Page 10 of Threads That Bind Us
“Yeah, she’ll be good through the weekend. She’s just wondering why my current location is a fantasy card game store called The Jade Salamander.”
I had completely forgotten what this building was beforeSammy bought it. She tips her head back and looks at the god-awful painted ceiling again before turning back toward me.
“Why is this place called Catalina’s, anyway?” she asks, sipping her drink. Before I can respond, Sammy materializes like she literally summoned him with her question.
“Because I own this bar, and Catalina owns my heart, and so everything I have and am is in honor of her.” Sammy is yelling in this lyrical way he does when he talks about Catalina, slipping under the bar to sit next to next to Gwen on the faded blue stools. He sighs deeply and slings his arm around her shoulder, making her giggle.
“Shouldn’t you get back here and serve your customers?” I rib, grabbing a bar towel and whipping it toward him. He only scoots closer to Gwen, laying his head on her shoulder and rolling his eyes at me.
“You’ve got it covered.”
“I do not work here.” But he doesn’t hear me, because he’s already launched into hisCatalina Monologue.
A plotless and over-exaggerated story of unrequited love that was not at all unrequited, seeing as Catalina has been enamored with him from the moment they met. Gwen seems entertained, so I lean into my new bartender career and hurry down the walkway, praying that people order beer on tap and pouring what have to be terrible drinks when they don’t. I recognize Gwen’s laugh over the music and I think about stealing her away to somewhere I would be the only person who could hear it. She’s only known me for twenty goddamn minutes.Pull yourself together.
It’s another half hour before I finally make my way back down to where Sammy and Gwen are chatting, Catalina having joined them at some point. She’s nestled between Sammy’s legs, leaning toward Gwen with four different tubes of lipstick trapped between her fingerslike joints. Gwen’s cheeks are flaming red. Actually, her chest and neck are too, and I have to physically force myself not to reach for her, desperate to feel the heat beneath her skin.
“Are you sexually harassing your own customers again, Catalina?” I ask, pressing my hands against the bar top and ignoring the dude waving two entire dollar bills at me halfway down the bar. Gwen’s eyes sweep over my hands and arms before halting and turning back to Cat.
“I’m not sexually harassing anyone, and she’s not my customer. She’s Sammy’s.” Cat keeps her focus on Gwen’s lips, which coincidentally are now what I’m focused on too. They’re parted and a little pouted as Cat opens one tube with her teeth, swirls the little wand around, and paints the tiniest dot of bright purple.
“No, it’s too blue!” Cat declares, running her finger across Gwen’s lip to remove the paint. She blushes even harder. “I know people say redheads shouldn’t wear orange, but I think a terracotta color would look really pretty on you. Oh!” Cat snaps, shoving the makeup into Sammy’s hands before turning back to her prey. “What color are your nipples?”
It takes me a solid minute of coughing to right myself. Every inch of Gwen’s skin is lit up, and Sammy is pulling Cat backward to nuzzle into her neck.
“My love, people find it rude when you ask them to expose their nipples in public, remember?”
She grips him by the hair and lifts his face from her body.
“I didn’t ask her to flash us, I wanted her todescribeher nipples. They say the shade of your nipples is the best color for your lipstick.”
“Is there any amount of money I could give you to get you to stop saying nipples in my presence?” I ask, trying to take the attention off Gwen as she pulls herself together. Catalinaturns her sharp eyes on me and gives me a smile she could have only learned from Sammy.
“I’m sure I can find a dollar amount that can convince me…” she starts as Sammy leans forward and whispers something in her ear that makes her cackle. Unabashed glee shines from her eyes, and I realize I may have made a mistake turning her attention on me. “My lovely Sam has also reminded me that we take payment in the form of sexual favors. Remember that thing you did last time with the silk and the?—”
“Okay, yes, Catalina, thank you for the very explicit reminder. I think I’ll just deal with the nipple thing.” I’m trying not to look at Gwen, but I can feel her eyes on me. I’m not ashamed of my sexual history, especially not where Sammy and Catalina are concerned, but it is something I like to ease strangers into. “You two would do well as carnies.”
I have no idea how that worked, but Cat twists in her seat and grabs Sam by the face.
“Charlie is so right, babe. We would be excellent circus performers.” She kisses him, and he kisses her back, and I roll my eyes at their ridiculous zeal for life, for each other. “Let’s go join the circus, my love.”
He slides her off the seat and stands, only to pick her up and wrap her legs around his waist. There is not enough room for this kind of behavior, so her ass ends up perched on the bar top right in front of me, and I back away with my hands in the air.
“Fuck that, baby, I’ll sell this bar and buy you a circus and name it after you.” He kisses her forehead, ducks under the bar flap, and pops up next to me so quickly I’d have whiplash if I hadn’t done this song and dance with the pair of them a thousand times before.
“But not tonight, because Charlie is a shit bartender, and I need to fix the mess he’s made. Tomorrow I’ll buyyou a circus.”
Once Cat disappears back into the crowd, I turn back to Gwen. She looks like she’s just been electrocuted, which honestly isn’t an unfair reaction to spending that much time with my friends. Her mouth is open in shock, punched up into a crazed little smile. Her eyes are wide and don’t know where to settle until she sees me looking at her.
“I won’t apologize for Sammy and Cat, but I will for not warning you before they got going.” I run my hand through my hair, for some reason worried about her reaction.
“I think I might be in love with Catalina,” she mouths at me.
“Don’t tell either of them that, or you’ll end up learning the finer mechanics of erotic aerial suspension,” I wink at her, and she blushes deeply again.
“They seem like the kind of people who could convince me.”
My brain does whatever the human equivalent of skipping a record is at her words. I can’t tell if that’s an admission of a kink, her flirting, or just the last lingering bits of champagne bubbling up to the surface, but all I can think isI want to find out.