Page 8 of Playing the Backbeat

“It’s out of my control,” I say, sounding an awful lot like my therapist. I haven’t spoken with him for over a year. When my undiagnosed OCD peaked in college, I finally made my first appointment with Nick. He gave me a name for everything I was struggling with, helped me recognize my triggers, provided resources to combat my persistent thoughts and compulsions, and told me to call him anytime once we decided I was ready to discontinue regular appointments.

Losing my apartment and my uncertain future at the Bridge have sent my stress levels soaring. I recognize the signs. The ruminating. The handwashing. The counting. The checking. The redoing.

Maybe it’s time to give Nick a call. Proverbial shit hitting the fan and all.

Dom’s sigh and pinched expression tell me he wants to say more, but he knows I’m right. It’s not like either one of us can force Ed to sell the Bridge to me.

“So, what’s little man up to these days?” I ask, leaning back before thanking the server as he drops off a basket of wings at our table.

Dom lights up like he always does when he talks about his son Luca. He turned two last month. His family is his everything.

I love seeing my friend happy, but this nagging jealousy pricks at my side. It’s been tough witnessing my friends having their dreams realized while mine fall just out of reach. I’ve sacrificed a lot, including a social life, to pursue this dream. To manage the Bridge to the best of my ability. It was a steep learning curve for a kid out of college, and now that I’ve grown with the business, I make it my priority. The idea of someone else getting to pick up the reins if they’re unexpectantly ripped away from me makes my stomach tighten and twist into knots. My hands twist, and I pick at the patch of dry skin on the side of my finger from constant handwashing. Another reminder of the stress piling up, making itself known in familiar ways.

I shove all that restlessness—that helplessness—down and listen to Dom. It’s hard to focus on the details of my own life imploding as he mimics Luca. Good God, Dominic isdancing…in the middle of the restaurant.Dancinglike his two-year-old. With a gleam in his eye and his grin so wide his cheeks probably hurt, he acts out Luca’s best dance moves. That kid keeps him and Ellie on their toes, that’s for sure.

I welcome the distraction as he shows me pictures of his family’s visit to pick out pumpkins last week. I’d rather focus on all the good happening in my friends’ lives than think about the dumpster fire consuming mine.

Dom distracts me with hilarious updates on his kid throughout our meal, but then he’s right back to business. Pulling out his phone and finding another three apartments for us to visit today, in hopes I can add my name to even more waitlists.

I can’t help but feel like my entire life has been me on a waitlist. Waiting for the real thing to begin.

Unbidden, Dee’s face flashes in my mind. Her laughing behind the bar last night. I wish I had her carefree attitude. She’d no doubt have the owner eating out of the palm of her hand in three minutes flat. Just like she does everyone else.

Chapter three

Dee

“So, what’s the plan?” My cousin, Morgan, asks as she puts on her coat.

“Thisis the plan,” I say, gesturing around me. “We’re killing some homework, binge-watching trash TV, eating too much candy, and staying up way too late making prank phone calls.”

Morgan glares at me. “Hilarious. It’s like you don’t want to ever be allowed to babysit ever again. What’s the planfor your career, not the sleepover?”

“Talk about a buzzkill. Your mom really needs to lighten up,” I say like the smart-ass I am, nudging Emi gently in her side with my elbow, making her giggle.

“What’s a buzzkill?” she asks.

“When you kill a bee. How shitty, right?” I ask, outraged.

“Yeah, that’s shitty. They’re really important for the environment.”

I give Morgan a look, tilting my head toward her daughter. “She gets it.”

“Mom says you shouldn’t have been working in that soul-sucking job anyway.”

“Oh really?” I ask. Ever since Emi hit the fourth grade, she’s become the worst secret keeper. It’s not like my cousin Morgan or her husband Kai are huge gossips, but they have to watch everything they say now, because the kid will recite the entire damn thing like a Shakespearean monologue.

Morgan lets out a deep sigh. “You are both hell-bent on half listening to me. What I said was…well, okay, that time I did actually mean what you think I meant. They never treated you right there to begin with. They always had you fighting to prove yourself, when you were already working three times as hard as your coworkers.”

“Did I have a corner office at Keller’s? No, but I got all the secondhand sunlight I needed from my cubicle. I was living the dream.”

“Do you mean indirect sunlight?” Morgan asks with a laugh.

“Same thing.” I shrug.

“I think this could be a good thing,” she says, voice serious. “Starting over. Finding somewhere new that treats its employees better.

“This elusive job you speak of,” I say, giving a wiggle of my fingers in the air. “How exactly do I find it?”