Page 1 of Handful

Chapter 1

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— Austen —

“Old Fashioned, extra cherry. Manhattan, up. Two fingers of Macallan 18, neat. And a vodka soda—top shelf, she doesn’t care which one as long as it costs more than her Botox.” I rattled off the ticket without looking up, hands already moving. Friday night at The Velvet Hour was always chaos, but it was the kind of chaos I’d trained for. The kind I thrived in.

I built the Old Fashioned while Jamie, my barback, worked the other end of the bar. Sugar cube, a few dashes of Angostura, a splash of water—muddled right in the glass. Two ounces of Bulleit, one fat ice cube, a slow stir. Orange peel expressed over the top, extra cherry dropped in after.

A server appeared. “Austen, table seven wants to know if we have any 1942.”

I glanced over at table seven: four women, every cell out, one of them tilting her glass toward the overhead light for a better angle. I’d clocked them the moment they sat down. “Tell them we’re saving the last bottle for someone who won’t Instagram it.”

“I can’t tell them that.”

“Fine. Tell them we’re temporarily out. Which we are, because I’m hiding it in the back.”

She grinned and disappeared back into the crowd. The Velvet Hour was packed tonight — real estate agents networking, a cluster of art crowd types, the usual Friday night aspirational influencers photographing drinks they’d ordered for the aesthetic. And in the corner booth, a birthday group getting progressively louder.

My domain. My kingdom. Or at least the kingdom I managed on behalf of the owners, who were smart enough to stay out of my way.

I finished the Manhattan, slid it across the bar to the waiting server, and turned to pour the Macallan. The bottle caught the light as I tilted it — amber and gold, smooth as silk. Forty dollars a dram, and worth every cent.

This was my life. The one I’d planned for, not the one my parents had mapped out. They’d wanted academic careers and literary futures for their children; I’d wanted a bar. The business degree had been our compromise — it gave me the numbers, the logistics, the language for talking to investors — but the real education had happened nights and weekends behind bars that were nothing like this one.

Three years ago I’d finally landed the job I’d been training for my whole life. The Velvet Hour was upscale without being pretentious, busy without being overwhelming. The tips were excellent, the hours were reasonable, and the clientele mostly kept their hands to themselves.

Mostly.

“Austen.” Derek, my floor manager, appeared at my elbow. “Two guys just walked in. Bikers, from the look of them. They’re asking to sit at the bar.”

I didn’t look up from the vodka soda I was building. “So seat them.”

“They’re… not exactly our usual clientele.”

“Are they paying?”

“Presumably.”

“Then seat them.” I added a lime wheel to the glass, inspected my work, and finally met Derek’s worried eyes. “We don’t discriminate based on wardrobe choices.”

“I know, but—”

“Seat them, Derek.”

He sighed and retreated. I allowed myself a small smile. Derek was a good floor manager — kept the room moving, knew when to cut someone off, could clear a table of lingering drinkers without making a scene — but he had a tendency to judge books by their covers. Bikers in an upscale cocktail lounge weren’t his preferred demographic.

But money was money, and The Velvet Hour hadn’t become one of the top-rated bars in the Millfield by turning away customers who dressed differently.

I finished up the round of drinks, sent them off with the server, and turned to greet my new arrivals.

And stopped.

Because I recognized that face.

That grin. That infuriating grin.

And the tattoos. I remembered them too - pin-up girls down both arms, cartoonish, retro. Exactly what you’d expect.