The Ties that Bind

Chapter 4 | Peanut

Selene started work at eleven o'clock the next morning. There were no customers, except a few quiet people sitting in a booth. It was warm and smelt of bar polish and the sharp but warm scent of barrel-aged whiskey. A woman was standing at the bar and smiled sweetly when she saw Selene approaching.

"You must be the Selene everybody's talking about."

Eek. Already the talk of the town? She knew Haven was cozy, but she found she didn't like being the center of people's attention. "You must be Janey."

"That I am," she flipped closed the book in front of her and put her pen behind her ear. She had three gold earrings on the curve of each ear, flawless Mediterranean skin with ruby pink lips and she radiated good energy. "Ted told me you were coming in today. I'm to show you the ropes."

Selene smiled back, suddenly taking a breath, "It's nice to meet you." She didn't really know what else to say before adding a sheepish, "Everybody's talking about me?"

Janey half-shrugged and chuckled, "It's all good things, don't worry. We don't have many interesting people come through all that often so be prepared to answer questions," She flicked her head towards a door behind the bar. "Follow me, I'll show you around. You can leave your stuff under here." She gestured to a corner cubby underneath the bar. 

She wore a tight black t-shirt that was tucked into blue skinny jeans and fuck-you cowgirl boots. 

The back room was a small four-wall area with an industrial steel refrigerator door on one wall and a small three-seater couch on the other. One door led out into a fluorescent white kitchen where she could see someone moving around.

There was a small corner which consisted of a mini-fridge and a basic coffee machine on a table. "This backroom was originally used for storage, but Sascha. .you'll meet her tomorrow, had the bright idea that we should use it as a break room. It's not much but damn you're thankful for it during a rough night service."

She led her through the backroom and out a side door which took them back to the main floor of the bar. "Bathrooms," she gestured to the clear WOMAN | MAN sign above the bathroom door which was around a small quiet corner. "Luther is our kitchen manager and head chef and we have another chef called Owen but he's only in on the weekends."

Janey led her around the bar and pointed towards the pool tables, "I'm sure you know what pool tables are. On the weekends the pool-tables are usually occupied by the 'boys'," she used air quotes and looked about as pleased as she would be talking about dead fish, "They're my cousins and they are some of the most irritating people you'll meet. You're new here, and you're pretty so they'll probably be all over you but don't take any of their shit. They're absolute shit heads and wouldn't know how to be gentlemen if it smacked them on their big fat heads."

Ugh. Her stomach dropped; she didn't want to deal with persistent jerks. She had enough of that at the Blair, but she figured that she couldn't escape it working at a bar, "There's always one, isn't there?" Selene said, "You guys get very busy around here?"

For a moment, she looked almost offended, but a smile appeared on her face, "Oh honey, we're a small town sure, but we have people from all over show up here. Surprises me how many people we can even fit in this bar sometimes. We're at the start of the week so you don't have to worry 'bout it getting too busy. If you're lucky it'll just be Theo and Gabe tomorrow, the family came down from the North for a wedding, so everybody's been a little busy."

The dots connected in Selene's head. "Is that Abigail's wedding?"

Janey's head perked up, "You know Abby?"

"No, uh," the events from the night before flashed in her eyes, "I actually ran into her dad, Mr. Levi, at the pharmacy yesterday. He said she was getting married, too. We used to be playmates."