One Foot in the Grave

“Sigrid! Get this man another beer!”

“Got it!” I called, taking one of the tall glasses from behind the bar and tossing it in the air. I caught it with ease, the reflexes of a wereleopard running through my veins. I set the glass down on the bar top firmly and filled it with beer. A glance down the bar showed me who the beer was for, a man with dark features held his hand out for the drink and I walked over to him with it.

“Thanks dear,” the man slurred.

“Enjoy it,” I purred with a wink. Tonight was busy as hell, I had been here well past closing time but there seemed to be no stopping the patrons from entering the bar tonight.

I tucked my hair behind my ears and sighed, I felt like collapsing from exhaustion. I looked up quickly when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle up, I could feel someone’s eyes on me. As I scanned the crowd I caught sight of a tall man with skin as pale as snow with hair that was jet black. But his eyes were what captured me, they were midnight blue, a color so close to black but yet it wasn’t. He grinned and then he was gone.

“Sigrid? Girl are you alright?” it was Melissa, a bartender I worked with. I jumped at the sound of her voice and looked over at her with wide, blue eyes. I cleared my throat when I noticed her expectant look.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just thought I saw someone I knew,” I lied, shrugging. Melissa looked like she was about to say something else but a customer called her over.

A man shoved through the crowd to get to the bar and laid down a few bills in front of me.

“Can a man get a shot of scotch in here?” he asked, obviously in the mood to get drunk. His eyes met mine with an expectant look. A grin crossed over his lips and he leaned forward across the bar when I approached him.

“Just one?” I challenged, pulling out the amber liquid and a shot glass.

“I’m not some lightweight, pour me a whole round!” So it seemed the man didn’t like his ego getting hit. I complied and pulled out five more shot glasses and tossed the scotch bottle up in the air, catching it and spinning it around my wrist so that I caught it upside down. I popped the top off with my thumb and filled the six glasses in one swipe.

“Drink up,” I said with a grin as Sara, another bartender, took the man’s payment.

“Why don’t you have a shot with me sweetheart?” the man called as I turned to go attend to another customer. I turned, glancing around to find the owner of the bar talking to a bartender at the other end of the bar.

“What the hell, a shot of scotch sounds pretty damn good right now,” I said as I walked back over to him and pulled out a shot glass. I picked up the bottle and poured a glass, the man grinned and picked up one of his shots as I picked up mine. “To good business,” I said, touching my glass to his. As I lifted mine to my lips it was snatched from my hand. When I turned to see who it was I had to tilt my head back to see the man who owned this bar, his expression was extremely disapproving. “Hello, Johnny boy” I muttered, referring to John with my little nickname for him.

“Hey man, I bought her that drink!” the guy sitting on the other side of the bar said.

John frowned at him, “get out, we’re closed”. John’s tone seemed to be intimidating enough that the man only chanced a glare before leaving the bar. Which was understandable, John wasn’t the type of guy someone would stand up to. He was six feet tall and nearly bald, and then of course he was buff as hell. In the dictionary, next to the word muscular, there’s a picture of him. John stopped one of the other bartenders and told him to start kicking people out. I thought I was off the hook for my little escapade with the scotch so I tried to sneak off but John grabbed me by my upper arm. “Nice try,” he commented, “but you’re in trouble.”

I didn’t say anything as he led me back to his office, he closed his door once we were both in and pointed to one of the chairs in front his desk. “Sit.”

I sat.

“If you keep pissing on the rules I’ve set down I’m not going to keep risking my neck to let you work here,” he threatened, sitting down on the edge of his desk. “You’re seventeen, not twenty-one. That means no alcohol.”

“It was just one shot John,” I said with a sigh.

“One shot too many, I don’t want you drinking alcohol and that’s it.”

John always had a way of making me feel like a misbehaving child. He found me on the streets when I first moved here, I was only fifteen and still he let me work in the bar washing dishes and cleaning up the bar before it opened each afternoon. I lived with him too, I was his only family he had once told me. But I moved out when I turned seventeen, I couldn’t control the urge to shift and once I almost lost my skin when the urge hit me while I was making dinner. I had told him it was a stomach flu.

“Why don’t you just ground me and get it over with?” I commented, I was joking around with him and he knew it.

“Shit, you wouldn’t listen to me even if I paid you” he muttered.
“You do pay me,” I said, referring to my weekly paycheck for my work at the bar.

“And you still don’t listen,” he said, messing up my hair as he spoke. I shoved his hand away and smoothed out my dirty blonde locks. I grinned up at him and he just rolled his eyes, but I could see a slight curl to his lips. He could never stay mad at me. “Now you’ve got school in the morning so get your ass out of here,” he ordered, making a sweeping motion towards me with his hands. “And I don’t want to hear about you skipping class anymore, you hear?”

I turned with my hand on the door knob, A frown on my lips. “Are you having those three idiots follow my around again?” I questioned, cocking up an eyebrow as I waited for an answer.

“They aren’t idiots, just a few easily excitable pups” John said. “I figured I’d give them something productive to do.” John just so happens to be the second-in-command for the local werewolf pack also. The Thronos Rooke clan. Just another reason living with him had been dangerous, although it had been a good test on how well the herbs I wore to mask my scent worked.

“I don’t need babysitters,” I said, opening his office door.

“Sigrid, wait, your landlord called, says you’re a month behind on your rent,” John said, I turned to see him holding a white envelope with my name written on it. “This is enough to cover this month and next month.” He held the envelope out for me.

“John, I.... I can’t take that,” I said, tugging my fingers through my hair and looking away from his all-too-knowing eyes.

“Yes you can, otherwise I’ll just give it to your landlord myself, I don’t understand why you can’t just stay at my place but I won’t force you to come back.” He stood up and approached me. “But I will force you to take this check and give it to your landlord, if I hear even a peep about you getting kicked outta your place I will personally kick your skinny little ass,” he said, his words threatening but his smile warm and caring.

“Fine,” I muttered, taking the check and slipping it safely into my front pocket.

“Good girl,” he said, ruffling my hair again.

“Would you quit that?” I snapped, grinning as I slipped away from him and out of his office. “See you tomorrow night,” I said.

“Have fun in school,” he said as I began to leave. I let a sarcastic laugh bubble from my lips in a short outburst.

“You’re too funny,” I muttered. I grabbed my backpack from the backroom before leaving the bar. I pulled the check from my pocket and looked at it, John was always taking care of me.