The Waiter by Bradleigh Collins (bill gates books recommendations .txt) 📕

been living together for about two weeks and I would meet his family tomorrow. I was extremely nervous, but he was quick to reassure me. “Trust me. I love you. They’ll love you.”

I called to tell him I was on my way home. He was studying.

“We’re meeting everyone at five at Carmine’s.”

“Okay,” he said. “Hey, if you leave right this second, we’ll have time for me to give you something to really be thankful for.”

“I’m heading to the subway right now.”

When I got to the apartment, it was spotless. He had cleaned everything from top-to-bottom and done all the laundry.

“Okay, this is amazing and you are perfect, but when you said you’d give me something to be thankful for, I assumed it involved you being naked.”

“Oh, it does. I just figured you’d be even more thankful if the sheets were clean.”

“I adore you.”

“I adore you too, Red.” He walked me the short distance from the living room into our pristinely clean bedroom. “Let’s do this Thanksgiving thing.”

An hour and a half later, we joined the rest of our group at Carmine’s for family-sized portions of Penne Alla Vodka, Chicken Marsala, Manicotti and pitcher after pitcher of frozen cosmos. Afterwards, we were all so stuffed that we welcomed the ten-block walk down to the Museum of Natural History for the balloon inflation. I had watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade every year for as long as I can remember. But being this up close and personal with the giant balloons made it special. I took tons of photos and we all laughed hysterically as Josh narrated the inner monologue of each balloon character in his best “Cartman” from Southpark voice.

The weather was ridiculously warm for late November. It had been in the mid-60s all day and thankfully I didn’t need a coat to go with my black floral cheongsam dress I’d purchased in Chinatown. I wore it with my black Nine West knee boots. When I got dressed, The Waiter told me I looked like a sexy militant geisha.

First stop on our post-balloon-inflation-pub-crawl was Vermouth Lounge at 77th & Amsterdam. This was also the site of mine and The Waiter’s first kiss. Katie and Lucy insisted on a re-enactment with Josh playing the role of the M7 bus interrupting us. After martinis at Vermouth, we headed to McAleer’s Pub. By ten-thirty, we had reached our final destination - The Parlour. Jimmy was working the door. I introduced him to The Waiter.

“Darryl’s inside doing karaoke,” Jimmy said. “My ears are bleeding. Please make him stop.”

We laughed as we all made our way over to the bar to find Darryl belting out “Sweet Child of Mine” and dancing like Axl Rose.

“Oh, this is a train wreck,” Josh stated.

“I like Darryl,” Kyle said. “He’s always drunk, but he’s funny as hell.”

“Yeah,” Lucy agreed. “He kinda grows on you, doesn’t he?”

“Like mold,” Katie said.

We ordered a round of drinks and cheered for Darryl. This was a mistake, because he insisted on singing “Paradise City” next. Darryl was a terrible singer, but he had the entire bar whipped into a frenzy and singing at the top of their lungs.

When the song was over, we all greeted Darryl with hi-fives and hugs.

“I have to pee like a Russian racehorse,” The Waiter said. “I’ll be right back.”

I sat on a barstool next to Lucy. “I just love watching him walk away.”

“Yeah, he’s got a great ass.” Then she grabbed my arm. “Oh my fuck! Speaking of asses.”

She motioned towards the door. I looked over. My heart stopped. It was Dalton. He was handing Jimmy his I.D. Then I saw who was with him. It was Rhonda. All the blood in my body suddenly rushed to my face.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” I said loudly enough for Josh and Katie to take notice.

“Holy shit,” Josh responded when he saw Dalton. “This is so not good.”

“Why is he here?” Katie asked. “And who is that?”

“That’s Rhonda. He fucking brought her up here this weekend because he knew I would be here tonight. I hate him.”

As Jimmy checked Rhonda’s I.D., Josh and Kyle started taking bets on who was going to win the fight between Dalton and The Waiter.

“Man, I don’t know,” Josh said. “Dalton’s a black belt, but I’ve seen this guy in the boxing ring.”

I was starting to panic. “Nobody is fighting because we’re leaving.”

“Wait, why do we have to leave?” Josh said. “This is our place.”

He was right. This was our place. Dalton had come here specifically just to parade Rhonda around in front of me. And to get a look at The Waiter, I’m sure. I didn’t want to leave, but I knew if we stayed, things were going to get ugly. Fast.

“If you wanna leave Sam, I’ll go with you,” Lucy said.

“Me too,” Katie agreed. It was too late, though. Dalton and Rhonda were already right in front of us.

“Well, this is awkward,” Dalton said. Rhonda couldn’t even make eye contact with me.

“Dalton, what are you doing here?”

“It’s a public place, Sam. Happy Thanksgiving. You remember Rhonda, don’t you?”

I felt like I’d been hit in the face with a sledgehammer. I knew he’d been waiting for this moment. The moment he could slowly twist the knife that was permanently imbedded in my gut. I knew what he was trying to do, yet I couldn’t help myself from responding exactly the way he wanted me to. Like I cared.

“Yeah Dalton, how could I forget Rhonda? I believe you fucked her right after my dad died and then lied to me about it. Is that right? Or was it one of your other groupies? I really can’t keep up.”

“Why are you being such a bitch, Sam?” he said.

Before I could even respond, Darryl stepped in front of me and punched Dalton hard in the face. So hard, in fact, that he fell backwards and hit the ground.

“Who’s the bitch now?” Darryl said as he stood over him.

Dalton immediately jumped up and went after Darryl just as