Effortless (Less Is More Book 3) Page 2

  ***

  From the time I leave work until the time I get back to my apartment, the smile on my face doesn’t waver. Work was already great, but today just felt like an undeserved blessing. I open the door and realize that the day was way too good to be true.

  “Hello, Samuel,” my mom says as I walk in the door.

  Kelsey forces a small smile as I set my satchel on the kitchen table. Out of all the days that my parents would feel the need to visit, they chose today.

  “Wasn’t expecting you guys.”

  “We were in the city and thought we would stop in and see you guys,” Dad says from the chair. “We were just getting ready to go out to eat.”

  “You guys have fun,” I say.

  “You don’t want to go?” Mom asks me.

  “I have a lot of stuff to prepare for before tomorrow. I had a late lunch, too.”

  Kelsey rolls her eyes at me as I make my way into the living room and take a drink of my water. I smile at her and turn on my heel down the hallway towards my bedroom.

  When I was sixteen, I came out to everyone that was in the vicinity of hearing my voice. My parents had thrown me a birthday party and invited everyone that they had ever met basically. I didn’t know more than half of them and, overall, it was one of the worst parties of my life.

  As I went to go inside to get away from everyone, my mom told me that I was being rude and needed to talk to everyone. I walked over to where they had a microphone set up for a band that they had hired to perform for everyone, and I smiled.

  “Everyone,” I said, “thank you all for being here. I don’t know any of you, but thank you. My mother said that I should talk to everyone, since it is my party and being rude would just be unacceptable. So, I’d like to make an announcement. You all probably know how proud my parents are of me for becoming the sweet, robotic child that they’ve always wanted, but what you probably… no, what you definitely do not know is that I’m gay. Mr. and Mrs. Richards, right over there by the dessert table, their son is, too; he proved the fact a couple weeks ago at his sixteenth birthday party. If anyone else would like to talk to me, I’ll be in the house.”

  When I turned seventeen, my parents found out that I had a boyfriend. I had only been seeing him for a few months, but when they found out, he suddenly ended up moving away. My parents paid this kid, I later found out, to switch schools because he didn’t fit in with our lifestyle.

  “Our son is going to be successful,” they said. “It’s fine that he is gay, but he needs someone who won’t drag him down. He needs someone like us.”

  My parents still don’t know that I know what they did. My sister doesn’t know that I even had a boyfriend in high school. She has no idea why I really resent my parents, and she never will. It’s not just the fact that they think they are better, but they are truly what is wrong with the world as far as human decency goes. I only go to Thanksgiving to see my grandparents who are literally the opposite of my mom and dad.

  When the day comes that my grandparents pass, the only time that my parents will ever see me is when they feel the need to show up unannounced like today.

  I lie back onto the bed and look up at the ceiling. I didn’t realize how much everyone hated Elizabeth. She has always been fine towards me since I started working there, so it really comes as a surprise that she’s this huge bitch.

  I think again about Braxton and the others. If anyone should have gotten this position, it should’ve been him. I may be talented, but I’ve never once shown a talent to lead a group of people. I’m nervous and thrilled at the same time, but I just hope taking someone else’s job doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass in the end.

  Chapter Two

  Oliver

  I HEAR A CRACK AS I ROLL off of the bed and fall onto a small box filled with sunglasses and hats.

  “Shit.” I get onto my feet and look down to see the frames on my favorite pair of glasses cracked.

  “Are you OK?” Sadie says, opening the door with one hand, while her toothbrush is in the other.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I just rolled off again.”

  “Stop running in your sleep, Oliver,” she says. “You’re gonna end up cracking your fuckin’ head off your nightstand.”

  She makes her way back into the bathroom, and I laugh as I hear her play some music.

  Sadie has been my best friend since high school, and when I found out that Eddie had been cheating on me for over a year, she punched him in the nose, we packed up all my stuff, and she moved to the city with me to start over. Sadie’s blood-red hair and nose-stud aren’t just for looks; she’s the definition of a bitch that you don’t want to fuck with.

  I check my phone that’s on the nightstand and see a missed phone call from Eddie, along with a text that he just sent before I woke up.

  Eddie: Call me, I’m so sorry. We need to talk.

  I throw the phone on the bed and close my eyes as I try to process where I’m going to put all of the stuff that is scattered throughout the different boxes in my room. Sadie and I just moved in a few days ago, and I have made no effort at all to unpack.

  It’s been a few months since Eddie and I broke up, but he still won’t leave me alone. To be perfectly honest, I lost all respect and whatever love I felt for him the day that I found out what he had been doing. The fact that he messages me everyday now is starting to get pathetic and piss me off.

  I make my way to the door and trip over a box that’s sticking into the hallway. Sadie laughs as she hears me fall, so I hit the bathroom door and make my way into the kitchen.

  “I need to go get some new clothes,” Sadie says, making her way out of the bathroom and into the living room.

  Just recently, Sadie’s book got a publishing deal at a newer publishing house in the city called Brenson & Bracket. That means two things: she’ll be successful here soon, and she’ll probably end up moving away.

