The door to Red Wolf Pub slammed against the rubber stopper as Isla burst through, her breath coming in short and uneven gasps.
Even though she had run blocks, she was fifteen minutes late.
“I’m so sorry—” She started, but Jeremy was already waving a hand at her from behind the bar, cutting her off before she could finish.
“Isla. Hey. It’s fine.” His voice sounded wrong.
Too thin.
Too quick.
“Don’t—apologize.”
Isla stopped mid-step, studying him.
He looked different.
He had sounded so wrong over the phone.
He wasn’t looking like the big guy who had interviewed her.
Right now, he was looking past her, toward the door like he was already gone.
“Jeremy, what’s wrong?” Isla set her bag down on the nearer table.
“What?” He blinked at her, and that’s when she saw it properly.
The redness around his eyes, the way his lower lip pressed into his teeth like he was holding something back.
“Nothing. No. I mean—” He stopped, took a breath, and ran a hand over his face.
“My sister. I got a call. There’s been an accident.”
“Oh, my God.” Isla felt her stomach tighten.
“Is she okay?”
Jeremy shook his head.
“I don’t know yet. She’s at the hospital. They didn’t give me details over the phone, just that I needed to come. Now.” He glanced at his watch, then at the door, then back at her.
“I have to go. I’m sorry for calling you in on such short notice. I know you had a—”
“Go, Jeremy.” She stepped forward and put a hand on his arm.
“She’s going to be fine. You need to be there.”
His eyes searched her face for a moment, like he was checking to make sure she meant it.
And whatever he saw there seemed to convince him.
He let out a heavy breath and nodded.
“Landon won’t be here tonight either,” He said, turning to reach for his jacket hanging on the hook by the register.
“His kid has a fever. But I’ve arranged for someone to tend to the bar. A good friend of mine. His name is John. He’s done shifts here before, so he knows where everything is.”
Isla nodded.
“I’ll forward his number to you. Please, if anything comes up, anything at all—”
“Jeremy, you don’t need to worry about the pub. John and I will manage it well.”
Jeremy stood still for a moment longer, caught between gratitude and guilt, his mouth opening and closing like he wanted to say something else.
Then he nodded, pulled on his jacket and walked to the door.
He paused with his hand on the frame and looked back at her.
“I owe you, Isla.” He said.
“Go,” She waved her hand.
And then he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him, the bell above it letting out a chime.
Isla stood alone in the empty pub, the silence suddenly pressing in around her.
She exhaled, rolled her shoulders back, and walked behind the bar to grab her apron.
The next hour passed as she did small tasks.
She wiped down every table.
She checked the cooler’s stock, rearranged the bottles on the shelf, and swept and mopped the floor.
The work kept her hands busy and her mind quiet.
She was rearranging the chairs when the front door opened.
“You must be Isla.” A man’s voice said.
Isla turned.
“That’s me,” She said, putting off her hands.
The man standing in the doorway was in his forties, with a grey beard and crinkles at the corners of his eyes.
He wore a worn leather jacket over a flannel shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and carried a canvas bag.
“You’re John?”
He nodded.
“John Mercer.” He crossed the room and extended a hand.
She took it.
His grip was firm and dry.
“Jeremy said you’d be holding down the fort. Told me to tell you I’ve been doing this since before you were born, so you don’t need to worry about a thing.”
Isla managed to smile at his words.
“I wasn’t worried.”
“Good.” He let go of her hand and surveyed the room with the practiced eye of someone who had seen a thousand bars in a thousand different states.
“Then we’ll get along just fine.” He walked to the bar.
By five o’clock, the pub had begun to fill.
Not the usual night crowd, not the shoulder-to-shoulder chaos Jeremy had warned her about, but the steady trickle of regulars and students kept her moving. The source of this chapter is novelping . com.
She took orders.
She delivered drinks.
She cleared tables, wiped up spills, and learned to read the subtle difference between a customer who needed another beer and one who needed to be left alone.
John worked the bar like he was born to do it.
Smooth, efficient, and never rattled.
He talked to her in small, free moments, asking about her major, classes, and whether she was used to the job, since she had good hands for it.
She didn’t know what that truly meant, but she took it as a compliment.
But ten-thirty, the crowd had thinned.
By eleven, a group of students had paid their tab and stumbled out into the night, laughing about her being famous on campus.
She got that a lot while tending to tables.
But she had managed to smile through it.
By eleven-fifteen, the last customer stumbled out of Red Wolf Pub.
It became empty again.
Isla stood in the middle of the pub, hands on her hips, surveying the aftermath with the hollow exhaustion of someone who had been on her feet for seven straight hours.
John wiped the bar while she flipped the chairs.
“You handled yourself well tonight,” he said, moving to pull the plug on the soda gun.
“First day and all. Not bad.”
Isla sighed.
“Thanks,” she said.
Not bad at all.
She agreed.
Even though in the first hour she had dropped a glass, the shattering sound that had turned every head in the room toward her, and for a horrible moment she had felt the walls closing in, the familiar weight of being watched and the smell of alcohol making her vision blur at the edges.
But John had appeared beside her with a broom and a quiet “happens to the best of us,” and the moment had passed.
John locked the cash box and slipped the key into his pockets.
She pulled her apron over her head, folded it neatly, and placed it on the hook behind the bar before returning to right the few chairs and tables left.
I never knew writing a sports rom-com wasn’t easy!
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And it takes a long time to decide what to write.
I want to deliver something of standard quality.
I hope I’m doing justice to this story.
So please, keep me motivated by dropping a comment and a vote.
I’d appreciate it.