~ Noah ~

"What's got you so happy?" Toby - one of the waiters, who also doubled as a bartender when needed, asked while I gave the bar one last swipe with the cleaning rag. It had been a busy night, but it had also been one of those nights in which you have so much to do that before you know it, your shift was over. I was tired, but in a good mood, partially due to not having had too problematic patrons and partially because I'd gotten plenty of tips.

I told Toby as much and he nodded. "The guys from the bachelor party were very generous. One of them gave me a fifty. He also gave me a bunch of looks that I think he thought were seductive, but I just took his money; he can keep his looks."

I chuckled.

"Yeah, I don't think your girlfriend would've been too happy if you returned the looks."

"Exactly. She'd go mad. And not the good, leading to wild sex mad." Toby gave an exaggerated shudder, then waived and headed for the locker room. Before reaching his destination, he was stopped by Jess. I watched them as they exchanged a few words, and then Jess came to me.

"We are having drinks before we head home; want to join?"

I briefly pondered on her offer. True that it was the wee hours of the morning, but I felt exhilarated and my shift at Marv's Groceries wasn't until the afternoon so I could spare an hour or so.

"Sure." I bunched the rag up. "Who is we?"

"You, me, Gracie, and Mac. Ash will join us in a bit. Everyone else is going home."

I nodded and put the rag away. If we were drinking, I'd need it again later to wipe after we were done. With me being the only bartender left, I'd probably be the one serving drinks, at least until Ash showed up. It wasn't unusual for staff members to gather like this and then Ash would sometimes assume the position of a host and manage the bar.

"What are you having?" I asked Jess when she plopped on a bar stool.

"A strawberry basil Mojito for me, a regular Mojito for Gracie, and a beer for Mac. I don't know what Ash will be having. Probably his favorite vanilla vodka ."

"Got you." I put a bottle of beer on the bar opposite a nearby stool and got to work on the drinks for the girls while I contemplated what to get for myself. It was after working hours so alcohol was allowed, but I didn't feel like it. What I was craving was a club soda.

"Man, it was a busy night!" Gracie said and I looked up to see her stretching her arms above her head and approaching us with Mac by her side. She sat down and turned left to give Jess a peck on the lips. Mac sat to the other bouncer's right and took the cold beer I'd already opened for him.

"Oh, this is good!" The big man sighed contentedly after taking a huge gulp.

"Here you go." I pushed the drinks towards the girls then opened one of the small refrigerators below the alcohol shelves to take out a bottle of club soda. I walked around the bar and took the empty stool next to Jess. She was wearing a purple tank top and now that the disco lights were off and the regular lighting on, I could clearly see the tattoos on her inner wrists. The right one had a cluster of stars and the left one - some tiny, delicate flowers.

"Isn't that the same design as Gracie's?" I asked, thinking of the delicate branches graced with equally fine pale pink flowers that covered a third of the female bouncer's arms. Once Jess turned to me, a question in her eyes, I pointed to what I'd been looking at.

"Yeah." Her glossy lips quirked up into a smile. "I got them to match hers six months into us dating. I already knew she was the woman I wanted to spend my life with."

"Oh, baby," Gracie cooed and Jess spun to her other side. I watched the two girls share a tender kiss, much longer than the peck from before. So long, in fact, that after a few moments, I felt uncomfortable and looked away at Mac.

"What about you? Any ink?" I asked him, half to dispel the awkwardness, half because I'd been wondering since Kyle had stated that a man like Mac must have tattoos.

"Not really," the big man said.

Well, that would disappoint a certain someone I knew.

"Not because I'm against it," he went on. "Just haven't found anything I'd want to permanently wear on my skin."

"And trust me, he's looked," Gracie said, no longer leaning towards Jess, but her fingers caressing the blonde's wrist over the blue star cluster. "I keep adding more branches and flowers, and I've taken him with me to the studio I used to go to. It's closed now, but they had a huge selection of styles. Mac must've looked through the designs for hours, but nothing caught his eye for more than a few seconds."

I nodded. Mac and Gracie had been best friends for years, so it made sense she'd take him with her. It also made sense that he was careful about what to put on his skin. As he'd said, it would be there for good, and Mac wasn't the type to go carelessly about something like this.

"So, what's with the stars? I know Erik has similar ones on his upper arm, but do they mean anything?" I went back to Jess. She was just sipping through her Mojito and I realized I was holding my own unopened bottle. I uncapped it and took a gulp as she said:

"Not similar ones: the same, just bigger. The meaning behind getting the same tattoos is because we love each other and the design... Well, it's a long story. The short version is that when I was in elementary school, our parents started fighting a lot. It went on for a few months, and it seemed that wasn't about anything in particular. I think there was a serious reason, but they didn't want us to know about it, so they tried to hide it, letting out their frustration while arguing about small things."

Gracie squeezed Jess' hand in support, but she didn't seem too upset, so I was fairly sure the story would have a happy ending.

"Anyway," Jess continued after smiling at her girlfriend. "One day they took us camping and we spent the night in this meadow. And when we looked up, the sky was full of stars. It was so, so beautiful! The four of us lay down and watched them, and talked, and laughed, and mom and dad were just so relaxed around each other. Soon after we went back home, the fighting stopped. Erik and I didn't want to bring back bad memories so we didn't ask our parents what had gone on between them. But we both think that it was that camping trip and looking at the stars that helped them to get through whatever it was, so when we decided to get tattoos, we got star clusters."

