The Black Swan

The weather was absolutely amazing. The wind was playing with my fiery red bangs and cooling off my heated skin. Miami was a great place to be. The best place to be. Palm trees escorting you everywhere you went, the aqua blue water of the Biscayne Bay was purely groundbreaking. Every now and then a pretty buff male caught my glance. I felt like I was in a dream.

ring-ring Suddenly the beautiful beach and the exotic palm trees started to go away. No! No, just... five... more... minutes. Fine, you can take the landscapes, just leave the pretty men, I beg you! Bam, I was back in my two bedroom apartment in the wonderful OC. I couldn't say, Huntington Beach was awful, but I could say I was chained to some obligations here and even tho I had some days off, I couldn't relax. Well, at least just in two days my vocation starts and I'll truly go to Miami. Thank you God, thank you.

ring-ring Oh yeah, that. Slowly and unwillingly I opened my left eye. The room looked kind of dim. God damn it, I had left the light on in the living room, like my electricity bill was not perverse enough. I blamed it on my ADD. Hey, I made an Awolnation reference. Yay. ring-ring

Oh Jesus. I reached out towards my nightstand on which my phone was supposed to be, although, judging by the big hot mess my room was in, my cell could've been anywhere. At least it was thieve proof, before anyone could even enter any part of this useless space, he would surely break his neck. I didn't have the time for cleaning, and that big laundry pile next to my bed approved my statement.

I didn't even glance at the caller's ID, I knew it was nowhere being even an early morning, like somewhere in between 5-6 am? Nah, nope, no. It was the middle of the night. What gave it away other then it was darker than Darth Vader's black armory-thing? I judged by the fact that my precious Siamese cat- Buttercup, was not going on his usual 6 o'clock rampage. Yes, he was a weird cat. It was like 'hello, is it morning already? I better wake everyone up, no, I better wake the whole neighborhood! Yes, Ally will be happy.' With a loud and heavy exhale, I picked up, "Ally speaking."

"Hey, honey bum." Okay, that already sounded suspicious. Since when did my wonderful Jenna address me a honey bum? And loads of background noises. Well, well, let's see where this all is headed. "Listen, I have a tiny, itsy-bitsy kind of a problem here. Can you come over?"

"Come over?" I nearly chocked on my saliva. I was not sure if I was sleeping and misheard the whole thing or I was getting delusional. "Can't you just tell it over the phone?"

"No?" She hesitated for a moment there, she sounded either very unsure of what the hell she was even doing or very drunk. "I don't think I can." Drunk it is then.

"Fine."

"You'll come?" Was there truly a surprise in her voice? She had already woken me up and it was hard for me to fall asleep afterwards.

"Yeah, I'll come." The phone landed somewhere on the bed sheets, although I was not sure it stayed there, see, I kicked my bluish sheets off very aggressively. It could as well just fall out of the bed and break it's screen, but I know that he knew and we both knew, I was not really angry at him. Nor at the bed sheets. They hadn't done anything to me, but it was better to kick them than one of these beautiful walls. It was kind of hard for me to believe I was truly going to 25 degrees on one of my rare days off. And right now it only started to kind of kick in on what I had signed to. I was a bartender there, just like my sweet little Jenna, who had a problem when it came to the end of her shifts. Speaking of which. I decided to look for my phone after all. 12:33 am. She has to close at 1 am. She's drunk. I'm pretty darn sure there is some money missing in the cash register, otherwise she wouldn't be calling me.

I rubbed my eyes and stood up.

"Okay, Ally, we can do this." I picked out some t-shirt from the pile, I think it was clean, that was the only thing that mattered. How convenient, on the frame of bed were hanging some black shorts, or maybe skirt? No, no, I didn't own skirt. Not as short at least.

As I went through the living room I saw Buttercup lounging on the top of torn magazines. Nice job.

"So you entertained yourself, huh?" His tail was swinging back and forth. He didn't even great me with a glance. Fine. Do as you wish. "I'll see how you'll ignore me, when I don't give you food, sounds good?" A loud meow. "Yeah, I'm talking to you, which is kind of pointless if you ask me."
I gave up and just went for the door.

