“There’s no easy way to say this, Danny…” Eli trailed off as he struggled to finish his sentence. Socializing had always come easy to him. He appreciated the challenge and almost never found himself in a conversation he couldn’t skew in his favor. But that was for small talk, shooting the breeze with customers, or schmoozing interviewers. Breaking bad news was still breaking bad news, no matter how much charisma he delivered it with.
It felt like he was breaking up with him. And after being his bartender for three years, he basically was. He pretended to buff out a stubborn smudge on a cocktail glass, the rag squeaking against the glass. There was no stubborn smudge, only a stubborn man on the other side of the bar, watching him expectantly. Danny Suárez was, by all accounts, a reactive and passionate man who could surprisingly take devastating, life-altering news with a sort of dissociative grace, but minor inconveniences and changes to his routine always seemed to send him into a frenzy.
Eli chuckled softly as he braced for impact. “I’m leaving the bar.”
Danny’s eyes went wide in disbelief. He was quiet as he scanned Eli’s face for any signs of uncharacteristic ribbing. “You’re joking.”
He shook his head with an apologetic smile.
Danny wasn’t sure how to respond, fumbling over an array of incredulous syllables that seemed to be the beginnings of protesting curses. Socializing, unfortunately, only came easy to Eli, not Danny. He had never been good at articulating his emotions. He scoffed in denial, then tossed back the rest of his beer with a frustrated grunt.
“I’m sorry, Dansha. I wish there was a way I could do both, but commit training is really difficult to do when I’m bartending well into the morning. All I do anymore is work, and I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse when I start full-time in six months.”
He crinkled his face into a disapproving frown. “You’re not sorry.”
“Believe me, I am.”
“No one’s holding a gun to your head and making you do this.” He’d had a feeling this was coming. Once Eli broke the news he was approved to start commit training with CVRS, there was no way he would be able to keep bartending. But that didn’t make it any easier to hear.
Eli’s shoulders fell. “You know there’s no money in this. Especially when my regulars almost never pay.”
He shot him a wry smile, putting a bit of distance between himself and the third free beer he had torn through. “I can’t imagine CVRS pays all that much, either. Gen and Rami are always complaining they’re basically stuck at entry-level pay, despite being the hardest working CVRS agents I know.”
“They’ve been hurting for more Public Deployment agents lately. A lot of the surrounding areas are understaffed, so their signing incentives have been pretty enticing.”
“Who isn’t understaffed? Rami’s been run ragged in Urgent Care since he started. I haven’t heard about any enticing signing incentives from him, that’s for sure.”
“I dunno what to tell you. They’re prioritizing Public Deployment staffing, especially Target Hunters. There’s been an uptick in public cases apparently—and I’m sure you heard about the public dispersion on—” Danny flailed his arms in revulsion, and Eli digressed. “Well anyway, they need more people on the ground. I’m pretty good at it, too, you know. Frankie says I have a knack for it.”
“So you’re gonna upend your whole life because some rando says you’re good at something? Well, what if I said you’re good at bartending? Would you change your mind?”
Eli averted his gaze with a modest, flattered smile. “She’s not some rando. She’s the best Branch Administrator in the area. Ask Gen; I’m sure she could tell you all about her.”
“Yeah, well, I’m the best customer in the area. I don’t see your point.”
He drew in a long breath, then exhaled sharply. “Would you like another?”
“Sure, gotta drown my sorrows.”
Eli swatted at him. “As much as I appreciate your loyalty, you’re starting to piss me off. Trust me, if there was a way to make Target Hunter salary while bartending, I’d do it in a hearbeat. I gotta live my life, too.”
Danny sheepishly pushed the empty bottle toward him. “I know, I know.”
He was being honest when he said Eli was a good bartender. He was a suave and charismatic man who could whip together expertly-crafted drinks with a captivating flourish that still enchanted him after all this time. It never got old. The way his forearms flexed as he confidently shook his cocktail, sweat glistening under the warm glow of the ambient lighting. The way he could deliver incredibly insightful and grounded life advice as effortlessly as he fashioned drinks. It was truly mesmerizing, and for a moment, he was in a world where the only things that mattered were the cascading cocktail and the man who poured it.
With a spritz of lime, Eli passed him a tajin-dusted glass that brimmed with a refreshingly pink beverage. A paloma, Danny’s favorite.
He had insisted on cheap beer to be polite after Eli informed him everything was on the house that evening. He timidly took the glass and his shoulders fell with a sigh. “I’m going to miss this.”
“Well, I’m not leaving until next week. So you could always swing by and fit a few more in.”
“I know, I mean after you leave. I’m really gonna miss it.”
“With how many times you’ve seen me make it, you should be able to do it yourself by now. And it’s not like I do anything special. All the other bartenders here can make it just as good.”
Eli knew Danny didn’t come here for the drinks, but he wanted to give him an opportunity to say so. For the millionth time. And, of course, Danny wouldn’t take it, for the millionth time. He likely knew why he kept coming to the bar; it had occurred to him multiple times that Eli could’ve served him a glass of room-temperature tap water and he would’ve enjoyed his time all the same. But he refused to acknowledge it, and kept shoving it deeper and deeper until it was tucked so far away he couldn’t reach it.
“It’s not going to be the same.” Danny stirred his drink with a pout. He felt stupid. The longer he went without articulating his feelings, the more he realized it looked like he was upset because he was losing his personal mixologist. Fear, shame, and uncertainty congealed into a tight lump in his throat.
Eli had a bit of trouble concealing his disappointment. “Well, it’s not like I’m dying. Maybe after I get into a rhythm at work, I can come out every few weeks and bartend a day or two for some extra cash. And to see my regulars.”
Danny had gone uncharacteristically quiet, staring off into middle distance as he mindlessly stirred his drink, still having not taken a sip. If he wasn’t pouting, cursing, or groaning, he was worse than inconvenienced; he was depressed. Eli could practically see the dense cloud of misery draping over him as his shoulders slumped even further.
Eli restlessly tapped the counter. “Who knows, maybe I’ll run into you when I’m patrolling. As long as I stay in my area, there isn’t any rule that says we can’t stop and chat or get coffee.”
He continued staring ahead. “Aren’t you with 149? I’m never in that part of town.”
“Well, maybe you should start going there more often. There’s plenty of restaurants I think you’d like over there. Plus, there’s that really nice kitchen supply store that sells every knife you could possibly imagine.”
He merely offered a grunt in response. From experience, Eli took that to mean it was “too much effort”. Danny was, after all, a creature of habit. It was uncharacteristic enough that he started going to the bar in the first place. After Eli got to know him, Danny didn’t seem to venture out of his established routine very often.
Danny left the house to feed himself, go to work, and occasionally swing by the bar, but not much else. Over the years, this became an increasingly narrower area of activity. At least when he worked at the pharmacy, he had the opportunity to grab dinner or run errands on his way home, but now that Danny worked in the convenience store on the bottom floor of his apartment complex, the only time he ventured out was to go to the bar. He used to go on grand grocery shopping sprees to stock his fridge and cook for the week, but he had started slowly losing the motivation to cook, and his elaborate three-course meals soon became no more than a black coffee and a granola bar.
It was difficult to watch him gradually go in this direction, and to an extent, Eli feared that leaving the bar would push him further into a depressing slump. Danny was a grown man—30 years old, to be exact—and was fully responsible for how he reacted to this. Eli knew that leaving the bar was a neutral act, a positive one, even, but after three years of commiserating and complaining together every week, Eli felt that his leaving was taking something away from Danny, and he couldn’t help but feel at least partially responsible for what happened next.