie shrugs right back, her smile rosy and unabashed, and it makes you wary of how drunk she and her whole herd actually are. Cleaning up Tabasco-whiskey puke is definitely not on your agenda tonight. “Two prairie fires then, please.”
At least you’d only be cleaning up after the birthday Barbie and little miss Blonde Barbie here. Christ, she probably even pukes like a Disney princess.
Her smile falls when she sees you pull the bottle of Ten High, which is entirely valid, because that shit is like battery acid. You bite back a cruel smirk at how her expression twists further into a grimace when she sees the generous dashes of Tabasco, so you dump several more in each shot for good measure, ensuring that whichever end they inevitably come out of will burn like hell. You hope for your own sake that it’s their assholes—many hours from now, and far away from here.
Fatin would kill you if she knew you were doing this.
You place the hazy orange shots on the bar mat between you. “Ten even.” You say firmly, as if you didn’t just make that price up on the spot. If she’d been anyone else, you’d just charge five for two single wells. If you were in a good mood, you’d make one free for the birthday girl. If she’d been a friend, you wouldn’t charge her at all. But no—she put a finger in your salt, and her friends are shitty, so you’re in full asshole mode.
Blonde Barbie eyes the shots as she slides her MasterCard over the bar without question, already looking like she has regrets. As she should.
“Open or close?” You ask as you swipe it, GOODKIND,S automatically appearing on the POS screen. There’s a beat as you wait for her reply.
“Close, please.” She says, and you breathe out a sigh of relief that you hope is subtle. Maybe that means they all plan to leave soon.
You feel hot annoyance crawl over your skin as she watches you tear the receipts from the printer and set them in front of her with a pen. It makes you glad for the unspoken bartender etiquette that lets you silently walk over to the other end of the bar to give her space while she decides what to tip you, if anything.
A minute later you watch out of the corner of your eye as she tucks the signed receipt into the pen clip and picks up the shots, and then you have to hold back an audible groan when you realize she’s headed to you again before she brings the shots to the birthday Barbie.
You’re about to snap what can I do for you in a tone Fatin would absolutely not approve of, but before you can, she slides one of the shots towards you.
Oh.
You stare dumbly at it for a little too long, and then you stare dumbly at Blonde Barbie for a little too long. She just raises a brow as she raises the other shot glass.
“Well?” She smiles, and it’s still cheeky but there’s an edge to it that lets you know you’re caught even when she continues with an innocent, “Your favorite, right?”
Fuck.
You could make a bullshit excuse about drinking on shift, or fess up and admit you thought they were for her and birthday Barbie. You could probably convince her it’s a birthday tradition.
Instead, you clench your jaw and meet her eyes with determination, giving her a challenging lift of your own brow as you bring the shot glass to your lips, because you’re not a fucking pussy.
It fucking burns.
“Oh—Lord.” You hear Blonde Barbie sputter along with the sound of her empty shot glass practically clattering onto the bar.
“Oh, f—“ You choke out, eyes instantly tearing up as you slam your own empty glass back down. “Fuck—“
“What is—“ She presses a delicate hand to her sternum, her face screwed up in a grimace for the second time tonight. “—wrong with you?”
“Good—“ Honestly, you’re not sure you won’t be the one throwing up tonight. “Good, r—right?”
“No.” She coughs, glaring incredulously at you when you finally manage to meet her eyes. “Bad.”
“Hey, you’re—“ You cough again, way less cutely. “—the one tha—that asked.”
“I mean, I—“ She swallows as she speaks, “—figured you were bein’ smart—about it but I didn’t think you were a frickin’—sadist.”
You can’t help it; you burst out laughing along with your coughing, wiping at your tears. “I thought y’all southerners—loved yer—T’basco.” It’s supposed to come out sneering or at least mocking, but your voice is so pathetic that she must just take it as friendly teasing, because she’s laughing right along with you. The sound turns a few Barbie heads by the pool table even over the loud Kendrick Lamar song.
Her voice is mostly normal when she speaks again. “Not that much.”
“Maybe you’re just a—pussy.” You fire back, as if your voice isn’t still choked and you’re not hastily using the gun to fill a water glass and wash down that really poor decision. Well, two waters, because you’re not that much of a sadist.
