Chapter 6: Her Turf, Her Rules

The neon sign outside Murphy's Tavern flickered erratically, casting intermittent red light across the cracked sidewalk. Julian stood at the entrance, adjusting his cufflinks for the third time in as many minutes, acutely aware that his tailored charcoal suit made him look like he'd taken a wrong turn from a board meeting.

"You coming in or just gonna stand there looking pretty?" Chloe appeared in the doorway, work apron already tied around her waist, amusement dancing in her eyes. "Fair warning—the AC's been broken for a week, so that fancy suit of yours is about to get intimate with some serious humidity."

The interior of Murphy's was everything the Multnomah Whiskey Library wasn't—loud, chaotic, and unapologetically unpretentious. The floors were sticky with decades of spilled beer, the walls covered in a hodgepodge of sports memorabilia and band posters held up with duct tape. A jukebox in the corner blasted classic rock while a group of construction workers argued good-naturedly over a pool game.

Julian felt every eye in the place turn toward him as he followed Chloe to the bar. Conversations didn't exactly stop, but they definitely quieted as regulars took in his appearance with varying degrees of suspicion and amusement.

"Holy shit, Chloe," called out a woman with purple hair and paint-stained overalls. "You didn't tell us you were dating a lawyer."

"Investment banker," suggested another patron. "Look at those shoes."

"Definitely corporate," agreed a third. "Has that 'I've never done manual labor' vibe."

Chloe grinned, clearly enjoying Julian's discomfort. "Everyone, meet Julian. He's my... business partner. Julian, meet everyone."

The collective greeting ranged from friendly nods to skeptical grunts. Julian managed a stiff wave that only seemed to confirm their suspicions about his unsuitability for dive bar culture.

"Right," Chloe said, ducking behind the bar and grabbing a spare apron. "You wanted to understand how I work? Time for a crash course." She tossed the apron at him. "Put that on and try not to look like someone's holding you at gunpoint."

Julian caught the apron, staring at it like it might bite him. "You want me to... work?"

"It's called learning, professor. You showed me your world, now I'm showing you mine." Chloe was already moving, restocking beer coolers with practiced efficiency. "Friday night rush starts in about an hour. Hope you can keep up."

The next sixty minutes were a blur of instruction delivered at machine-gun pace. Chloe showed him the beer taps, the well liquor setup, the register system that looked like it predated the internet. Every explanation was delivered while she multitasked—wiping down surfaces, restocking glasses, setting up garnish trays.

"Forget everything you know about precision pours," she said, demonstrating her technique with a bottle of whiskey. "Speed and consistency matter more than measuring to the milliliter. These people want their drinks fast and strong, not Instagram-worthy."

Julian watched her work with growing fascination. There was an art to her movements—economical, fluid, never wasted motion. When she built a whiskey and Coke, it was poetry in motion: ice, pour, top, garnish, slide across the bar to the waiting customer in under ten seconds.

"Your turn," she said, stepping aside. "Mrs. Rodriguez wants her usual—Bud Light and a shot of Jameson."

Julian approached the beer tap like it might explode. His first attempt produced more foam than beer, earning a sympathetic chuckle from Mrs. Rodriguez, a woman in her sixties who'd apparently been coming to Murphy's since before Julian was born.

"Less angle, honey," she advised kindly. "And don't be afraid of it—it's just beer, not a bomb."

By the time the Friday night crowd arrived in earnest, Julian was sweating through his expensive shirt and questioning every life choice that had led him to this moment. The bar filled with a diverse mix of blue-collar workers, artists, students, and neighborhood regulars who all seemed to know each other's names, drinks, and personal dramas.

"Two Buds, a rum and Coke, and something fruity for the lady!" someone shouted from the end of the bar.

Chloe was already moving, but she caught Julian's eye. "You got the Buds?"

He nodded, grabbing two bottles and popping them open with movements that were getting smoother with practice. The rum and Coke was trickier—his instinct was to measure precisely, but the customer was tapping impatiently on the bar and three more orders were backing up behind him.

"Just pour, trust your eye," Chloe called out while simultaneously making what looked like a complicated layered shot. "It doesn't have to be perfect, just good."

The shift blurred together—a constant stream of simple drinks served to people who wanted efficiency over artistry. Julian found himself falling into a rhythm, muscle memory developing in real time. His movements became less deliberate, more instinctive. When someone ordered a beer and a shot, his hands moved automatically to grab both while his mind processed the next order.

"Not bad for a fancy boy," observed Tony, one of the construction workers who'd been skeptical earlier. "You're starting to look like you belong back there."

