"Two cherry bombs and a rum and coke," said Charlotte smoothly, setting the two shot glasses next to the highball. She leaned slightly across the bar, offering just the tiniest peek at her cleavage as she added, "That'll be 12 bucks, hotshot."
The kid on the other side of the bar gave her a dopey grin, his eyes flicking up and down between her eyes and her tits. He couldn't have been a month past his 21st. The sort of kid that it paid to triple-check his ID. The little pipsqueak finally offered her a crumpled twenty, saying "Keep the change."
Charlotte gave the poor star-struck kid a wink as she ran the transaction with swift, confident movements and added the eight dollars to her small mountain of tips for the evening. Sometimes squeezing money out of customers was too easy. Especially male customers.
But Charlotte didn't have any more time to bother with the kid, three other people were vying for her attention further down the bar. Just another night at The Hangnail. Most other places, even on this busy street in the entertainment district, could expect to be quiet on a Monday night, but The Hangnail was always humming. It was the sort of ratty dive that consistently made the "best bars" lists in crappy self-published magazines.
A shithole to be sure, but that was part of the charm.
And Charlotte was a good enough bartender to keep up with the crowds. Not just physically, although she had been in the game long enough to be quick and efficient at mixing and serving, but personality-wise as well. It took a tough woman to keep up with all the disrespect and the bad attitude of The Hangnail's usual crowd, and a charming one to wring good tips from them. Charlotte was both. Her and this job were a match made in heaven.
If only everyone could see it that way.
Charlotte barely noticed as the bulky shape of her boss emerged blinking from his office and joined her behind the bar. She was a little too busy mixing a row of Long Island iced teas for a raucous group of twenty-something women to greet him.
"What a fuckin' crowd," said Rob in a bemused voice, leaning back against the bar and crossing his thick, hairy arms over his gut. He was a fifty-three-year-old man with bristly grey hair and a perpetual scowl. An old-fashioned guy. In the worst of ways.
Charlotte raised an eyebrow at him as she poured rum down the line into the plastic cups. "Are you complaining boss?" she asked dryly. "I can ask some of the paying customers to leave if you want." Her phone buzzed audibly in her pocket. She ignored it.
"You gonna get that, honey?" asked Rob with a smirk. She ignored him too.
Just as she was accepting payment from the tipsy gaggle of ladies, Charlotte heard a sharp, obnoxious whistle, and looked up with annoyance to see Connor. "Hey beautiful," he said with a smug grin. "Long time no see."
Charlotte had to try hard not to give him the finger immediately. "I see you every fucking night at the bar, asshole," she said acidly. "I think you mean long time no fuck. That's by design."
"Get me a beer. San Pedro Especial. Come on, babe. We both know we'll end up together again eventually. We always do." Connor's smile was as slimy as his eyes. And his stupid fade made him look like a teenager. He was frustratingly correct about the number of times they had gotten back together in the past, but it had never been easier to resist him than right now.
Charlotte grabbed his beer from the cooler and swung it down against the bar with a sharp motion, expertly popping off the cap. "Five bucks," she said stonily.
Connor just chuckled as he dropped a crumpled five on the counter. No tip. Naturally. "Be... seeing you soon, babe," he said with a wink, grabbing his drink and heading down the bar to talk with some of his idiot friends.
This time Charlotte did flip him off.
"Huh, there goes trouble," said Rob behind her with a low chuckle. "Just don't slack off of work this time to make out with your little lover boy."
"How about you tell me what to do when it comes to your business and let me figure out my own personal life, ok boss?" said Charlotte with a snort, shaking her head. She took another order from a tall man in front of her, now pointedly ignoring her ex-boyfriend further down the bar. "And don't fucking call me 'honey', asshole. Anyway, you know that Connor and I are fucking done. "
"How many times have I heard that?" asked Rob with a smirk, finally shifting from his lazy lean to help out with customers. "I know how women can be. All it takes is a handsome face, a few whispered words, and a couple drinks, and "fucking done" loses the "done" part, sweetheart."
Alright, now Rob was actually starting to piss her off a little. The old fuck had a real with boundaries, not to mention his rampant sexism. God, one time Charlotte had been forced to bite his head off after a "playful' spank. When he got like this, it was best not to engage.
It was true that Charlotte had been on-again-off-again with Connor for a long period. But they had been firmly "off again" for a year since the shit Connor had pulled on her the last time they were dating. Besides, she was with someone new now. And it was serious.
Charlotte's phone buzzed again.
She ignored it, leaning over with sparkling eyes to take the the tall man's ID, saying, "Run a tab, or close it out, handsome?" The tall man grinned widely, and started to answer, but Charlotte didn't hear him. Her phone was buzzing over and over now. God damn it, hadn't she made it clear that he wasn't supposed to call her at work?
Luckily, Charlotte managed to catch the word "tab" through her distraction, and even maintained her flirty smile as she tucked the man's credit card away behind the bar.
The phone stopped buzzing for a second... then began again. She sighed. Well, as much as she would like to ignore the call and teach him a lesson, Charlotte knew that her boyfriend was the kind of guy who would keep calling all night if she didn't answer. She opened the phone and strode into the storage room behind the bar, waving absently to Rob as she went.
