Where Life Meets a New Beginning

Chapter 3 - Making a New Friend

My two days off went by quickly, with all the things I needed to do around the house.

The dreams I was having about Elijah didn’t stop, though. Both nights they got more vivid and seemed to last longer. It was like we were living a whole life together while I slept.

The only thing was that they also got more and more bloody. It was like dead bodies were stacking up higher by the second in my dreams. Elijah and I were sucking them dry of blood and then going on living our lives together, happily, as if we were actually vampires in some alternate universe. It was chilling.

What was even more chilling, was the fact that I wasn’t bothered by it. I craved going back to the land of slumber where I could experience this macabre second life as much as possible.

It was such a joke that being asleep was the most exciting time of the day for me.

Now that my two days off were over I had to go back to work, but it was one of the random days that I had to work the night shift. It was also a Friday so it meant that there would be a lot of us working tonight.

I’m sure that there was no way Elijah had come back to see me again, and if he did it probably would have been in the morning so there was no way I would see him tonight.

I hated how much I didn’t like that.

I didn’t go in until five today and Caleb worked at a tech company that operated pretty early so he was already off for the day when I began getting ready.

I was sitting in the chair for my vanity, next to his desk while he played his games as per usual when he took his headphones off for a moment and looked over at me.

“You’ve been kind of quiet the past couple of days, and you seemed pretty upset the other night. Is everything okay?”

I was brushing contour onto my cheeks and tried to hide my being surprised about him noticing anything different about me when I responded.

“Everything is fine. I’ve just been focused on getting stuff done around the house. This place was a mess. Now I’m focusing on making sure I look great tonight so men will give me their money and we can pay the bills. No big deal. Sorry to worry you.”

I wouldn’t bring anything up about how I wished he paid more attention to me. I didn’t have time for the argument, nor did I want to deal with it. I just wanted to stay in my comfortable little bubble as always.

He pursed his lips. “You would tell me if something was wrong though, right Salem? I know I’m not always the best at showing it, but I really love you.”

I felt like someone completely different was talking to me. This was weird.

I dropped my guard a little bit and smiled. I loved him so much. “I love you too, Caleb. Don’t worry yourself. Everything is okay, like I said.”

I got up and walked over to his chair for a moment. I wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a kiss while running my fingers through his hair. I only stood about five feet tall so he was barely below my height while sitting in his computer chair.

I pulled away from him.

“You just have yourself a good night and don’t worry about me. The guys are probably wondering where you went right now. Get back to your games.”

I gave him another kiss and went back to my chair to continue getting ready.

I now felt even more guilty because I knew in the back of my mind that I was spending extra care on the details of my hair and makeup hoping that Elijah would somehow end up showing up at the bar again tonight.

When I arrived at work it was already quite busy. We were located fairly close to Bourbon Street so we had steady business at all times, even more so on a Friday night.

Since it wasn’t me that opened I went directly to check all of the coolers to see if all of the prepping was done for the night.

To my surprise, it was.

Another girl we worked with named Sarah opened and she never did more than she had to so that meant that Isaiah and Zoey actually got all of it done when they came in a couple of hours earlier instead of just leaving it for me. How nice of them, I thought to myself. If only they could do that more often.

Amy was coming in at the same time as me today, and she was normally late so I was surprised when she, Zoey and Isaiah all walked up to me at the same time.

Right away Amy began with “Listen Salem, we know how uncomfortable you get when things sound a little outside of your box so we just wanted to apologize about the other day.”

“Yeah we talked about making a group chat so we could all tell you sorry but we thought it would be better if we talked to you in person. We just want what’s best for you.” Zoey added in.

My heart swelled a little. I really didn’t think my coworkers cared about me this much.

“We also didn’t want to tell you over text message that well, uhm, Elijah has come back every day hoping to see you again.” Isaiah reported.

Oh my god. I didn’t expect that at all. I got really nervous, really quickly. I didn’t want them to know that.

“Seriously!? That guy really won’t give up. You guys told him I’m in a happy relationship and unavailable right?”

No one responded. They all just kind of looked down.

What was I asking? Of course they didn’t.

“Oh come on guys, what kind of an apology even was this if you were just going to follow it up with that? I’m so happy that all of my friends just want to sabotage my relationship!”

“Look, we didn’t tell him you were with someone, but it wasn’t just about trying to sabotage your relationship. He’s obviously eager to get to know you. You can tell him you’re taken yourself, which we honestly would’ve thought you already did, but we also thought that you could use some more friends. We’ve never seen you hang out with someone other than us, and although we love you, most people’s only friend group isn’t their coworkers, or in other words the people they’re forced to be around every day anyway.” Amy pleaded with me.

Zoey added on to what she was saying “Also, when was the last time you got this dolled up for work? I think you secretly wanted him to come back looking for you.” She grinned as she was saying it.

