One for the Road (Barflies Book 3) Read online

  I lost count of all those missed moments a long time ago.

  The sound of the door opening cuts through our momentary silence. DeeDee’s co-bartender for the night, Renee, calls out a greeting, and DeeDee rushes over to hug her and start chatting away.

  The next few hours pass by in a steady rhythm I’ve come to know as well as a favourite song. Even on the nights we’re totally swamped, the staff at Taverne Toulouse always have time to joke around and tease the shit out of each other. I laugh more at this place than anywhere I’ve ever worked before, and the people I spend my nights laughing with have become so much more than coworkers. We’re like a big family of misbehaved cousins that still somehow manage to successfully operate a bar together every night.

  As the shift winds down, the kitchen closes and the other staff trail out until it’s only me and DeeDee left on the clock. We’re waiting on a big group clustered on a couple couches to finish their last round before we close up.

  “Ben là. We used to be on close all the time together,” DeeDee muses as I help her put some clean glasses away behind the bar. “It feels like it’s been forever. I missed you.”

  Her voice softens, and she gives me a small smile. If I didn’t know better, I’d even call it shy.

  I lower my voice to the same level. “I missed you too.”

  She pauses, a glass still in her hand, and I stop moving on my way to grabbing another one. It might just be the dim lighting, but I swear her eyes have gone all big and wide, her warm brown pupils flaring with surprise.

  Or anticipation.

  But I’m being insane. My heart’s hammering in my chest, getting carried away just like it always does. I shake my head and clear my throat as I pick up a new glass.

  “Yeah, I’m, uh, not working too many of the long shifts now that my business is picking up speed,” I comment as I avoid her eyes.

  She slaps me on the back, and all my senses go on high alert at the contact. “Soon you will be a millionaire.”

  “I’d settle for making enough to get my own apartment.”

  “Why would you want to leave Paige? Paige is so cool!”

  “Paige is cool,” I reply, referring to my roommate, who works as a DJ, “but I’m almost twenty-three. Feels like I should be getting my own space soon. I don’t want to be one of those people who has to live with roommates until they’re, like, thirty.”

  DeeDee scoffs. “Everyone has roommates when they’re twenty-two. You’re so young! You have time. Maybe Paige will get famous and let you live in her fancy condo or something.”

  “Ha. Yeah. Maybe.”

  I force a laugh, but I can’t help the sinking feeling when she talks about my age. I’ll be twenty-three in a few months, and she’s only twenty-five, but sometimes I think she sees me as a kid.

  “Ah, enfin! I think they want the bill.”

  DeeDee jerks her head toward the group of customers, who are scanning the room like they want my attention. I head over and get them all settled up. Once they’re gone, we finish our final tasks together and joke about all the ways we used to pass the time during the long closing shifts while waiting for the stragglers to head out.

  “Remember when we used to do the origami competitions?” DeeDee asks.

  “Yeah, and you always beat me.” She can make swans out of napkins. I can make lumps. “Do you know how many YouTube tutorials I watched? A lot, that’s how many. I swear the whole world is trolling me. There’s no way you can actually make that stuff out of paper.”

  Her laugh follows me down the hall as I take the garbage out. When I get back from dropping the trash bags in the dumpster behind the bar, she already has her coat on.

  “You good to go?” she asks.

  “I’ll just grab my jacket.”

  Once we’re out on the sidewalk, DeeDee gets the door locked up while I take a few deep breaths of night air. Taverne Toulouse is on Avenue Mont-Royal, one of Montreal’s best streets for eating, shopping, and sitting in bars. Everything on our block is closed for the night, but there are lights and people swarming around farther up.

  “It’s actually kind of warm out.”

  For the end of March, which is still a winter month in Montreal.

  “Ouais, I think all the snow will be gone after this weekend.” She tucks her keys into her pocket and smiles at me. “I can’t wait for summer.”

  She is the summer. With her candy-coloured hair, bright brown eyes, and jacket hanging open to reveal a sliver of bare stomach, she’s all heat and sunshine and ice clinking in glasses filled with something sweet. Sometimes I think her parents must have made up a last name for her instead of giving her their own.