So I'd been right: the story did end well.

"What about you?" Gracie asked. "Anything on your skin, Noah?"

"No ink," I replied. Just a scar, but they didn't need to know that. "My aunt's boyfriends co-owns a tattoo shop and two of my friends - Kyle and Zack, had some work done there, both by a guy named Tyler. Zack's tattoo is huge, covering his whole back, and is this epic battle scene between demons and angels. Sort of."

"Sort of?" Mac asked, taking a swig of his beer.

"Sort of," I repeated. "It's kind of hard to distinguish between them. You see some typical beautiful angels, but others make these ugly faces, and you wouldn't call them angels if it wasn't for the halos. The same thing with the demons: some are ugly half-goat creatures, but some are beautiful like the angels. If it wasn't for the horns, you'd assume they were angels. I think that's Zack's way to show that not everything that looks good is good, and not everything that looks bad is bad or something like that." I concluded somewhat lamely. I'd always felt that the tattoo held a deeply personal meaning to Zack and had never asked him to explain it to me. All I could do was guess what it might mean.

The door leading to the staircase opened and in came Ash, but he wasn't alone. Dex and Caleb were walking behind him, along with a fair-haired boy, and my mind immediately returned to the image of angels. Not the controversial ones from Zack's tattoo, but the classic, enchanting ones that inspired awe with their appearance alone.

Ash headed straight for the liquor, getting himself a vodka as Jess had predicted, a beer for each Dex and Caleb, and a Coke for who I was introduced to as Caleb's brother Misha.

"Let's move to a table," Ash half-suggested, half-ordered, his voice bearing the irritated inflection he got after a long night's work and dealing with things and people that tested his patience.

We moved to one of the booths, and I ended up sandwiched between Gracie and Mac, with Dex sitting opposite me and with a low glass table separating us.

There was a lull in the conversation until we adjusted to the new setting and having more people, but a couple of minutes later everyone but me was talking, this time not on the same topic, but parting in small groups, each discussing a different subject.

Jess and Misha were talking about hair dies, Caleb was asking Mac how his second job as mall security was going, Gracie and Dex were teasing Ash about some woman named Yadira, and I... I silently sipped my club soda. I knew nothing about Yadira, or hair dies, or mall security, so I had nothing to contribute to any of the conversations.

I contemplated texting Kyle, but toying with my phone while in company seemed rude, so I dismissed the idea.

I was musing over whether to excuse myself and go home when Dex called my name and added:

"Did you name that cocktail?"

I knew the one he was talking about - a minty one that I'd made up weeks ago and he very much liked.

"Not yet," I admitted, loosening my grip on my soda and placing the bottle on the glass table.

"You have to name it, or I won't be able to include it in the menus," Ash said, a slight scowl on his face.

"Don't push the boy," Gracie intervened. "It's not like we are printing out new menus soon."

"I might have a good reason to print out new menus before the end of the year," Ash put in and we all gave him a questioning look. "That's all I'm saying about it now."

"Oh, come on, boss." Jess waved her hand to prompt him to go on. "You can't just throw us a hint like that and then be all 'I'm not saying more'."

"Technically, if it concerns the club, it concerns us," Mac also gave it a try.

"You'll know if and when I decide you should know," Ash insisted. "Now drink your drinks, and leave me alone."

"But why did you tell us about changing the menus, if you weren't going to tell us why we'd be changing them?" Jess didn't let it go.

"Maybe I just want them up to date. That's a good reason."

"They are up to date," the waitress noted. "The only things that aren't in them are a couple of cocktails Noah and my brother are working on, but they haven't even named them yet, so there's no rush to change the menus soon. I know you; you have something else on your mind."

"I said you don't need to know right now." The irritation was more visible in Ash's voice. "And don't go around making up theories and sharing them with the others."

"I am telling Erik." Jess declared in such a tone she might as well have added 'And there's nothing you can do to stop me'.

"Fine. Erik. But just him." Ash conceded, drank all of his vodka in one big gulp, and got up to get himself a second one. Dex followed him with a contemplative gaze and I had a feeling he might have a clue to what Ash was thinking, but refused to share with us. I had no idea what it could be, but suddenly, I felt the urge to name that cocktail and be ready for whatever was to come. However, naming wasn't my only problem; the cocktail seemed somehow unfinished. I couldn't pinpoint what was off, but it needed work to get it as close to perfect as I could.

My eyes also followed Ash, but they didn't stay on him. Instead, they passed his figure and landed on the many colorful bottles of liquor behind the bar.

Somewhere amongst them was the answer to one of my predicaments. I just had to find the right ingredient.

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Thank you for reading! Please vote and comment if you enjoyed the chapter!

So... How do you think Noah will name that cocktail?

Would he get inspired by something/someone and what/who?  😉

Also, what kind of ink do you think will suit big man Mac?

Also, also: what do you think Ash is planning for Nightfall?

PS and random trivia: I rarely drink alcohol, but last night I had a cocktail (okay, two). 🍸 Very appropriate, considering which chapter I'm editing today.

Do you have a favorite cocktail?

What's it called?

PPS: @Caputinodelamour I hope you'll like the chapter I dedicated to you! Thank you for all your comments 😽