I could feel my cheeks getting hot. I wasn’t expecting that one.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just in the mood to look good today. You know we make more money when we get more dressed up.”

Zoey came back with “Whatever you say, hot stuff, I’m so sure all of that cleavage was meant just for customers.”

“Come on guys let’s just drop it. But before we do-“ Isaiah winced “we should probably let you know that we did tell him you’d be working tonight.”

“Guys COME ON now I’ll have to talk to him again. Why would you do that!? What if he’s not okay with the fact I have a boyfriend and gets super angry? What if he causes a scene or something? He could be a stalker! Don’t you guys watch the news!?”

I was facing the shelves of liquor on the wall behind the bar and hadn’t noticed the look on their faces had suddenly changed, so I froze in my tracks when I heard someone speak from behind me.

“Oh no, I hope I didn’t give off that kind of impression when I met you Love.”

I slowly turned around and Elijah was sitting right there, smiling and looking right at me with those gorgeous eyes he had. He must have walked in while we were talking, but I was too busy trying to drill my friends about this subject to notice.

Shit.

“What? No. It’s not that you gave off that impression it’s just that, you know, I don’t know you, like I don’t even know your last name. You could be anyone that could do anything to me and I wouldn’t even be able to tell someone who you are. I’d just be like ‘there’s this guy Elijah who came to my bar a couple times then assaulted me blah blah blah’ and no one would ever catch you and I would be sad. Not saying that you would do that just that like anyone could do that so you have to be smart, you know? Well whatever. I don’t care anymore. You’re here now and we’re here now and this is what’s happening so do you want a double whiskey on the rocks?” The only reason I was able to stop myself from rambling was because I ran out of breath.

All three of my coworkers were just staring at me as Elijah and I continued to interact. They were totally getting exactly what they wanted.

“Sommers. My last name is Sommers. You could report me to whoever you needed to now, but I would never do anything to hurt you. And my, aren’t you good? Remembering my drink after only serving me one time.”

I looked back at the trio of people working with me and they just about ran into each other trying to pretend like their was actually something they were going to go work on instead of continuing to eavesdrop on our conversation.

“Well, considering you had like 10 of them over only about five hours, it was kind of hard to forget. And Sommers? What a Shakespearean last name to have.”

“Yes, well.. my uhm, family has been around for a very long time.” He responded.

His expression looked a little distant when he said that, but it snapped back to admiring me pretty quickly. He was truly a masterpiece.

His hair had that perfect styled, yet not styled look. It was shorter on the sides, but not buzzed, and a little longer on the top. I could seriously go on about his eyes forever. I normally preferred blue eyes, but his were the most entrancing shade of gold I’d ever seen on someone. He was wearing all black tonight, which could make me swoon in any situation. It was still a relaxed outfit, just a black t shirt and jeans with all black shoes.

I went back to the present moment we were in and stopped admiring him back.

“So is that where your disposable income comes from? Your family has old money?” I asked him.

“I guess you could say that. Don’t worry about my money though, that’ll never be a problem.”

“I’m sure it won’t, since you can just hand hundred dollar bills over to girls you’ve just met without even thinking about it.”

Zoey interrupted, and I’m sure she was looking for a reason to do so, so that she could see what was going on between Elijah and I.

“So Salem, I guess that since this is where your not-so-secret admirer sat, this will be your section of the bar tonight.”

This girl was gonna drive me nuts.

“Yes, Zoey, thank you, I had already figured that out, but I am so grateful for you coming over here to let me know.”

She walked away, and I looked down while rocking back on my heels a little bit before looking back up to Elijah.

“Well, don’t mind me, I can’t be keeping you from your job. I’m sure their are other customers that need to be helped. I’ll be here if you want to stop and talk for a moment. And also when you have time to refill my drink for me.” He smiled at me and I thought I would just fall over right there. He was so handsome.

On top of that, he was also modest. He wasn't just trying to get me to stand there talking to him so that he could keep trying to get me to like him.

I had no idea how I was keeping it together as well as I was.

Right in that moment that I’d reminded myself of the reason I was keeping it together, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and opened a text from Caleb.

I love you and I hope you’re having a good night. I can’t wait for you to get back home to me.

I must have really been acting weird or something, because he was just never like this.

I quickly responded and put my phone right back away.

I love you too, Caleb. I’ll see you when I get there I went through the motions of work for the next few hours, and we were making really good money. We were all in a really good mood and throwing back shots from time to time. It was just part of the job when it came to working in a bar on a Friday night.

I’d started feeling a little less uptight about the whole situation. I had to admit, having Elijah and his good looking self making eyes at me all night felt really nice. It was helping me get in my groove. I was moving fast and making tips even faster.