Julian realized with surprise that he was actually enjoying himself. The work was different from his usual meticulous craft—faster, rougher, more immediate—but there was satisfaction in serving drinks that people actually wanted to consume rather than photograph.

Around midnight, the crowd finally thinned enough for Chloe to flip the sign to "Last Call." Julian's shirt was soaked with sweat, his hair disheveled, and his expensive shoes were sticky with spilled beer. He looked nothing like the polished mixologist who'd walked in four hours earlier.

"So?" Chloe asked, wiping down the bar while Julian counted the register. "What's the verdict?"

Julian considered the question seriously. "It's... honest work. No pretense, no performance. Just giving people what they want."

"And what do they want?"

"To feel welcome. To be served quickly and fairly. To have a place where they can relax without being judged." He looked around the shabby bar with new appreciation. "You've built something special here."

Chloe's smile was different than usual—softer, more genuine. "Want to know a secret? Half these people could afford your whiskey library drinks. Mrs. Rodriguez owns three rental properties. Tony's crew makes bank on commercial projects. They don't come here because it's cheap—they come because it feels like home."

After closing, Chloe produced a bottle of tequila that definitely wasn't top shelf and two shot glasses that had seen better decades.

"Tradition," she explained. "End of a hard shift, you drink with the people who got you through it."

Julian accepted his glass, noting that the tequila smelled like it could strip paint. "This is going to kill me, isn't it?"

"Probably. But you'll die among friends."

They clinked glasses and threw back the shots. The tequila burned like liquid fire, making Julian's eyes water and his throat close. Chloe pounded hers back like it was water, then immediately poured two more.

"Oh, hell no," Julian protested.

"Oh, hell yes. You survived your first Friday night rush—that deserves proper celebration." Her grin was wicked. "Besides, I want to see what you're like when you're not trying to be perfect all the time."

The second shot went down easier. The third actually tasted almost good. By the fourth, Julian had loosened his tie and was telling Chloe stories about culinary school disasters while she laughed hard enough to snort.

"You set the kitchen on fire?" she gasped.

"Twice. Same week. They almost expelled me." Julian's usual precise diction was starting to blur around the edges. "Turns out flambéing requires more finesse than I possessed at nineteen."

Chloe poured shot number five, her own movements less steady than usual. "My turn. First bartending job, I got so nervous I dropped an entire tray of drinks on a customer. Had to pay for dry cleaning and his drinks for the rest of the night."

"What did you do?"

"Went home and cried. Then came back the next day and did better." She raised her glass. "To doing better."

"To doing better," Julian agreed.

Somewhere between shots six and seven, the space between them on the bar had shrunk to nothing. Julian's jacket was draped over a chair, his sleeves rolled up, his usually perfect hair falling across his forehead. Chloe had untied her apron and was sitting on the bar itself, her legs dangling, her cheeks flushed from alcohol and laughter.

"You know what your problem is?" she said, pointing at him with slightly unsteady finger.

"I'm sure you're about to tell me."

"You think too much. Analyze everything to death instead of just... experiencing it." She gestured around the empty bar. "Tonight, you weren't thinking. You were just doing. And you were good at it."

Julian looked at her sitting on his bar—because somewhere during the evening, he'd started thinking of Murphy's as partially his too—and felt something shift in his chest. She was right. For four hours, he'd stopped trying to prove himself and just worked. Just served people who wanted drinks, not demonstrations of his technical skill.

"You're right," he said simply.

"I usually am." Chloe's grin was smug and slightly unfocused. "Question is, what are you gonna do about it?"

Instead of answering, Julian stood up and moved to stand between her legs, his hands coming to rest on her thighs. The cheap tequila had burned away his usual restraint, leaving only want and the kind of liquid courage that made bad decisions seem brilliant.

"I'm going to stop thinking," he said, and kissed her.

This kiss was different from all the others—messier, more desperate, flavored with cheap tequila and honest desire. Chloe's hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer as her legs wrapped around his waist. The bar was sticky beneath her, the air thick with the smell of beer and possibility, and it was perfect in a way that Julian's pristine apartment never could be.

When they broke apart, both breathing hard, Julian rested his forehead against hers.

"Your place or mine?" Chloe asked, her voice husky.

"Yours," he said without hesitation. "I want to see where you live when you're not performing for anyone."

As they stumbled out of Murphy's into the humid Portland night, Julian realized that everything he'd thought he knew about bartending—about craft, about service, about what mattered—had been fundamentally challenged in the space of one evening.

Chloe's world wasn't less than his. It was just different. And maybe, if he was very lucky and very careful, there was room in it for him too.