There was only half an hour 'til the end of my shift and it had just started to rain again. I couldn't stop thinking about Adam. He'd been so weird yesterday. We'd gone to hang out at the Hacienda after he told me that Charlotte had broken up with him and - even though I felt bad that he'd been dumped - I felt happy.
I'd always hated Charlotte. Not like the 'I'm in love
with Adam so I hate Charlotte' kind of hate, just the normal kind of hate that
comes with a friend's girlfriend treating him in a shitty way. And we were
having fun. Up until I hugged him goodbye and he - weirdly - called me
Charlotte. It didn't mean anything, right?
I've seen the signs before. Guys who I've been friends with for years have, all of a sudden, started to look at me funny or treat me differently. I just, stupidly, never expected it from Adam.
We'd met in the bar a little over a year ago. He'd been in a couple of times while I was working and, after a while, we started to really get to know one another. The last year had been really great - him always sneaking me into the club and me letting him have drinks on the house. Why did he have to do this to me?!
"Stupid boys," I muttered. Merl, the town drunk, sat at the bar in front of me and giggled hee hee hee.
"Kno wha ya mean, Swee -" hic "- har," he slurred. Then, he fumbled on the bar for his empty beer bottle saying, "Can I 'ave anover?" I shook my head, slightly disgusted with him.
"No. I'm cutting you off." Mad at myself for not doing it sooner and, realizing suddenly that I'd been cleaning the same glass for at least fifteen minutes, I set it quickly down on the counter and removed Merl's empty bottles, vowing, as I did so, that whatever may have happened with Adam last night wouldn't happen again.
A little later, the door to the bar opened and my brother walked in. Well, my stepbrother.
Calm, cool and collected, Graham is my polar opposite. Where I'm all shadow, he's all light. Outgoing, smart, funny, hardworking - he's all that a parent could hope for in a child. He focused on his academics and honed his talents all throughout his childhood, high school and college while I spent my time dancing and painting and reading. Now, he's the successful one while I'm just a well-read bartender with the body of a dancer. Despite everything, I love every bit of him - everything, that is, except his dad.
His dad came from money and that money, that wealth, created a nauseating sense of self-absorbed overconfidence that oozes off of him. I hate the man, but my loathing of his dad has never, not once in our relationship, blemished my love for Graham.
"Hey G! What's up?"
"Hi Eliot! I came to pick you up so you didn't have to walk home in the rain. It's starting to come down pretty hard. Figured I'd help you stay as dry as possible since I'm on my way to work, anyway." I nod my thanks, look behind me to make sure that Peter, the new barkeep, is here to take over my shift and then head out to the pouring rain and Graham's car, which he'd left idling in the street.
On the way home we were quiet. My mind was full of half-formed thoughts zooming around my head. Someone had broken into the CVS next door to O'Leary's sometime during the night and I was sure Graham was trying to figure out why someone would break into the ONLY nice building on the block. As we drove around The General and past Milk Street, he said, "Look! All the lights are on inside the warehouse!"
I looked over and he was right. Light blazed through every window in the abandoned warehouse down the street. It was eerie. No one on the entire block was stirring as rain fell faster and faster from the sky and yet, the one building on the whole block that never showed signs of life was lit up brighter like a warning beacon.
Walking into the Maplewood Crest lobby, my skin prickling with anticipation, thunder rumbled and lightning flashed and, behind me, all lights in the warehouse blinked off and then quickly on again. I wondered, as I headed upstairs, what ghosts had been summoned by the storm.
