I seem to have trouble keeping multi-chapter things going, so from now on, I'll be uploading only one-shot stories. There will be more, but different characters and across a few different genres. Be patient with me, and I'll deliver as I finish new things. Comments are welcome and appreciated, as is feedback. Thank you for reading!
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I met Robin at work. She was a bartender, I was a bar-back. She made drinks, talked to customers, made everybody feel at home and just a little bit flirted with or conspired with or just plain better than they had felt when they walked in and bellied up to her bar. I made a few drinks, told bad jokes, and did whatever she needed that she couldn't do herself, whether that meant making sure that she didn't run out of anything or making sure one of the more belligerent customers got outside without hurting anyone.
Robin was damn good at what she did, and I was damn good at what I did. She never made a bad haul with tips, her bright blue eyes and happy, easy smile put the girls at ease and made the boys want to make it happen again and again. It didn't hurt that she was just over five feet of absolute beauty. She was tan, and it worked well to draw your eyes to whatever skin she chose to show off on any given night. Her breasts were outstanding, high and firm and round, two softball-sized globes of temptation always proudly displayed with low cut tops. On the other end of things, her legs were long and lithe, her tan and choice of either shorts or a skirt whether it was rain, shine, hot, or cold always made sure that everybody knew they were a damn nice lead up to her tight, round little ass. Her long, raven black hair was alway down, brushing across the tops of her breasts and falling sexily forward from her shoulders whenever she poured shots.
She asked a lot of questions when she first got hired. How to mix certain things, where things were, what to do about certain customers, when to cut them off. She was bright, and she never asked the same question twice, soaking up everything I told her or that the boss told her and immediately applying her newfound knowledge. We worked well together; talking, joking, making sure everybody was taken care of. It wasn't long before Robin became my absolute favorite bartender to work with.
We flirted, of course. I was single and she was gorgeous. It didn't go much past smiles and cracking jokes at first, though. She had a boyfriend and I respected that in the way that most men respect a woman having a boyfriend. I didn't intervene or talk shit about the guy, or even bring him up unless she did first, and always ran with the notion that as long as he treated her well then it was none of my business. Meanwhile, I shamelessly checked her out every time we worked together, and she would laugh or give me a smile that shone all the way up to her bright blue eyes and shake whatever she caught me staring at in a playful, very fun to watch sort of way.
After she'd worked there for about three months, her boyfriend started coming in on nights she worked. He'd get a beer, then sit at the bar and watch her work all night. I served him myself a few times. He wasn't particularly unfriendly, but he wasn't much of a charmer either. He didn't really talk to anyone, he just watched her work.
Nobody minded the first few times. He was quiet and he paid, tipped a buck every time. Kept to himself. He always left right before we closed, driving away instead of waiting for her.
It wasn't until the fourth or fifth time he did it that it started to feel... off. He got more sullen, spent more time staring down anyone who she talked to than he did minding his own business. He drank faster, going through a beer every ten or fifteen minutes until he was visibly drunk inside of the first two hours.
Robin knew it, too. I could see it in the way she talked to people, this tension that wasn't ever there before, taking quick glances over at him that were like uncomfortable reassurances that everything was okay. Something was wrong. I just didn't know what, yet.
It finally hit the point where he was too drunk, and too stupid to keep things in the realm of alright anymore. Some guy ordered a beer and smiled at her, asked how her night was, how long she'd been working, where she was from. Pretty standard shit, really. Hell, customers did the same to me, and she was far and away cuter than I am.
I was pushing a couple of newly emptied stools back into place and clearing a table when I saw Robin's boyfriend stand up and grab the neck of his bottle like a club. He started towards the guy at the end of the bar, who had since gotten his beer and returned to his friends, this nasty, chilling look in his eye. I'd seen that look before, but not too many times. Most people who get in a fight in a bar are just drunk and rowdy, wanting to blow off some steam. This guy was looking to hurt somebody.
I got to him just as he was raising the bottle up, just a few steps away from bringing it down onto the poor shlubb's head. I was behind him, so I just grabbed the upraised bottle and pulled it back toward me, popping it right out of his hand. He spun around, taking a swing at me in the process.
That pissed me off. It's not that I mind being swung at. Hell, it's basically part of the job. What pissed me off was that he hadn't turned to see who it was first. It could've been me. It could've been one of the other customers trying to stop him from making a stupid mistake. And it could've been Robin.
He was shitfaced, and that made him slow. I caught his wrist before his fist got in front of his head, planted a foot and shoved him against the bar, trapping him between it and me. He wasn't a small guy, but he was smaller than me, and he was too drunk to think his way out of that one, so he just started cussing at me instead.
"You motherfucker," he slurred. "Lemme go!"
"Listen up, dude," I growled in his ear, "you just about made a real, real stupid mistake just now, and you're going home to ponder all the ways your life would've gone to hell if I hadn't stopped you. Now, you can go right now, under your own power, and I'll call you a cab and load you right up into it friendly as can be, or you can keep being a dick about it and I'll throw you out the door like a frisbee, pick your busted ass up off the sidewalk, and shove you into a cab like a pile of laundry that's too big for the dryer."
I didn't really want to hurt him. Yeah, he was an idiot, but a lot of people are when they're drunk. I'd stopped him before he hurt anybody, and if he went along with things, I wasn't going to do anything else to him. He deserved to go home, he deserved to not get any more booze, but he didn't deserve to have anything broken.
He struggled for a few more seconds, and just when I thought I was going to have to make his exit rougher than it needed to be, he slumped and nodded his head.
"Outstanding!" I said, letting him up and slapping him on the back, putting my arm around his shoulders and walking him out like we were old friends. On the one hand, that's a friendly gesture, makes everybody I've ever thrown out of the bar feel a little less offended by it. On the other hand, that puts my hand in a very convenient position to wrangle them back under control if they decide to do anything stupid.
He behaved, and I got him into a cab and on his way home without further stupidity on his part. He'd have a helluva hangover in the morning, but he wouldn't be in jail.
I went back inside and gave Robin a little nod, passing by her as she poured a row of shots and giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. I went to the walk-in cooler to check my beer and see if I needed to grab any cases. I heard the cooler door open again and turned around just in time to catch Robin as she threw her arms around my waist and squeezed. I dropped my arms over her shoulders and squeezed back, both surprised at the contact (we hadn't really hugged or even touched before) and enjoying the feeling of her lovely little body against me.
"Thanks," she whispered.
"Just another day at the office, right?" I said.