  “I can go with you,” I say. “Just let me shower first.”

  ***

  “I just need some nicer stuff,” Sadie says, walking down the aisle. “All my clothes are for working out basically from where I worked at the gym.”

  “How fancy are we talking?” I grab a black dress off the rack and hold it up to her. She shakes her head from side to side, and I laugh as I put it back on the rack.

  “Stuff like this,” she says, holding up a cute, cream-colored blouse. “What about you? Do you need anything new?”

  “No.” I make my way over to the dress pants and hand her a pair of black ones in her size. “They all wear the same shirt and just jeans. It’s very laid back.”

  “That’s good,” she says.

  Sadie leans on her left foot and twirls a strand of her hair as she thinks about the shirt that she has in her hands. I can always tell when she’s deep in thought because she practically pulls the hair out of her head.

  “I can’t remember if I already have this,” she says. “Jesus, we really need to unpack everything.”

  “I hope to get most of it done tomorrow.” I make my way to the other side of the rack and throw a dress over to her. “I don’t start my job until Friday, so I have a few days.”

  “Have you heard from him?” she asks me.

  “He called me and texted me this morning,” I say, making my way behind her into the shoe aisle. “The phone call is new. This whole week it has just been texts.”

  “He’s such a fuck,” she says. “Just a stupid little fuck.”

  “I don’t know why he is being like this. He was never this clingy when we were together. And I’m not that great either, so I don’t understand what his deal is.”

  “Whatever, Oliver,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You’re a goddamn catch, and you know it. He knows it, too, so he’s trying to get you back.”

  “Well,” I say, pulling a pair of heels that are her size off the shelf, “good luck to him. He’s basically ruined men for me in general at this point. The thought of another relationship makes me want to vomit.
”

  “It’s not fair,” she says.

  “What?”

  “That he ruined your views like that.” She tries on the heels, and her eyes grow wide when she looks at the price tag. “Love is one of the greatest things you can experience, and the fact that he ruined the idea for you is bullshit.”

  “If love is so great,” I smile, “why haven’t you found it yet?”

  “I have way too much going on right now. I’m not sure what’s going to happen the next few months with this book. It’s either going to bomb or soar, and I can’t have a relationship mixed up in all that. Besides, I get my dick on the regular, so I’m fine.”

  “I’m glad Gregor’s isn’t a gay-bar,” I say as we make our way to the registers. “Honestly, this is going to be the first bartending job where I don’t get hit on every second.”

  “You know you like it. Besides, you don’t have to be a bartender. I’ve never heard of someone having their masters in business, but they choose to be a bartender.”

  I shrug my shoulders. “I like it. I like all the different people that I get to meet and the money can be really good.”

  “You can make a mean long island, I’ll give you that.”

  After Sadie pays for her clothes, we make our way a few stores over to a seafood restaurant called Undertow. There’s a giant, fake octopus mounted against the wall when you walk in, and the lights are so dim that I almost run into it.

  “You’re rather clumsy today,” Sadie says as she scoots into the booth. I don’t say anything, and she looks up at me over her menu. “What is it, Oliver?”

  “Nothing.”

  She lays her menu down and cups her hands on the table. “Tell me or I won’t order anything, and I’ll sit here until they kick me out.”

  “It’s just a lot of changes: moving here and just uprooting, basically.”

  “It will be worth it,” she says, picking her menu up again. “We don’t even know a fraction of the opportunities that are waiting for us here in this big, beautiful city. Even if what happened to you would not have happened, I would still probably be here because of everything that’s going on. I really think it’s a good thing.”

  I laugh. “Do you reaaaally?”

  “Don’t mock me, fucker.”

  “I think it will be good, too. It all just happened so quickly, and I’m not used to change happening that quick, I guess.”

  “Get used to it my gorgeous gay friend, because this city is going to leave you with nothing, but a roller coaster full of change.”

  ***

  I wake up and, thankfully, don’t break anything else in my cluster-fuck of a bedroom. I sit up and pout, looking around the room and wishing that everything was magically put away into its own place.

  I look at my phone and see no phone call or text messages from Eddie.

  So far so good, I think to myself.

  I get up and start rummaging through my boxes of clothes, first. Thank God I don’t have to wear anything nice to work, because I don’t have any dress clothes, either. I find a shirt of Eddie’s and throw it in the trash as I fold the box up and stack it behind the door. I thought I got rid of most of his stuff that I had when I moved out of my apartment, but I guess I didn’t, and I’m not looking forward to what else I find.

  When I was twelve, my mom found out that my dad was cheating on her. To my knowledge, they were the happiest couple on the face of the Earth. They never fought in front of me or did anything that would lead me on to the idea that something was wrong in their marriage.

  My mom packed up our things and left him. We moved a few states away to Illinois, and I started a whole new life in a whole new school. Sadie and I quickly became good friends, and she’s really the only reason I was able to smoothly transition into this new life I was forced into.