  Beausoleil. Beautiful sun.

  “Do you, uh, want me to walk you home?”

  “Aww, that’s sweet.” She grins again. “I’m okay, though. I’m meeting X at a place up the street, and we’re going home together.”

  Right. X.

  The boyfriend.

  The boyfriend who wears muscle shirts every day of the week and whose party trick is crushing beer cans against his forehead.

  That boyfriend.

  Another thing I’ve learned about DeeDee during the many hours we’ve spent at Taverne Toulouse together: there’s always a boyfriend.

  Two

  DeeDee

  FREE POUR: the act of making mixed drinks without a measuring device

  “DeeDee, you always have a boyfriend.”

  I glare at my friend Roxanne where she’s sitting on the other side of the bar, a plate of nachos in front of her.

  “Pas vrai. Not true. I do not always have a boyfriend, and anyway, I’m the one who’s bad with names. You don’t have an excuse for forgetting his.”

  I put down my bar towel and grab one of the nachos off her plate. Her eyes get all big and wide like I did something terrible, and I’m about to tell her she owes me when Monroe shows up, putting a hand on Roxanne’s shoulder and looking between the two of us.

  “Roxy, why do you look like you’re about to cry?”

  We’ve been talking in French, but we switch to English for Monroe. She’s bilingual, but Roxanne and I are both native Québécois, and we’re a little hard to keep up with when we get going together.

  “She ate my Ultimate Nacho!” Roxanne wails.

  I finish chewing and swallow while Monroe gives me a look like I’m in for it.

  “Uh oh. That’s a serious offence, DeeDee.”

  “Ultimate Nacho?” I ask. “Is that an English thing or just a Roxanne and Monroe being weird thing?”

  Monroe chuckles. “It’s a Roxanne and Monroe thing.”

  The two of them have been best friends for years. Roxanne used to work at Taverne Toulouse, and the three of us still all hang out together a lot, but I’ve never been as close with them as they are with each other.

  “The Ultimate Nacho,” Roxanne explains, glaring at my hand like she can make the chip reappear, “is the one perfect nacho that every plate of nachos contains. There is but one tortilla chip that receives the ideal combination and amount of toppings, and you ate mine!”

  “You deserved it.” I turn to Monroe. “She asked me how Philippe is doing.”

  “Oh.” Monroe frowns. “Is something wrong with you and Philippe?”

  I throw my head back and groan before unleashing a long string of French swear words that would have Monroe shushing me if there were any customers in the place. It’s only 4PM, so Taverne Toulouse is empty besides us and some staff in the back.

  “Philippe was two boyfriends ago!” I shout once I’m done cursing. Then I curse a little bit more.

  “Oh.” Monroe at least looks a little ashamed of herself.

  “Yeah,” Roxanne adds, “and now she’s not going to tell us her current boyfriend’s name.”

  “It is your punishment!” I’ve been using that word a lot since Zach reminded me of it last week. That’s how I get English words to stick in my head: I just use them so much everyone gets annoyed with me.
>
  “Oh!” Monroe snaps her fingers. “Oh, wait! I know it! Of course I know it. You brought him to that Friday night thing here last month. It’s that X guy, right?”

  “Right!” Roxy joins in. “He’s the one who did that thing with the beer can.”

  I sigh. “Yes. That is him.”

  So he likes to crush beer cans against his head at parties. So what? There are worse things in life.

  “Hey.” Roxanne reaches across the bar and squeezes my arm. “I’m really sorry I forgot. That was rude of me.”

  I put my hand over hers. “It’s okay, ma belle. You only met him once anyway, and I haven’t talked to you in foreeeeever.”

  “Yeah, what’s the deal with that?” Roxanne agrees. “When did we all get so busy and grown up?”

