Chapter 3: Root Beer
Monday rolls around and I am on my way to the bar to talk to my mom. Monday's are the slowest day of the week so I can get away with it. I know there won't be many customers in the bar and I can talk to my mom with her having to stop every few minutes to refill glasses.
Monday is my day off. I spent the first part of my day sleeping in and then I ran errands. I went to the bank, the grocery store, and I went to the pet store to get Lord Tubbington more cat food. Being the owner's daughter I got to pick which day of the week that I wanted off. So, I picked Monday's. They are super slow and I just can't handle that. I like the more fast paced days at the bar. More people, more customers, more excitement and more fun all around. It's great, though, cause I get two days in a row off. Sundays and Mondays.
The bar is closed on Sundays and I am off on Mondays. It's perfect.
I walk in and my mom sees me right away. "Hey, honey, how is your day off?"
I nod. "Good. How was has your day been?" I ask her as I slip behind the bar.
"Slow, so far. I'm glad you are here. Put in your order for dinner, I just did. Sugar should be here any minute and then we can eat."
"Okay." I grab an order tablet and scribble down what I want for dinner and walk into the kitchen. I pull the top sheet off the tablet and hand it to Will.
"You're dinner order, I assume." He say politely. I nod. "Okay, well, I we have this done in a few minutes."
"Thanks, Will. Where's Finn?" I look at the clock. It's five minutes to five. Finn is suppose to be here at five. The man is to work early, five to ten minutes, usually. It's odd that Finn isn't here yet.
"Don't know. He's suppose to be her at five so- he's still got a few minutes. I'm sure he's just running late." Will mumbles as he flips two burgers on the grill.
"Yeah, probably. Thanks for-" I wave my hand at my order slip. "-ya know."
"Sure thing. I'll send it out with your mom's." He nods and starts on her dinner. I skip out into the bar again and grab a can of Sprite on my way. As I am pulling out a bar stool the door swings open and Finn comes running in.
"Sorry I'm late. My cheap ass car broke down." He explains to no one in particular. He also seems a little winded as he comes in. "I ran here." Well, that explains the winded thing.
"It's fine. But, maybe call next time and let us know you are running late." My mom tells him as he rounds the corner of the bar and heads into the dining room towards the door to the kitchen.
"Sorry. I'll call next time." He waves a hand in my mom's direction before disappearing around the corner.
Sugar was here when I came out from the kitchen. She was talking to my mom about something before Finn interrupted everything. It seems that Finn's grand entrance caused them to forget whatever they were talking about and now my mom is headed in my direction.
"Ready?" She asks and I nod. I get off my bar stool and follow her into the dining room. She picks a table and we sit and wait for our food.
I asked to have dinner with her cause I want to ask her about a few things that have been on my mind in the last couple of day. "So, what did you want to talk about?" She beats me to it.
I chuckle a little. I was just going to ask her if we could talk. "Well, about the other day, actually."
"Honey, I told you not to worry about that. You didn't do anything wrong. You actually did everything right. That woman did everything wrong. She shouldn't have come in here like that."
"No, I don't want to talk about that." Her face scrunches up in confusion. "I want to talk about the woman." I explain. Some of the confusion slips from her face. "I just- I wanted to know if you knew who she was. I have never seen her in here before Friday night."
My mom nods. "I don't know who she is. I have never seen her before either. What did she say her name was?"
"Santana. Santana Lopez." I tell my mom. I really like the name. It's not a normal boring name like most the other names in Lima Ohio. It's different.
"Oh, um, I don't know her but I do know that there is a Dr. Lopez down at the hospital and seeing as that isn't really a common name around her I would assume that they are related and that there is a good chance that Dr. Lopez is her father."
I nod as my mom talks. That all makes sense.
"I don't know anything else though. But I can ask around."
"Okay, that sounds good." I nod some more.
One of the best parts about your family owning a bar and being a bartender is that you can always find out something from someone. You just need to ask, the right people, the right questions. It's likely that one of the regulars that comes in everyday knows a thing or two about Santana Lopez or her family. This isn't a huge town and everybody knows somebody who knows somebody else. And people like to gossip.
Our food comes as I am pondering the thoughts of one of the customers knowing something about Santana. My cheeseburger and chili looks great and my mom's chicken breast and fries looks good too. I will have to remember to thank Will later.
