Work Text:
“Bad date then?” Sasha asks over the low music, leaning across the bar to grab Riley’s first empty glass.
The bar is nearly empty. A few patrons are scattered across a series of tables and Riley is alone at the bar. Sasha is the only bartender, with the cook and dishwasher in the backroom and a bouncer sitting in a chair near the front door. It’s a normal Tuesday night. Sasha is just tall enough to comfortably reach across the bar to serve drinks, and her curly black hair is pulled out of her face with a thick gold scarf.
Riley is here again, her lipstick smudged in a way that Sasha thinks is cute precisely because Riley has no idea that it’s happened, and she’s sipping her second margarita as soon as Sasha slides it to her. She’s wearing a gold dress clearly too nice for this bar, which is what had tipped Sasha off about the date in the first place.
Riley sighs and sinks her head down onto her bent arm on the bar, hiding her face in her elbow. “Yes it was bad. Again.” Her voice is muffled against her arm but Sasha can still hear her pretty clearly. “Why am I like this? Why can’t I find a good woman in this town, Sasha?”
Sasha is pretty sure she’s asked Riley out twice already. She isn’t certain that it counts though, because she has yet to get an answer. Riley, to her point, hasn’t been saying no , she’s just usually a little tipsy and always a little distracted when they see each other. And there’s the crux, Sasha rarely sees Riley completely sober, because she’s always the one serving Riley drinks.
Sasha laughs quietly and puts the glass into the tub for the dish washer to grab, she straightens her black apron. “You just have to keep your eyes open.” She says it in a way that she hopes sounds mysterious and not just stupid. Sasha’s nerves are entirely fried at this point. She’s gathered all her courage, put herself out there, and asked the question twice. Just the thought of asking again makes her feel like she’s going to combust.
“My eyes are open!” Riley says, slightly too loud, and when Sasha looks back over at her she’s sat up and is opening her eyes wide in exaggeration. In the lighting it’s hard to tell if they’re brown or black, darker than her own golden-brown eyes. God , she thinks, I’ve got it bad.
“Don’t open them too wide.” She laughs. “You’ll get something splashed in there.” Sasha cracks the top on a bottle of beer with a bottle opener and hands it to the customer three stools down from Riley.
Riley laughs too and it’s the first time Sasha’s seen her smile tonight. “Hey. They’re either open too much or not enough, make up your mind!” Riley replies, still smiling. It’s something Sasha always tries to do, especially on the nights she’s too chicken to bring herself to ask Riley out again. A smile is an important start.
Sasha grabs the payment from the other customer and hands back the change before returning to her place in front of Riley’s stool. She knows she should be spending more time making other small talk with other customers, but she can’t bring herself to really care tonight.
“Where are you meeting people? Maybe you’re making the wrong impressions.” Sasha offers. They’ve had similar conversations a few times over the last few months, Riley usually doesn’t notice the repetition.
“I don’t know. Everywhere? This one was the daughter of one of my mom’s coworkers. It was awful.” Riley takes a drink of her margarita and shakes her head as if clearing the memory, or maybe she’s just got a brain freeze. Her short black hair that was tucked behind her ears swings free around her face from the movement. “She just kept telling me about how great her ex was, how she has some high powered lawyer job and how she once modeled in Morocco. As if I don’t get enough of the ‘should have been a lawyer’ pressure from my parents. I get it! She’s great!”
“ You’re great.” Sasha says before she can help herself. She turns away before Riley can see the look on her face but finds herself, face-to-mirror-to-face, seeing Riley in the mirror behind the bar. Flustered, Sasha slowly turns back and finds a rag to wipe a few rings of condensation from the counter.
“Shut up.” Riley replies, and she’s laughing, but she’s avoiding eye contact now. “You get paid to say that.” She says slightly quieter.
Sasha takes a deep breath. The time has come. She’s got to try again. She deliberately sets down her rag and looks up at Riley, who is looking down at her margarita. “I get paid to make drinks and make sure I’m not breaking the law. That is my job. My hobby is complimenting you.”
Riley looks up, but she’s not saying anything and Sasha’s not sure if she should continue or not. She’s a lot more coherent than the last time Sasha tried (as she walked her to the curb and into a cab, half stumbling the whole time), and she’s paying more attention than the first time Sasha asked (when Riley was crying and in the middle of a sentence lamenting her life), and Sasha realizes they’ve both been silently looking at each other for just a few seconds too long. “Look---
“Are you single?” Riley asks, and it takes Sasha a few impossible moments to understand the words, as if she’s translating from a second language.
Sasha nods. “Yeah.” She can’t bring herself to move, she’s not even sure if she’s breathing at this point.
“We should go out!” She says far too loudly, and then freezes. For the first time in the last few minutes Sasha remembers she’s at work, in a bar, and she’s got at least two coworkers and three or four customers in earshot. “I mean, if you… I mean, if you want to.”
“I want to.” Riley replies. She pushes her margarita a few inches away and sits up straighter. “Yeah. Take me out. I’ve been wanting to ask you for months now.”
Sasha isn’t sure she heard Riley correctly, because similar words had been on the tip of her own tongue. This all feels like a dream after so much build up.
“I’m glad you finally did it, then.” Sasha smiles and leans forward, resting an elbow on the counter and her chin on her hand. “Are you free tomorrow?”
When I stood in my front yard
Felt the sun on my face
It just felt like a rerun
Holding everything in place
For a moment I was not lost
I was waiting for permission to take off
Recite Remorse by Waxahatchee