  Monroe pulls herself onto a stool, and I take in the sight of them sitting there beside each other. For best friends, they sure are opposites. Monroe is barely five feet tall, with a cute brunette bob I keep begging her to let me dye, or at least highlight. She’s curvy and pretty with her pink cheeks and lips, and she even makes all the frumpy clothes she wears look adorable.

  Roxy, on the other hand, always seems like she’s some kind of European fashion model with her long legs and black outfits. She’s let me get a hold of her hair a few times, and right now it’s a dark chocolaty colour.

  “Uh, you two got busy,” I remind them. “You always know where to find me.” I slap both my hands on the bar.

  “This is the only place I seem to be able to hang out with either of you.” Roxanne clutches Monroe’s shoulder. “If I want to get a lunch date in with this one, we have to eat at the bar. It’s a wonder I even get her out of the office.”

  “Hush,” Monroe scolds. “I’m taking you to a movie tonight. Don’t complain.”

  “Oh, speaking of dates, are you bringing X to the April Showers show?” Roxanne asks me.

  It will be April in a couple days, and we’re having a big ‘Fuck you, winter’ bash at Taverne Toulouse on Saturday to kick the new month off. Zach’s DJ roommate is doing a set, and she’s popular enough to bring in a big crowd.

  “Yeah, he said he wants to go.” I stop and bite my lip, wondering how they’re going to take what I say next and if I should say it at all. Then I just blurt it out. “We moved in together.”

  They blink at me. Roxanne freezes with a nacho halfway to her mouth.

  “Oh,” Monroe finally says. “Wow. Congratulations.”

  “I know it’s fast,” I add in a rush, “and, ben, I guess we didn’t really move in together. My new apartment fell through. The landlord was some sketchy connard, and I couldn’t keep my old place, so X is letting me keep my stuff in his spare room, and I’m staying there until I find something else.”

  “Oh, DeeDee, I’m so sorry.” Monroe practically falls off her barstool as she lunges forward to grab my arm. “I had no idea you got stranded. That must have been horrible.”

  “Kinda,” I admit, “but it is actually going very well with X. He’s a bouncer, so he works late nights too, and we get along so well.”

  “That’s good.” Roxy finally crunches down on her nacho. “Just so you know, if you do end up needing somewhere to stay again, you can always call me.”

  “Or me,” Monroe adds.

  “Yeah, I literally spent a year occupying Monroe’s living room when I was sixteen,” Roxanne chips in. “I would recommend it.”

  I make myself smile as I thank them and tell them I will, but it doesn’t stop me from remembering that they were the first people I thought to call, or why I decided not to.

  We aren’t teenagers. Monroe owns a business. Roxanne manages one. They have careers and cool jobs and dreams they were brave enough to chase. They have boyfriends—serious boyfriends with careers of their own. Tabarnak, Roxy is getting married in May.

  I can’t move into their living rooms.

  So me and all my stuff are staying with a guy I met less than two months ago, but hey, people have done crazier stuff before.

  Monroe helps Roxanne with the nachos while I finish getting the bar set up. I’m closing tonight, but since it’s Monday, I doubt we’ll stay open any later than eleven. The two of them clear the plate in about twenty minutes and wish me a good shift as they pull their coats on.

  “Oh, hey,” I call out when they’re about to leave, “I didn’t check the schedule for today. Do you know if I’m closing with Zach again, Monroe?”

  “I don’t believe he’s on tonight. I hope you’ve been playing nice with him.”

  Roxanne laughs. “He is so in love with you, DeeDee.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “He is not.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Yeah. Right.”

  “He is not!” I repeat. “Why does everyone always say that? We are friends.”

  “Yeah, he’s the kind of friend who wants to take you on dates, buy you flowers, and call you his girlfriend. He also probably wants to bend you over the bar.”

  “Roxy!”

  I don’t know why the hell my face gets hot. I’m usually the one making sexual comments about anything and everything. If there’s an English word for the opposite of prude, that’s me, but I always feel like my face is on fire whenever anyone talks about me and Zach.

