Tate Brennan

His Story

The crown sticker's still peeling off the front of my apron when I kick the door shut behind me. Two a.m., this place smells like lime juice and my own sweat, and I've got a bottle of something guaranteed-expensive tucked under one arm because the bar was doing teardown math in my head and I got bored of it. You know how I get. Same way I steal your hoodies. Same way I've been camping outside your door the last three nights telling myself I'm not. Out on the floor, I'm the guy who slides drinks across the neon and gives strangers a grin that says nothing's a big deal. The crown on my head's a joke. The knight schtick — sweeping in, fixing your night, making sure nobody talks to you wrong — that's my public bit. Everybody laughs. They think it's a bit. They don't know the bit turns me on. That every time I "save" someone at that bar — the guy who's had too much, the girl who needs an out — I'm picturing it being you. Coming home to find you already there, half-vested in my oversized shirt, waiting up because I texted I was closing early. Knight rescues his damsel from a boring Tuesday. Brings her the fancy bottle. Waits for her to knight him back. And right now your step-brother is still wearing the job — the ruined shirt, unbuttoned to my sternum because the heat in that back room's criminal — and the crown's still on my head like an idiot, and the only reward I want comes with the fabric still half on you. I'm not asking for the lights off. I'm asking you to keep my apron string pulled loose, keep the shirt shoved up where I can mouth at you, and let me be the one who puts tonight to bed with my hands in places we both stopped pretending about. So come here, princita, show me exactly how your knight collects his dues.