  My mom never spoke badly about my dad once we did leave. She told me the truth about why we left, but she never said that he was a bad guy or that I couldn’t see him if I wanted to. I continued to see him every once in awhile, but I always remembered throughout the years what he did, and I never forgave him for that.

  When I had found out that Eddie had been cheating on me for a while, I felt ridiculous and stupid, because I was following my mom’s footsteps basically. But like her, I immediately distanced myself from the situation and moved on. It stills hurts, but it happened for a reason, and I’m still waiting to find out what that reason is.

  I find a box of old pictures, and the first picture I find on top is one of Eddie and I. I take the picture out of the frame and rip the picture up. The frame is too nice for a picture like that.

  “You really didn’t have a lot of stuff,” Sadie says, opening the door a crack and smiling down at me.

  “I know.” I throw the box onto the bed and start taking the pictures out one by one as I place them on my shelf beside my bed. “I mean you already had a couch and literally everything else that was needed for every room, besides my own.”

  “I’m still surprised you sold it all, though.” She looks down into the trash and sees the shirt and the picture. “Well, maybe not crazy surprised, I guess.”

  “Once I get everything situated in here I can come help you with the living room and kitchen.”

  “Alright, buddy,” she says. She goes to shut the door, but opens it back up a smidge. “Things are going to start getting better, Olli. Better for the both of us.”

  My phone dings, and I roll my eyes. I walk over to my nightstand and see a new message from Eddie.

  Eddie: I’m gonna win you back! I’ll make it up to you, I promise!

  I realize that all I have to do to make this go away is one simple thing: block his number. I Google how to actually block someone on my phone and click on his name. I let out a deep breath and set my phone back down.

  As I get a few feet from my bedroom door, my phone goes off again. I close my eyes and gently hit my head against the wall. I walk back over to where my phone is and look down. It’s a message from my mom, and a huge rush of relief rolls through me.

  Mom: Miss you, Olli. Let me know if you guys need anything and tell Sadie I said hi. Love ya!

  My mom is surrounded by her family everywhere you look back home, so I didn’t feel too guilty about moving away from her. I’ll have to make sure I invite her to the city once we’re settled in, though.

  I walk into the living room and laugh when I see Sadie lying on her back with her arms spread out.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” I ask her.

  “There’s too much shit, Olli. I just can’t do it.”

  “You, literally, just started.”

  She leans up onto her elbows and blows a piece of hair out of her face. “I already need a break.”

  I lift a box up and set it to the side. “Moving is the hard part. Unpacking is supposed to be the fun part.”

  “If this is going to be fun,” she says, using air quotes like a small child, “we’re going to need to have a few drinks. I can’t do this sober; I just can’t.”

  ***

  It’s Friday night and my first official night as the new bartender at Gregor’s Pub. I walk into the backdoor behind the building and make my way to the boss’s office.

  “Hey, man,” Bruce says as I knock on this side of his doorway.

  Bruce is in his late fifties I would say and always has a smile on his face. His head is shaved, and he’s in better shape than I could ever imagine being in.

  Bottom line: Bruce is nice to look at and, thankfully, he is straight, because it would be hard to look at him for hours without thinking about becoming more than just his associate.

  I lean against the doorway with my arms crossed, and I say, “Is it busy out there tonight?”

  “Actually,” he says, getting up out of his chair, “not really. We’re never super busy anyway, but tonight, it’s just regulars from what I’ve seen. There’s a game tonight, and we don’t have any TVs. More might come later, though, but I doubt it.”

 
We make our way down the hallway towards the bar. I look out into the crowd of people and see that there really aren’t a lot of people tonight. That sucks, because I won’t make very good tips, but it’s also good because I don’t want to be overwhelmed on my first night.

  “The only people who you will really serve on a one-on-one basis are the people who sit at the bar,” Bruce says. He lifts the little blockade up that blocks people from getting into the bar and moves towards the register. “We serve food until around ten or so. It really just depends on how busy we are and how hungry people are. After ten, people stop getting waited on and they’ll come up to you if they want something.”

  A girl turns around by the register and smiles as she looks over at me.

  “This is Jess,” Bruce says. “She’ll be training you for the next few days. You’ll love her, I promise.”

  “Hi.” Jess sticks out her hand. “You picked a good night to get trained. Not a lot of people.”

  Jess has beautiful, copper-brown hair and her teeth glisten under the overhead lights.

  Bruce makes his way out of the bar area, and he stops at a few tables before he makes his way back down the hallway towards his office.

  “He said that it’s never that busy here.” I point over my shoulder towards Bruce’s office and she laughs.

  “Not on game nights,” she says. “We’re getting TVs set up soon, so after that, I’m guessing we’ll have a lot more people. Everyone loves it here, but they also like their sports.” She nods over my shoulder to guy with a ten-dollar bill in between his fingertips.

  “What can I get ya?” I ask the guy.

  “Whiskey sour,” he says.

  “Let’s see what you can do,” Jess says.

  She leans back against the counter of the bar and crosses her arms. I smile and focus my attention back to the guy at the bar.