We’re sat in Terry’s, a bar where my friends and I meet up almost on a weekly basis, well, as much as we can. There’s only a few other people in the bar today besides us, soft voices travel across the small, cosy room while classic rock filters through the decades old Wurlitzer. The bar itself is old and traditional, only minor repairs and refurbishments have been made over the years, the owner wanting to keep it as authentic as possible.
“Okay, so, you know how I mentioned my boss being super-hot?” she asks as she stirs her drink with her straw absentmindedly.
I nod, taking a sip of my coke.
“Well, I... I kissed him.”
I choke on my drink.
“You did what?” Aaron, my other best friend sits beside me, his mouth hanging open, the corners curved up in amusement.
“Well he wasn’t impressed, as you can imagine…” She averts her gaze, her auburn hair creating a curtain around her face as she avoids meeting our eyes. “Turns out he’s gay.”
Aaron and I both burst into a fit of laughter.
“What the hell made you kiss him?”
“I was getting signals from him, every now and then he'd smile and give me a wink, how the hell was I supposed to know that he was giving them to Matthew, the guy who sits directly behind me?”
I shake my head, my laughter dying down. “Oh my God, Gwen.”
“You know, come to think of it, the amount of time Matthew, spent in his office probably should have sounded alarm bells, like, it doesn’t take twenty-five minutes to drop some papers off on his desk.” She ponders for a moment. “One time, I walked in and he was just sat, casually on the edge of my boss' desk, his shirt unbuttoned at the top, his hair an absolute mess.”
“Bet that’s not all he did on that desk,” Aaron snickers.
Gwen casts him an unamused look. “Ew.”
“Sorry you got fired.” I reach for her hand across the table, linking our fingers together like we've always done since we were children.
“Thanks. Oh well, plenty of jobs where that one came from, didn’t really like it anyway.”
For the past two years, Gwen has been fired from six different jobs, all for different reasons, many of which she likes to claim as not her fault. You name any job in the five boroughs of New York and Gwen has most likely been fired from it. This was her second job in four months.
Gwen and I have been friends since we were five years old, joined at the hip, we grew up together, though we're more like sisters than friends. She’s a few inches shorter than my 5’8”, jade green eyes, beautiful deep red hair and a slim but curvy frame. She’s beautiful, and boy does she know it. She has men stopping in the street, staring as she walks by, swinging her hips to add effect.
“If you carry on at the rate you’re going, they’ll be no jobs left, you'll have been fired from them all,” Aaron chimes in.
She flips him the finger, which only makes Aaron and I laugh harder.
We met Aaron when he and his family moved here from California in our sophomore year. Aaron is tall and slender, sporting a thick head of dirty blonde hair that complements his steel grey eyes, his face is slim and symmetrical. He’s attractive, girls fall at his feet, but he's not interested in any of them, I've always wondered why. He dated a girl a couple of years ago while in his first year at NYU, but it only lasted a few months, since then there’s been no one.
Gwen attended college only to drop out a few weeks later, she never did enjoy education, even at school. She was the student who’s excuse of not having any homework was that the dog ate it, though she doesn’t have a dog, that excuse got old pretty quickly which is why she ended up in detention so often. She’s loud, carefree, and doesn’t give a shit what people think about her, she exudes confidence.
For me, I never managed to go, as much as I wanted to, we could never afford it. Since my mom died when I was seventeen, my dad and I have struggled financially, nearly every penny we have has been pooled into savings to pay off my mom's medical bills.
Gwen turns to me. “Anyway, how've you been? We haven’t seen you in forever, you've been working like sixty hours a week.”
“Not quite, but the extra shifts are wearing me out."
For the past few months it’s felt like I’ve been spending ninety percent of my time at work in order to help pay off our debts. I work at my uncle’s diner across the street from Terry’s, it’s not my dream job but I enjoy it well enough, I’m just lucky to even have a job at all. I’m in an endless cycle of work, eat, sleep, repeat. I’m starting to think I should set up camp in the back room, kit it out with a sleeping bag to save the commute to and from work.
“What about asking your uncle for a few hours less?” Gwen asks.
“I can’t afford to, Gwen, I need all the money I can get, besides, I’m the one who asked Uncle Jack for the extra shifts. Though my dad’s talking about going to some casino tonight, he said he could do with some luck so he’s dragging me along with him.” I roll my eyes.
“Mmm… think of all the super-rich, hot guys that’ll be there,” she says dreamily.
“That’s not really the point in going tonight, besides, what is a hot rich guy who can buy just about anything he wants, going to see in me?”
She slaps her palm down on the table, making me jump. “Shut up! You’re gorgeous, inside and out, anyone
