The Guy With the Suitcase (Once Upon a Guy #1) (17 page)

Pierce took his suitcase and stuffed a change of clothes from the locker inside it, then left the restaurant through the back door. He didn’t want to look at anyone. He just wanted to walk. And shower. Yes, some steaming hot water didn’t sound half bad at that moment.

Pierce was watching an action film when Rafe knocked on the door. He had showered, changed, and, most importantly, calmed down. He was feeling like crap for what he’d done and how he’d talked to Vance, but there was nothing he could do. He had lost his job and all he could do to sedate his anger was watch a hardcore action film.

Rafe walked in like a zombie ready to attack, his eyes half closed, his shoulders hunched forward and his hands falling lifelessly in front of him. He waved a ‘hi’ and made his way to his room where he collapsed like a big fat carcass, finding shelter under his comforter.

“How was work?” Pierce laughed.

“Busy. Very,” he mumbled.

Pierce got to his knees and put his hands flat on the mattress seeking Rafe’s gaze. “Listen, Rafe. I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I didn’t mean any of it.”

Rafe shuffled under the covers. “Oh shut up. I know. Here,” he said and handed Pierce a pack of notes.

Pierce took it and stared at Rafe who had closed his eyes, resting his head on the pillow. “What’s all this?”

“Your tips,” came the response from the sleepy Rafe.

“My tips from where?”

“From the pits of hell. Devil says hi,” Rafe muttered, still not opening his eyes, “where do you think? The restaurant.”

Pierce counted the money. There was over $450. “What the fuck did you do? Strip in front of everyone?”

Rafe grinned. “No. Close. I smiled,” he said and stretched his body, letting out a yawn.

Pierce let the comment go, something Vance and other colleagues had mentioned about him and his lack of a smile, and focused on the matter at hand. “And why are you giving it to me?”

Rafe huffed and sat up on the bed. He slapped Pierce gently on both cheeks. “Earth to Pierce. Earth to Pierce. I worked your shift, this is your money.”

“No,” Pierce shook his head, “that’s
your
money. You worked hard for it, I can’t take it,” he replied.

Had Rafe lost his mind? Why was he giving him so much money when he could use them to pay more than half his rent with just a day’s worth of work?

“Because I want you to get back on your feet and help you like you did with me,” he rolled his eyes.

Pierce opened his mouth, staring at the man across him. He couldn’t believe what he was saying. No one in the history of ever would ever do what Rafe was doing right now, yet he was being as nonchalant about it as Pierce had been when he had chipped in from his savings to pay for Rafe’s deposit and agency fees. And to think he had snapped at him that very morning. Pierce thanked him. He wished he could show him how grateful he was, but he knew Rafe probably wouldn’t like it.

“You’re most welcome. You just have to promise me one thing. You have to come tomorrow and apologize to Vance,” he said and his face changed to that of a teacher’s telling off a student.

“What’s the point?” Pierce huffed, “he fired me anyway.”

Rafe slapped the side of Pierce’s head. “Are you stupid? You both said words while you were angry. You can’t tell me you believe that the man you went shopping with would fire you that simply.”

“But—,” Pierce started to say but was interrupted.

“But my butt. You will go and apologize, or I’ll drag your sorry ass across town,” Rafe said, stifling a weird sensation in Pierce’s pants. He’d never seen Rafe so authoritative. He liked it.

The conversation had pretty much come to an end and Rafe didn’t take more than a couple of seconds to fall asleep in a fetal position, and Pierce, not wanting to disrupt his sleep, took a blanket and slept on the couch in the living room. The next morning he’d already made his way to Les Fourches before it had even opened, and during the festive season, they opened at 9 for breakfast. At 8.30 he knocked on the glass door and Vance let him in, looking brusquer than ever.

He let Pierce in and stood like a wet kitten in front of the man holding his fate in his hands, his chin touching his chest. “Good morning, boss,” he mumbled.

“‘Morning,” he replied with a heavy breath. “Listen, Pierce—.”

“Before you say anything, I wanted to say how sorry I am. I don’t know what got over me,” Pierce raised his eyes to meet Vance’s, “I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. I know you probably don’t want me back after what happened, but I wanted to apologize, nonetheless.”

Pierce stood still as Vance took deep breaths without talking. His boss almost gave him a heart attack when he grasped both of his arms and searched for Pierce’s face.
 

“You’re a stupid man, Pierce, you know that? I can only imagine what your life is like, and yet I come in and basically tell you to drop dead.
I
am sorry for the way I talked to you. I mean, you’re not just my employee, Pierce, you’re my friend. I should have been more understanding. I am
so
sorry,” he said.

Pierce’s eyes blinked when salty tears formed between his lids, Vance gave him a tight hug.

“I wish I could do more about you. I wish I could give you full-time hours and have you work for me until you figure out what you want to do with your life. But you know I can’t. Even the extra hours will go when all the tourists go back to where they came from. I might even have to let some go, considering how quiet it gets in January,” Vance told him when they’d resumed their manly positions, standing across from each other.

Pierce shook his head. “You’ve done more than enough, Vance. Really—,” he started to say.

“You didn’t let me finish. So that’s what I was thinking last night and I made some calls. Turns out, one of my exes is opening a bar in Brooklyn and is in desperate need of experienced barmen. I told him you’re the best I got — even though you’ve only worked for me for two months — and he said he wants you. No, not want. He
needs
you,” Vance said, and gave Pierce a goofy smile, bouncing on his heels.
 

That man could be a serious antagonist one moment and a child the next. But more than that, he was like an angel sent from whatever heavens his parents believed in. He had taken a risk hiring Pierce and then Rafe, but not only had he let them in, become their friend, he was still going the extra mile to help Pierce get back on his feet.

“That’s…that’s amazing,” Pierce said and hugged Vance again.