I round the corner from the dining room into the bar and stop dead in my tracks. Speak of the devil. I had just brought mine and mom's dishes into the kitchen so they could be washed and came back out into the dining room and mom was missing from the table that we were sitting at. I assumed she was just in the bar, so, that's were I went. But, I wasn't expecting to see Santana sitting there.
"Hey." She say once she sees me. She sounds almost timid or scared.
"Hi, Santana, right?" I know her name I don't know why I ask.
"Yeah." She nods.
"Come in for another night of drinking?" I ask. She has a glass in her hand so… I just assume.
"No." She says. I raise an eyebrow and point to her glass. She shakes her head. "No. I actually came to see you but-" Both of my eyebrow are raised now. "-I didn't see you anywhere so I thought I could have just one drink and then leave."
"Oh, what did you want to see me about?" My mind is screaming at me that she wants something from me. I lean against the back countertop as casually as I can. My body screaming at me to do the opposite and to lean against the bar top that separates her from me.
"I feel like I should apologize for the other day. I was out of line. I don't know why I came in here and started yelling. I just came, on Saturday, to retrieve my car and then go home but something brought me in here. Then I don't know what happened and I started screaming at you for basically no reason. I felt like shit and I was mad and I took it out on you so-" She shrugs and looks away from me. "-I wanted to come in and apologize."
"Oh." I'm not really sure what else to say. It's nice that Santana felt she needed to come here and apologize but I don't know what to say to her.
She looks back to me and looks me up and down. "Yeah, are you working right now? It kinda looks like you're not."
"Nope. Monday is my day off." I smile at her for the first time today.
"Okay, Brittany, I am really sorry about the other day. I promise that it won't happen again. I know that you guys don't need that kinda of thing happening around here. It being bad for business and all. So, yeah, I'm sorry. And as long as I am having a drink-" She motions towards the glass of beer in front of her. "-can I buy you a beer seeing as you aren't working and it would make me feel better and complete my apology."
She looks around the bar nervously. It's cute. Her nervous and rambling.
"Well, all is forgiven but I don't know about that drink." I'm gonna mess with her a little bit.
"Why not? Did you have somewhere you have to be? Like a date or something? I'm sorry I didn't mean to assume that you didn't have anything going on tonight just because you said you weren't working I thought-" Santana cuts herself off by sucking her lips into her mouth.
"No, I don't have a date or anything. I am hanging out with a few friends later on tonight but that's not for a few hours yet. It's just that I get my drinks for free." It's really easy to mess with her and I'm loving it.
She looks down at her hands that are gripping around the glass. "Oh, right." When she lifts her eyes back up, I smile at her brightly. "What?" She asks when she sees my smile.
"Nothing." I says and wait for what she is going to says next. Hopefully, more cute rambling.
"Um- could you just have a drink with me then. I mean, since you get all your drinks for free. I mean, as part of my apology, except without me paying for the drink. God, please, just have a drink with me." She ramblings.
Without giving her an answer I push off the counter and go to the other end of the bar. I open one of the coolers and grab a bottle and make my way back over to the other end of the bar where Santana sits. She is sitting in the same spot she sat on Friday night. The last stool at the end of the bar. I round the end of the bar and pull out the bar stool next to hers. I twist the cap off my drink and hold it in the air towards her. She gets the hint and lifts her glass in the air and clinks them together.
"To?" I ask.
"To apologies and making an ass out of myself." Santana fills in.
I laugh and take a drink. "To making an ass out of yourself."
I see her roll her eyes and look away from me. I look up and the news is on the television. It's fairly quiet in the bar so, I can here what they are talking about. A car accident, road construction, some new littering law. A commercial comes on and I look next to me to see if she is watching the tv or not.
She wasn't watching the tv that's for sure. I'm almost positive that she was watching me. I don't know for sure cause as soon as I turned my head to look at her, I saw her eyes flick away to somewhere down the bar but she was facing in my direction. I smile a teeny tiny smile because I just caught her looking at me.
"What's that bartender's name?" She asks and I assume it's to take the pressure off of her.
I swing my head around the look down the bar at Sugar. "That's Sugar. She's a friend of mine. Why?" I ask her and turn back to look at her. Her eyes come up and make eye contact with mine.
