Francesca
I checked my phone for about the fifty-millionth time and sighed before shoving it back into the back pocket of my jeans. I didn’t know why I was expecting Lucas to text me, I mean, he was proposing to Clarissa tonight…if all went well, I probably wouldn’t hear from him until tomorrow.
Was I an awful person for hoping she turned him down or that he chickened out?
Yes. Yes, I was.
“A round of beers for table fourteen,” Sherry said to me as she leaned her elbows on the counter.
“No problem,” I replied, grabbing glasses and pouring.
It had been a quiet night at the bar and I was ready for it to be over. I loved my job most nights, but I was finding it difficult to keep work in the forefront of my mind. It wasn’t just the whole ‘proposal’ thing with Lucas that was distracting me either, although it was a big part of it. No, it was my dissertation. The meeting with my supervisor had not gone well. We’d tossed around a few ideas, but none of them grabbed me. One option was to research the aftermath and recovery of the recent world-wide pandemic, but it just didn’t excite me. I’d lived through it and the very last thing I wanted to do was live through it again. Besides, I was convinced there would be a hundred other students writing their dissertations on that very thing and the last thing I wanted was to be the hundred and first. I wanted something more exciting and less…well, depressing.
I loaded Sherry’s tray with the beers and sighed as she headed off to deliver them.
I didn’t need to work. I was one of the lucky few who had parents willing to support me through my studies, and I had a trust fund. But I enjoyed staying busy, and I liked people watching, both of which were in good supply at a bar like Drinks. Plus, I got to live out my Cocktail fantasy, even if I was far too young to know the Tom Cruise movie. What could I say? My parents were die-hard eighties movie buffs. I’d grown up with all the classics; Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, Top Gun, You Can’t Buy Me Love, and of course, Cocktail. And yes, I could toss those bottles around like Tom and Brian.
Although my parents didn’t insist I work, I knew it made them happy that I wasn’t just coasting by. They were both hard workers. Both of them came from upper-middle-class families, and together they’d edged themselves up into upper class through hard work and smarts. I mean, my mom was a neurosurgeon, you didn’t get much smarter than that. My dad was equally blessed in the smarts department, working as the senior grants and contracts manager at Harvard. They worked hard and were the best parents a girl could have and I wanted to make them proud.
So, yeah, I worked in a bar and used the people-watching element as fodder for my cobbled together sociology/psychology/anthropology degree. Now I just had to come up with a killer dissertation topic and I could finally graduate with my Ph.D. firmly clutched in my hot little hand. I wasn’t exactly sure what my next steps were…I’d been so focused on graduating that I hadn’t really looked to what the future held. Maybe that was a little short-sighted of me, but I wasn’t big on having my entire life planned out for me. A little bit of planning and some general guideposts along the way was great, but I liked to leave a bit of room for spontaneity. Besides, I’d been studying for decades…okay, not decades, I was only twenty-six, but man, it felt like decades. I could afford to take a bit of time off after graduation to just chill.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket again and checked the display. No new messages. I bit my lip and my finger hovered over the message button. Should I text him? He had to be freaking out…had he even popped the question yet?
I groaned and slipped the phone back into my pocket. He would contact me when he was ready, I just had to be patient.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I whipped it out, but it wasn’t Lucas, it was Effie.
E: Have you heard anything?
F: Nope.
E: Did he tell you about the king?
Um, what? That had to be a typo. Maybe she meant ring?
F: Yeah
E: I think this will be good for him.
I groaned. I didn’t think him marrying Clarissa would be a good thing at all, and it surprised me Effie thought so.
F: Maybe
I slipped my phone back in my pocket and smiled as Sherry came back with another order. I needed to stop thinking about Lucas and concentrate on the job at hand, not that it was busy. I should use the time to come up with my dissertation topic instead of thinking about Lucas.
“Tell me about table three,” Sherry said, leaning on the bar as I made the drinks for her order.
I shot a quick look at the couple sitting at table three and smirked. “Not a first date,” I said. “Probably only a second or third, though.”
“Will they make it?”
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “Look at the way she’s sitting. She likes him well enough, but only as a friend. They have no chemistry and every time the door opens, she looks up to see who’s coming in. If I had to guess…”
“What? Tell me.”
I smiled. “If I had to guess, I’d say she hasn’t long broken up with someone else and she’s still pining over him. She chose this guy because he’s safe and different to her rebel-without-a-cause ex, but really, she’s waiting for her ex to storm in here and sweep her off her feet.”
Sherry sighed with a beatific smile. “I want the ex to storm in here and sweep her off her feet. How romantic would that be?”
I shook my head and filled Sherry’s tray. It was fun to make up stories about the customers, but I would be glad when my shift was over. I could lie on my bed and binge on Netflix while trying not to think about what Lucas was getting up to with his brand new and sparkling fiancée. I mean, she would be an idiot to turn him down and as much as I didn’t like Clarissa, she was not an idiot.
I just had to get through the next hour and a half and then I could wallow. The next ninety minutes would be brutal.
Chapter 3
Lucas
I patted the corner of my mouth with a napkin and cleared my throat. The night hadn’t being going well. Clarissa was unusually quiet and, dare I say, a little frosty. Surely she couldn’t still be upset about the tie, could she?
Or maybe it was because she was nervous too. Maybe Mother had told her what to expect tonight, and she was waiting for me to finally pop the question.
I wondered what Frankie would make of how our date was going. I’d heard her make up stories about the couples that came into her bar all the time. If she was observing my current date with Clarissa, would she say it was going well or was the awkwardness obvious to everyone?
“So, um, we’ve been seeing each other for a while now,” I said, shifting in my seat.
Clarissa opened her mouth to reply, but a waiter approached to fill our wine glasses. She closed her mouth and smiled tightly until the waiter retreated. I took a sip and before she could say whatever it was she was going to say, I rushed on.
“I’ve been thinking about my future of late and the…the human condition, as it were.”
“So have I,” Clarissa interjected. “I’ve been thinking about us a lot, actually.”
Buoyed by her admission, I rushed on. “Right, so in light of the fact we have both reached a stage in our lives where it is time to settle down and plan for the future, I believe this is the next step for us.” I took a deep breath. “Clarissa, will you marry me?”