His boss frowned and sucked his lips in. “The problem is it opens next week on Christmas Eve — terrible choice, I told him so, myself. But he’s got like a little Christmas-slash-opening
partay
. And the thing is, I already covered all your shifts for this week. I’m sorry,” Vance said and winced, waiting for Pierce to snap.

Pierce laughed. “Wait,” he told him, “you’ve found me a full-time job and you’re afraid I will snap at you? Right now you’re my favorite human being on this entire world.”

“I bet after Rafe,” Vance chuckled and went in for a pinch at Pierce’s stomach, which Pierce slapped away, grinning like an idiot.

Pierce stayed for breakfast at the restaurant and when Rafe got in for his afternoon shift, he asked for the keys and made his way back to the flat. He didn’t know how to spend his time not working, so he decided to grab another book from a used bookstore, having finished the one he’d been reading for over a month now. The one book turned to two and when the time came the week after to start his first shift at his new job, he had collected almost an entire collection of copies, all resting on top of Rafe’s sketchbooks.

Rafe had been overjoyed that Pierce had got a new job but was sad that they wouldn’t work together anymore. “At least we’ll be seeing each other every night,” he’d told him, only to be reminded by Pierce that their elongated slumber party would only last another week when Rafe’s landlord would return from his holidays and Pierce would have to find another hostel, one that wasn’t completely booked out.

“I’ve got used to having you around. I’ll miss our movie nights,” Rafe said.

Pierce grimaced, feeling as nostalgic as Rafe, as if their fun together had ceased already, and as if they’d been doing movie nights for years. “We can still have movie nights. Just not
every day
like we’re doing now,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.

Before the 26
^th
came to bite him in the ass — the day when Wang returned from his vacation —
 
Pierce booked a hostel for a whole month, so that he wouldn’t run the risk of staying homeless again. When the 24
^th
came and he was going to start his new job, he was all set to start the new chapter in his life.

The bar in Brooklyn was called O’Neill’s Debauchery and as its logo it had a cartoon shamrock holding a glass of Guinness, puking little shamrocks. As goofy as their sign was, the goofier was the inside and the boss. On a first glance, Pierce would never guess his new boss, Sam, was gay, especially an ex to the charming and lively Vance. Sam was chubby, dark-haired, with a messy beard and glasses. He was wearing a Marvel t-shirt and had tribal tattoos down his arms. He was, however, very effeminate in his speech, his mannerisms, on the other hand, not so. He seemed excited to have Pierce on his team that they had a good hour’s chat over beer before he gave him a small tour of the place.

He explained to him that he only needed two full-timers, with some part-timers for the weekends, but that after January it would probably be only Pierce, another girl, and himself left to run the place. Pierce started his shift at four, showing Sam all the cocktails he knew how to make and experimenting with some new flavors, because Sam had still not decided what special drinks to put on the menu. He wanted all the drinks to have an Irish touch and kept asking for Pierce’s opinion. It was too bad that Pierce was really not in touch with his Irish side, other than his suitcase which belonged to his Irish immigrant of a grandfather. Sam didn’t have any of the heritage, he just loved St. Patrick’s Day and wanted to put a shot of Guinness in all the cocktails, something Pierce had to convince him not to.

The party started at six. People filed in, filling up the entire bar, which was half the size of Les Fourches until Pierce and his colleague, a trans girl called Rosie, were working non-stop, serving complimentary drinks to all the guests and pocketing a dollar for every serving.

Then, around 9, Sam gave a small speech, and Pierce along with Rosie helped themselves to a glass of champagne with their boss.
 

Rosie was twenty-five and lived in the area. She was Sam’s current girlfriend and was also a postgraduate student in business management. She and Sam had been together for almost two years when she had first started transitioning. She was a sweet girl with a lot of experience in bartending. When Pierce asked her what she wanted to do when she finished, she told him she wanted to run the business with Sam. Something which Pierce didn’t expect. He was used to being surrounded by artists of all walks of life and in various stages in their career but had not met one that wanted to be a bartender for the rest of their life. Pierce couldn’t even grasp the concept of working behind a bar for another year, let alone a lifetime. Not that he had any clue what he wanted to do. He just knew the bar was only temporary. Hopefully.

At midnight, O’Neill’s Debauchery closed and after cleaning and tidying up the place for Boxing Day, since the bar would remain closed on Christmas Day. Pierce phoned Rafe to tell him how great his first shift had gone. He turned left on the street, only two blocks away from the apartment, when two guys started following him. They were both smoking marijuana and shadowing his every move.

“Uhm, I think I’m being followed,” Pierce whispered on the line while stealing glances behind him, pretending to be checking the traffic.

“What?” Rafe shrieked over the phone. “Find a busy street and lights, Pierce. Run. I don’t know. Where are you?”

He was left with no time to respond; the phone was punched out of his hand.
 

“Hey, dickface, where you goin’?” one of the guys slurred behind him.

Pierce avoided looking at either one of them and bent down to pick up his phone. He regretted it immediately.
 

A firm foot came crashing up his stomach. He tried to find his balance, but he was pushed to the ground.

“Whatchu got in the bag? Huh?” the other guy said and tried to snatch Pierce’s suitcase from his hands.

“Nothing. Clothes,” Pierce stuttered. “Just clothes.”

Rafe shouted something on the phone, but Pierce was too focused on not letting go of his suitcase to care. The guy was pulling hard, but Pierce didn’t cave in. That bag had all his savings in. Rafe had suggested he keep them at his house, but being stubborn as he was, he hadn’t listened. A choice he regretted now. He made a mental note to listen to Rafe next time. If there was a next time.

“Mother—” The guy wouldn’t let go of his suitcase either and resolved to dragging Pierce on the sidewalk, trying to snatch it away from him.