Free Saving the Best for Last by Jayne Kingston

Chapter One
     
    George caught a glimpse of his wristwatch as he turned off the motor on the glass washer and thought, Almost time for Red . With not much else happening on a slow night in January, he’d been mesmerized by the near-scalding water running off the pint glasses like water off a duck’s back as he stood them next to the sink to dry. The small group of early-twenties servers playing pool and country songs on the jukebox had just been up for another pitcher. The two guys at the bar—sitting a safe two stools apart, staring at Mr. Destiny playing silently on TNT—had been nursing the same drinks for a while.
    He thought it funny that bartenders in movies were always polishing glasses. Any barkeep worth his salt knew you never went near a clean glass with a towel. And real-life bartenders were rarely just hanging around, doing all that polishing and smiling, waiting to dispense wisdom to their forlorn patrons. Bullshit about sports and current events, yes. Fix your life, though? Forget it. Not that he hadn’t wanted to teach the occasional guy a thing or two in thirty years on the job. That kind of lesson often involved physically throwing them out the back door, taking them down the alley under the broken lamp over the back of the dry cleaner and dispensing advice by way of a couple of good closed-fisted hits to the mouth.
    He took a still-hot glass from next to the sink and drew a Guinness from the tap. He’d caught the time too late for the beer to be room temperature the way Red liked, but the heat of the glass would take the edge off the cold. He wasn’t out to impress her so much as keep her coming. No matter what her motives were, she’d been showing up like clockwork every Friday night for the past four months, if his memory served him right. It hadn’t taken long for word about why she was there to spread.
    He’d thought her pickin’s were going to be nil until the servers arrived, saying the restaurant they worked for had all but closed early due to slow business. She’d already been picked up on previous, separate occasions by the two guys at the bar—Terry, a regular, and a big blond George didn’t know by name—and apparently, she didn’t “do” repeats.
    The door opened and she stepped inside, bringing the crisp smell of winter and a brief, biting draft with her. She shivered, offering a him a small smile and a quiet thanks. George nodded and set the beer in front of her usual seat at the empty end of the bar.
    Blondie waved as Red shucked her mittens and coat. His smile fell, and George knew from previous experience that she hadn’t so much as looked at him. Terry shook his head and went back to picking at the frayed edge of the paperboard coaster under his Scotch. One of the servers caught her scent like a stray downwind of a pedigree bitch in heat and came to the bar, pulling a handful of bills out of his pocket as he did. Not taking his eyes off her, he ordered a pitcher his table didn’t need, peeled off an extra ten and offered to pay for her beer.
    It happened that fast every time.

Chapter Two
     
    “I miss that mustache you used to have. You looked like the Marlboro man.” Melissa leaned on her elbows over the bar, giving George an eyeful of the breasts that had, as far as he could tell, held up well through one husband, two children and thirty years.
    He would know. He’d seen the original, pre-baby versions up close and personal back when handsome studs still sold cigarettes from billboards and magazine ads, free love was still mostly free and he’d been a very young man reveling in the hedonism of the times.
    He’d come a long way in the three decades since his first foray into the wild world of bar life as a wide-eyed seventeen-year-old kid. He’d sown his share of oats, worked his way up from busboy to bartender to eventually buying the business and the building from its original owner. He married his college sweetheart and raised a son—who’d recently graduated