“Well, then.” Blonde Barbie doesn’t miss a beat as you slide the second water to her. “Guess that makes us both pussies.” Her eyes lock with yours as she lifts it with another quirk of her brow, takes four large gulps, sets it down, and swivels off the barstool to walk back to her Barbie herd. You’re already filling a second glass for yourself when she throws a smirk over her shoulder, her stupid blonde ponytail swinging behind her, and you have to kind of marvel at how spectacularly this whole thing backfired.
By the time you start sipping at your third glass of water you’re seriously considering drinking some of the half and half the bar stocks for Daybar coffee and the occasional White Russian to soothe the burning in your mouth. Your pride wins out in the end; Blonde Barbie keeps glancing back and she’d definitely notice you drinking a glass of fucking milk. Besides, there’s a different, embarrassed burning feeling and it’s one that gets worse every time she looks over, so instead you opt to bum a cig from Dot’s till stash and step outside for some fresh air.
You keep close to the windows near the front entrance, under the cover of near-darkness, and between drags, you take the opportunity to watch the Barbie herd a little more closely. They’re embarrassingly bad at pool. Like, birthday Barbie misses the fucking cue ball twice in a row, and you dread how long this game will keep them here. But then Blonde Barbie says something while holding up her phone, and then the two girls with cue sticks are setting them on the table, all of them start picking up purses, and—Blonde Barbie’s already at the door.
You whip your head around from watching the inside of the bar so fast you almost pull a muscle in your neck.
“Nice night.” You hear her say lightly as she steps out with a c-click c-clack, silhouetted by the soft yellow neon of the bar sign. “Figured we’d hit a few more places before the whole town shuts down.”
You take a long, nonchalant drag before responding. “What,” You breathe out a plume of smoke and sneer, “The Studio isn’t poppin’ enough for y’all?” You don’t even know why you say it, because she’s doing exactly what you’d wanted in the first place: leaving.
Blonde Barbie narrows her eyes as she studies you, the way you’re leaning against the building, one black Vans foot propped along the brick, cigarette hand resting on your lifted knee. You can’t stand the judgment that’s just radiating off her in waves. It makes you feel hot all over and you wish you had something else to justifiably growl at her.
“Shelbs!” Birthday Barbie bursts through the door before you can think of anything. “Girl, I thought you said this place was fun, I—oh.”
The birthday girl in question finally notices you standing there, and you raise your near-done cig with a salute like yeah bitch, I’m right here as the rest of the girls pour out after her.
“We’ll have to come back on the weekend sometime.” Blonde Barbie—Shelbs, apparently—says, still looking at you. She gives you a final once-over that makes your jaw clench before turning to her wasted friend with a bright smile and an affectionate side-hug. “Now that you’re legal’n everythin’. C’mon.”
She leads them off with an infuriating swing of her stupid ponytail, and the Barbie herd finally stumbles off into the night to whatever unlucky establishment they hit next.
The bar is blissfully, finally empty when you come back in, so you immediately lock the door behind you, crank your Spotify up all the way as Janelle Monáe comes on, and start flipping off the lights. Technically you could stay open for another forty minutes, but Fatin’s rule is if the bar is dead after 1AM Sunday through Wednesday, you can close early; people come to The Studio in droves every weekend no matter what, so she doesn’t give a shit about setting the 2AM precedent for customers during the week.
You make yourself something light and summery while you work—it is a nice night—a little American Honey, lemon, soda, a dash of bitters. There’s only one receipt to enter before you can start cashing out the till, and you approach the neatly folded paper tucked into the pen that’s still sitting on the bar with some trepidation as you sip your drink.
AMOUNT: $ 10.00
+ TIP: 10.00
= TOTAL: 20.00
Well, shit.
The name Shelby Goodkind is signed in perfectly legible, pinterest-worthy handwriting at the line below and seriously who has a signature like that? Who has the time for that shit?
The obnoxiousness of her signature helps distract you from the prickling of shame at being such an asshole to her, as well as the little note written neatly below it:
I’ll try to get these girls out of your hair—hope your night gets a little better <3