She shrugs. "No reason." Then her eyes flit away again. I watch and see them searching for something to land on. They stop after a couple of seconds. "Is that a root beer that you are drinking?"
I assume that's what her eyes have stopped on, I keep my eyes on hers as I lift my bottle to my lips. Her eyes following the movement all the way to my lips. I take a drink before lowering the bottle back to the bar top. Her eyes stay on my face though, but not on my eyes. "Yes. This is root beer. I happen to like root beer. Is something wrong with that?"
"No." She shakes her head. "I just thought that you wear drinking beer this whole time."
"Well, I wasn't." I say and turn back to the tv. The sports segment is on.
"Okay." She says from next to me.
I finish my root beer a few minutes later. "Well, thanks for the drink that I get for free anyway, but you insisted that I drink with you for an apology." It's getting dark outside, making it a little darker in the bar, but I think I can see the light blush that dusts her cheeks when I say that.
"Your welcome and sorry again for the other day." She waves her hand absently.
"It's no problem." I tell her and get up off my bar stools. "I have some stuff to do before I meet up with my friends, so I should go, but maybe I will see you around here again." I say as I walk around the end of the bar, and behind it, putting the bar between the two of us.
"Yeah, probably." She nods.
"Well, bye, Santana." I really like the way her name rolls off my tongue.
She ducks her head. "Bye." She gives an awkward wave without looking.
I smile and go over to the little door that leads into the kitchen. I have one more stop before I leave.
"Hey, Will. Finn." They both look up from the food that they are preparing to see who it is. But I'm sure that they know it's me just from my voice. Finn nods his head and looks back down to the food.
"Hey, Brittany." Will greets, his eye on me a little longer before returning to his work.
I go up to the end of the station that Will is working at. "Thanks for dinner, it was great."
"Good, I'm glad you liked it."
"I would thank you too, Finn, but I know that you were late." I say. Boy needs a good teasing every now and then.
"Sorry, Britt." Finn mumbles.
"Hey, Finn started helping me as soon as he got here so yes he did help with your meal." Will fills me in. I nod. I figured that Finn helped when he got here. He came in like a minute or two after a handed Will my order.
"Yeah, well, thanks too, Finn, I guess." I giggle as I exit the kitchen through the door to the dining room. There are a couple of families out there eating dinner and I smile at them as I pass. I make my way through the dining room and back to the bar. I've just basically walked in a circle in the last few minutes.
Santana straightens up on her bar stool when she sees me again. "I thought you were leaving?"
I look around before I know what I am going to say. "And I thought you were only having one drink?" I point to the freshly topped off beer in front of her. She shrugs her shoulders like she doesn't know. "And I have to say goodbye to my mom before I leave." I point down to the other end of the bar to where my mom is standing listening to something one of the customer's is saying.
"Right." She nods.
I walk over to my mom and throw an arm around her shoulder. "I'm leaving now." I whisper in her ear.
She turns to me. "I see you had a drink with our troublemaker from Saturday." My mom nods behind me to where Santana is sitting.
"Yeah, she came in to apologize and asked if she could buy me a drink." I inform her.
My mom laughs. "That's good. So, we won't be having anymore problems with her?" I shake my head cause I'm certain that Santana won't come in here yelling and screaming ever again. "Alright. Get lost and stay out of trouble." She steps out of my hold and pats me on the butt.
"I will." I never get in trouble but my mom always says that every time she knows that I am going somewhere or hanging with friends. I walk back down the length of the bar. "Bye Sugar." I say as I pass the girl. She pats me on the ass too. It must be today's theme.
"Bye, Britt. See ya on Friday." Sugar yells as I walk away.
I get back to the other end of the bar where Santana is still sitting. I smile at her one last time as I approach her. She smiles back. It's small, just a lift of the corner of her lips, but I can tell that it's genuine. I get the impression that she doesn't smile much.
I run my finger along the back edge of the bar as I go by. "You wanna slap me on the ass too?" I ask cause I know that she was watching both times when my mom did it and when Sugar did. Out of the corner of my eye I see her duck her head down. I know she isn't going to answer my question. I also know that she thought about slapping my ass just from her reaction. My smile widens.
"Bye, everybody." I yells as a round the corner of the bar and move towards the exit.