"Kid, you're late." Bart's half smile let Amber know that she wasn't fired, at least not yet anyway.
"I'm only a few seconds late, besides, in a lot of locations it would be called fashionably late."
"Not at the Oasis. Tables six and seven haven't been helped yet. Beware, they look like potential muffins."
"Aren't they all?" She said over her shoulder as she tied her apron around her slim waist. 'Muffin' meant player, and to Amber a player was the exact type of man that left her at the altar over a year ago. She still felt the embarrassment, the humiliation, the degradation, and most of all, the shame for not realizing her fiancé was cheating. Soon after the horrible nuptial nightmare, Amber applied for the waitress position at the Oasis night club where she could be constantly reminded of the kind of guy she never wanted to become involved with again – Muffins.
Bart and Amber had become fast friends right from the start. Bart was married to a nice girl and they had a newborn. He had a lot of insightful wisdom that Amber soaked up like a sponge. Together, they had a lot of fun coming up with the many different types of muffins to suit the types of men that frequented the night club. There were the fruit muffins, kind of sweet but still only after one thing. The corn muffins, who told corny jokes as come-on's, the nut muffins, just plain nuts, and the bran muffins, who were simply too old to be trolling for young women.
Occasionally, she'd run into an actual fruitcake.
She made her way over to the first table where two men sat in their casual suit jackets with crew neck tee shirts underneath. Miami Vice was years ago yet this look never seemed to go out of style. They were staring out in the crowd of dancers as if they were looking for someone in particular.
"Hi there, what can I get you?" She asked in her usual polite voice raised enough to be heard over the music.
Both of their heads turned at the same time and smiles lit up their faces. Amber knew immediately that these were typical male customers. They would no doubt try to pick up on her, and when she 'gracefully' let them down they would move on to other potential conquests. They would eventually find a girl who was willing to dance, and if they were lucky, they'd get lucky. It made Amber sick, and that sick feeling was exactly what she thought she needed to avoid getting into another relationship disaster.
"Well, aren't you just the prettiest thing." The one on the left said, letting his eyes wander her body.
"Man, she's hotter than any girl here." The other one said to his friend, but with his eyes on Amber.
Yep, muffins. "I can hear you, you know. You two should be careful, you might dehydrate from all that drooling. Say, I have an idea, why don't I get you something to drink?" She kept her casual smile as she issued the sarcasm.
"House draft for me, honey."
"Same here, baby."
She walked away with their order and gave it to Bart.
"Was I right?" He asked.
"On the nose. We need a new kind of muffin that describes idiots, Bart." Amber's eyes drifted to the other table she was about to serve. Yep, that's right, two more good looking men, and undoubtedly muffins. She picked up the tray with the beers and took it over to the first two idiots.
"Baby, you look good enough to eat!" The 'baby' man said. His friend followed up with, "What time do you get off, honey?"
Never with you, buddy, she thought to herself. She set the two drinks down and said, "First of all, I'm not on the menu, and secondly, here's a little advice: You can't both try to pick up on me at the same time, and more importantly, neither of you should try to pick up on me at all."
She turned away from them and walked to the next table. Hopefully these two muffins wouldn't be as blatantly stupid. "Hi, what can I get for you?" She said in her usual tone.
"How about your number?" The one on the right asked.
Amber had heard that line so many times it wasn't even funny. She did notice that the guy on the left shook his head and looked down at the table as if he might be embarrassed with the behavior of his friend. She replied with her best Valley Girl impression, "Um, I think you might have missed the free brochure available at the door, right next to our bouncer. It lists the lame pick up lines that died with the dinosaurs." She leaned in closer to the guy and added in her regular voice, "By the way, I've heard 'how about your number' over a thousand times and so has every other girl. You might want to spice it up a bit." She stood up straight and smoothed her apron. "What can I get you boys tonight?"
The other guy looked up into her eyes and said in a calm smooth voice, "We'll just have two regular beers, thanks."
Amber felt caught off guard at the easiness of this one's voice and the way his dark eyes pierced hers with an electrical jolt. Her guard was always up because it had to be, but with this guy, she immediately felt that she didn't need to be processing a come-back. She turned and walked to the bar.
"Two regulars." She told Bart.
Bart was wiping out a glass and looking beyond her head. "More muffins?"
"Yeah, well, one of them is. The other one may not be."
"Would that be the one who hasn't taken his eyes off you since you left the table?"
Her head whirled around to see those sexy dark eyes on her. She looked back at Bart and said with a sigh, "Maybe he is a muffin."
"You like him." He said with an accusatory tone.
"What?"
"I think you like him."
"That's ridiculous. I don't even know him. He's probably just like all the other men in this joint."
"Hey, that's not nice."
"Except you, Bart." She smiled and took the drinks over to the table.
After she set the drinks down, she looked at the one on the left and asked, "Can I get you anything else?"
"No, thanks." His eyes twinkled momentarily then he looked down at his beer.
Amber left the table and headed to another one that had just filled with several girls.
"Damn, she's hot!" Stewie said to Cole.
"What was with that idiotic line, 'how 'bout your number'? What are you, twelve?" Cole always knew Stewie was a bit forward, but he had to agree with the waitress, Stewie needed to spice it up a bit.
"I don't know, but it was worth a try. Check out the girls at that table. I think I'll try the blond with the short hair." Stewie drank a few swallows from his mug and got up and left.
Cole sat there for the next hour and watched the beautiful waitress while he nursed his beer. At one point, the music lulled at the same time the bartender called out her name. Amber – a very fitting name. Amber had a natural beauty about her that screamed of Greek Goddess. Her legs went on forever and the clingy see through top left very little to the imagination. Her golden hair bounced and shimmered under the many different colored lights as she walked and Cole couldn't see any other girl in the entire club even half as pretty as her. He overheard her quick-witted comebacks to other male customers which told him she was intelligent and clever and not to mention funny. So why was a girl like her working in a place like this?
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