Not even a half an hour passed when I got to the grand entrance of 25. A group of pretty buff and tattooed guys were just outside having a smoke. After the double take I made on them I recognized them to be the same people Jenna spent her nights from time to time. So they were here waiting for her shift to end. Figures. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my shorts, feeling the chilly breeze and went further. Why didn't I take a cardigan or something? There were three of them. One very tall, skinny, with hand cuffs tattooed on his neck, the other was a tad shorter with cute dimples and the third one was with very wild hair. Too wild. If I hated the comb with a passion, then he obviously destroyied everyone he laid his eyes on. No matter how many times had Jenna told me about them, I had a struggle to remember their names. I knew I was a really hot mess at the moment so I thanked it was the middle of the night and nobody could quite tell my face apart from my backside.

"Hey," The guy with dimples greeted me as I walked closer to them. He remembered me? And this his little polite act made others look at me with puckered eyebrows. I guess it was hard to recall my face, after all I didn't differ too much from any other female here in Orange County. I had green eyes, dark eyebrows, rather big lips, at least too big for my liking, two arms, two legs, nothing out of the ordinary. Oh, and I had red hair. I greeted him with a nod.

As I walked in I saw Jenna sitting behind the counter, next to the big stash of alcohol beverages with an extremely painful facial expression. This was the most crunch back I had ever seen her. She was counting the money. The place was completely empty, the only thing that greeted me, were the red walls of this establishment. I stopped at the end of the counter and watched as she tucked a strand of her black hair behind her ear, revealing a shiny gauge.

The loud thud of the door closing after the three guys came back in made Jenna raise her head, and then she saw me. "Snowflake!" She looked relieved. And totally wasted. Or high. "I am so sorry for doing this. I really am."

I just stood there my hands deep in my pockets, chewing on my lip, with raised eyebrows, waiting what's hidden under her hood. The guys emptied those shots which were so lonely standing on the counter. "Ally, please, please, please don't be mad." I'm already furious, but this whole situation is just too entertaining to show how furious I really am.

"I'm not." I walked around the counter and in to the space that was forbidden for any customer. Wow, finally they delivered some sambuca to us. Well that took them quite a decade. I picked up the bottle.

"She looks more confused than mad, J. Just lay it down." The dimpled guy, which I guess I'll just call Dimple, sat down and smiled me a reassuring smile.

"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah..." I leaned over and took three shot glasses. "Ally, I don't know what happened to the stupid cash register, but something went wrong, so I kind of restarted it and then it went completely bollocks. I don't know what to do with the account... they don't match and," I poured the sambuca inside those three glasses and pushed towards each of the guy in bonus giving them a smile. "are you even listening?"

"Yeah. I'll take care of it." Even tho I have to be here in the morning, start my shift and I had absolutely no idea how to get that done. Well, I mean the paperwork. I saw how her frown turned upside down. Now she was smiling like the crazy person she really was. Until now I didn't believe a smile such as wide as hers was truly possible.

"Really?" She got off the black stool she was sitting and came towards me. Oh god no, not a hug. Please. And then she did it. She hugged all the living crap out of me, yelling a whole lot of 'thank you's' in my face.

"So, J, are we ready to go?" The guy who looked the most fierce of them all, the one with the spiked up hair was not pleased. He didn't look too cheerful, and he was the only one, to leave the glass full. I think he didn't like me too much.

"Hold your balls, Brian. I have to take my stuff." So he was Brian. Jenna disappeared. It was just like that. I put the bottle back in it's place and walked over to the cash register. The money was in a complete mess, I didn't see the control check anywhere so I figured to get the check out of it. As soon as I pressed the right combination and saw the numbers on the little piece of paper, I mentally slapped myself for agreeing to this nightmare.

"Is it that bad?" Dimples chuckled. I guess my face gave me away. I looked at the control check once again and then at the pile of money. I was pretty darn sure those banknotes didn't hold the full amount of three thousand dollars. That was impossible. I could count the money as much as I wanted, the numbers would never coincide.

"It's been worse." I shrugged my shoulders as I lied. I took Brian's unfinished shot and downed it. I was planning on lighting it up, but I was just too mindblown. He raised his eyebrow towards me, it seemed like he was going to say something but Jenna's shrill voice interrupted his thought.

"So fellas... Are we going to Johnny's? I'm down to some shots." Right, she'll go party, while I'll be flipping out of my mind.

"Fucking finally..." Brian was first one to head for the door. Mr. impatient.

"Thank you Ally, really." She yelled as she held the door open for the guys.

"Good luck, cupcake." Dimples winked as they all left the building. The last thing I heard from Jenna was- Ally Morgan is the best bartender in the world!

Thank you for the compliment, but it won't help me in the situation.