dnf oneshots

34. angel shot

I nodded. "Well, uh, what's your name?"

He cut me a hard glare. "Earn it," he snapped. "I don't just go around telling random bartenders my name."

I called him Angel in my head. And not just because he ordered the angel shot; he was angelical too. I mean, in a flouncy white shirt that looked ridiculously expensive and black skinny jeans, he didn't belong here. He looked too fancy. Too pretty. Most people who hung around the club wore dresses so short their butt hung out the back, or baggy jeans and plaid.

Straight people.

Well, that's what they wore unless they worked there. Bartenders had to wear button-up shirts and slacks, and strippers wore lace and skin-tight polyester. Bouncers wore tuxedos, and gamblers that frequented the games tables always wore whatever was in style, to blend in. Would you believe it if I said the club hired them to make more money?

Probably.

Half the time, I saw gamblers rake in thousands of dollars, and take off with most of it at the end of the night. Management knew nothing of it.

"How'd you end up in this hellhole?" Angel asked, drawing my attention back to him.

"What do you mean?" I asked, turning to prepare a drink for an older man who sat down nearby.

Angel watched him out of the corner of his eye. "I mean why work here, and not up there?" He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of a pretty redhead playing with her bra straps.

My nose curled. "Why would I work up there?"

He laughed. God, he had a nice laugh. "You have the face for it," he teased. I laughed awkwardly and turned away, hiding the bright red color to my cheeks. He just giggled.

Neither of us spoke. Men cheered as the girl threw her bra into the crowd, and I rolled my eyes. I never knew who I felt worse for until recently: did 50-year-old men really have nothing better to do than watch a girl just barely over 21 take off her clothes for their entertainment?

"But seriously," Angel spoke again as I wiped down the counter. "Why here?"

I shrugged. "Good pay."

"It's a shithole full of old men watching girls half their age rip off their underwear, and straight people dancing so close you'd think they were getting fucked if not for their clothes," he said, sliding his empty glass across the counter. "Do you make smoothies?"

No.

"I can."

"Thanks. But it's genuinely an awful workplace, why on earth would you put up with this?"

I shrugged again. "Why are you here tonight?" I asked.

He sighed and rested his head against the counter. "Friend's birthday."

"Sounds fun."

He scoffed. "Sure. Would you believe I'm the friend, and I wanted to go mini golfing?" He rolled his eyes and looked away. "Landed in America two weeks ago, and they're already dragging me to a fucking strip club."

That explained his accent.

His accent was sexy as hell.

"Happy birthday?"

He looked up at me, brown eyes sparkling under the strobe lights. "Thanks," he muttered. "You're quite literally the first to say that today, and it's nearly midnight."

Colored lights flickered overhead, bad dubstep pounded through the room as the show closed, but here was Angel, resting against a counter with some random bartender hovering nearby, sad and alone on his birthday. And I felt awful.