Eventually about 11 o clock rolled around and it started to slow down a bit so it was time to cut someone, that way the money would still be good for whoever was left on the shift. Their was no point in having too many bartenders for not enough customers.

I walked up to Amy and Isaiah with Zoey to see which of them wanted to go first since they’d gotten here earlier than us.

To my surprise, they actually all turned to face me.

Isaiah spoke for all three of them. “Sooooo, we think you should take first cut tonight.”

“What, why? I just had the past two days off and I don’t wanna miss out on making more money.”

“Oh come on, it’s not like your man candy isn’t gonna leave you a really good tip again.” Zoey retorted.

Amy came next “We know you’ll sit down and have a few drinks. Just be friends with him! He hasn’t been creepy or anything, you know he’s not gonna push you do anything you don’t wanna do. We just want you to have more friends. That’s all.”

She was almost begging me.

They all looked at me with hopeful looks on their faces.

“Okay fine. But you have to get everyone here to tab out and tip so I can make some more money first and then I will sit down next to my new friend and have some drinks to make you guys happy.”

We began making our way around the bar and getting people to reset their tab before splitting everything we’d made so far between us all.

I, of course, eventually made my way over to Elijah.

“Alright so, I’m about to get off of work. We’re asking everyone to tab out so that we can split the tips for the work we’ve done together before I go.” I politely told him.

He flashed a smile at me while pulling out his wallet and laid four hundred dollar bills down on the bar.

My eyes widened.

“Why in the world are you giving us that much? That’s a hundred dollars for us each.”

“Well I’ve gotta make sure that you get compensated correctly for all of your hard work, don’t I? I’ll just tip in cash and leave my tab open for a bit again.”

“Okay my coworkers would murder me if I said no to this, but it really isn’t necessary.”

“It’s my pleasure. Don’t worry about it.”

I shyly took the money and threw it into the tip jar.

“Well I am gonna sit down and have a couple of drinks now that I’m off. I guess it would be kind of rude if I didn’t sit next to you after your overly-kind gesture. Plus my friends are really pushing me to. That is, I mean, if your offer from the other day still stands. If not it’s okay.” I looked down after finishing saying that to him because I felt so bad knowing that Caleb had texted me saying he couldn’t wait for me to get home.

“I didn’t want to push you to do something that you don’t want to do so I wasn’t gonna bring it up, but I would be absolutely delighted if you sat down next to me for a spell.” He told me.

“It’s just as friends though, okay? I do have a boyfriend. I know I haven’t mentioned that yet and I understand if it makes you mad but I’m not the kind of girl to cheat on someone.”

“I’m not mad at all, Miss Salem. I find that very admirable. I’d love more than anything to be your friend, that sounds lovely.”

He really was wonderful. I don’t know how a man like him could be pursuing after someone like me. Someone who had a boyfriend on top of that. How could he be so attracted to this situation?

My coworkers were ecstatic about Elijahs contribution to our wallets. I was happy for them, even if it came at the price of putting on a strain on my relationship and they didn’t care. Although I picked up a lot of the slack at work, they were hard workers who also had bills to pay.

I had made my way to getting completely clocked out and it was now time to go take my seat next to this enticing man while trying to keep myself in check.

I loved Caleb. I was with Caleb.

I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My long green hair still looked perfect, even after throwing back some shots and breaking a sweat at work. My makeup was also still flawless. I silently thanked myself for managing that.

In the middle of my guilt-filled thoughts I also remembered that Caleb expected me to be closing so I could hang out for quite a while without him asking any questions.

I really was awful.

I just couldn’t stop thinking about all the dreams I was having about Elijah, and they were making me feel even more drawn to him.

I made my way back out to the bar and everything around me felt like it was moving in slow motion while I walked over to sit next to Elijah. I was looking at him as I walked and for some reason my body felt like it was making movements that they were supposed to make, that felt increasingly more right as I got closer to him.

I sat down and my drink was already sitting on the bar in front of me with a shot next to it. Zoey, Isaiah, and Amy were all huddled up, looking over at us and gossiping like they’d just made the right move in some twisted game together.

Why were they doing this?

They wanted me to drink more and I knew it.

I was honestly so nervous that I had to. I threw the shot back instantly, making my stomach feel warm when the alcohol hit it.

Elijah looked over at me, with a soft smile.

“I made your night that rough, huh?”

“What? No. I just. I don’t have very many friends. I’m not good at this. I mean, I’m not good at making new friends. Even though I’m really nervous, I feel really comfortable around you, though. It’s weird.”

He pursed his lips a little, then spoke.

“Well I would hate it if I made you uncomfortable.”

He held up his drink as if to cheers with me, then declared-

“Here’s to making new friends.”

I touched my glass to his, gently hit the bar with it, then took a big gulp. After that, as naturally as ever, we began to talk.