  Probably because I’m mad. It’s like the people at this bar have never heard of the word ‘platonic’—which, yeah, I hadn’t heard of for a long time either, but you don’t have to speak perfect English to understand that sometimes guys and girls really are just friends.

  Nobody accuses any of the cooks of being secretly in love with me, and I spend almost as much time joking around with them as I do with Zach. I mean, sure, I do call him my work husband. Yes, I can admit that he’s cute and handsome and going to be some lucky girl’s perfect boyfriend one day. Maybe I have accidentally thought about kissing him a few times over the years, especially when he looks at me in this one way of his that makes my breath get all fast and has me wanting to push him up against a wall.

  And okay, if it came down to it, every Taverne Toulouse-themed round of ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill’ would end with him as the ‘marry’ option, but that doesn’t mean we can’t care about each other in a way that doesn’t involve kissing and a bit of crac crac boum boum in the storage closet.

  One of these days, I’m going to get up on the bar and tell everyone in the room just that.

  “Just keep it professional at work is all I ask,” Monroe says with a sigh.

  “You have to admit they’d be great together,” Roxanne prods.

  “I own this bar. I don’t have to admit anything.”

  “Oh, and remember!” Roxanne whirls around at the last second to point at me and then Monroe. “Your bridesmaid dresses came in, and we’re having the fitting at my place tomorrow. Zach RSVP’d to say he’ll be at the wedding, so we have to make sure yours looks extra good, DeeDee.”

  I flip her off as she laughs. They leave the bar, and I’m left standing there with my face still flaming and something hot shifting around in my chest.

  The crowd that filters in over the next few hours is as mixed as ever. We get everything from McGill students starting off their nights out to businesspeople on company happy hours to mega hipsters who share Monroe’s obsession with craft beer.

  Sometimes I miss the wild, trashy nights with all the college kids. They still come out here, and this place can shake it on a Saturday, but we’re not party central like back in the old days before Monroe took over.

  Then again, we were going out of business by the time Monroe took over, so I guess I should be grateful. It’s not even the old crowd I miss; I love what Monroe has done with the place, and for the most part we have some lovely, interesting people stop by for a beer—and tip much better for it—now that our dusty tube lights have been replaced by pretty bulbs hanging in strings along the ceiling. The new Taverne Toulouse is the kind of place you can sit for hours talking about life with your best friend, but that’s the thing: you can talk.
/>   I miss the noise. I miss the chaos. I miss how crazy things used to get.

  That’s my happy place: right in the middle of a raging dance floor. That’s when everything makes sense. You stop thinking about what things could be or how they should be, and you just move. You let the night carry you. You let the music pull you under and fill up your lungs until you’re breathing it in. There’s no other high like dancing in a sweaty crowd, spotlights painting your skin in shifting colours until you’re not really yourself anymore. You’re something bigger. You’re something better. You’re that shiny happy thing people spend their whole lives searching for, and it reels everyone around you in so you can’t possibly be alone.

  Or something like that.

  My newest little friend—which is what I call all the trainees Monroe puts me in charge of and which always makes her regret putting me in charge of them—clocked in an hour ago, and she’s struggling to keep up with me at the bar. I take a quick look at the order chits she has stacked up and then start pulling pints, pouring shots, and popping bottles until we’ve got things under control.

  I glance over my shoulder after passing the last of the orders off to a server on the other side of the bar. The trainee—whose name Roxanne would really be making fun of me for forgetting—is staring at the pint glass in her hands like it’s a dying puppy as she fills it with way too much foam under one of the beer taps.

  “I don’t know how to make it stop!” she calls out when she notices me watching.

  She’s a cute little thing, with big brown eyes and a freckled face that’s covered in an overworked sweat.

  “Give it to Mamma DeeDee, ma belle.” I slide in next to her with a fresh glass and show her how to avoid giving the customer a pint full of foam.

  “Merci,” she says sheepishly after I’ve handed the order off.

  I wave my hand at her. “Don’t mention it, chérie. It’s kinda my job to train you, you know.”

  She laughs and starts wiping off the counters with a rag as we wait for the next rush to come in.