No longer having to hide his transformation from his friend, and back to bartending instead of hosting, the next two weeks are much smoother.
Hours before his shift, the bartender receives a frenzied call from his boss. They have a sudden booking for an off-site event and she needs all the staff at the bar to ride over there pronto. He races to a cab and changes to his uniform when he arrives. On the ride to the event, the boss fills them in on the night’s plan and needs and how to set up the event hall when they arrive.
At the hall, the two bartenders are finishing setting up their station when the hall door slams open and a frantic woman stomps in. The bartender stops his work and recognizes that it’s his best friend’s fiancee. The friend shortly appears carrying loads of boxes, and looking exhausted. The bartender rushes over and asks what’s happening. Their reception is still three weeks away. The friend sets down the boxes and angrily sighs. The fiancee had an astrological reading that said three weeks from now would be a very unlucky time for her and they had to move the event way up. He’s been trying to call the bartender all evening but could never get through.
Their conversation is cut short by the fuming approach of the fiancee and she shoves the bartender back, demanding to know why her fiancee is hitting on some bar bimbo at her wedding reception. The friend stands up and says to leave her alone, it’s Chris. The fiancee stamps her foot and a shriek fills the hall. THAT is Chris!? She thought Chris was a guy, not some skank hitting on guys and flashing her huge ass for tips. Before the bartender can reply, his friend has stepped up and shouts back at his fiancee to cut it out, it isn’t like that, and to show some damned decency. She shrinks back for a moment before springing back and starting a near-apocalyptic shouting match ready to bring the hall down. The bar staff are all frozen in shock and hurriedly pretend they’ve been working when the fiancee grabs a bottle from a box, dumps it on the friend’s head, and storms out of the hall.
The bartender rushes over with napkins, apologizing profusely to his friend, but he shakes his head and sighs. Things were obviously much worse between the two than he’d been telling himself, and it’s better that everything came crashing down now rather than after they were married. He grabs another bottle and tells the crew to stop setting up. The boss glides over and wraps an arm around the friend and bartender. She digresses. Everything is already set up, the wedding guests and family will be here in an hour or so, and she wants to get paid for the night. She pushes the two together and holds them close. They’re already the best of friends and have had a relationship that’s lasted their whole lives. Who better to spend your days with? The bartender stammers but his friend soon takes his hand and holds it tight. What the owner said isn’t wrong... They know everything about each other, they already live together, and he does find the bartender’s new form absolutely perfect. Why not give it a shot? Worst case scenario, they just get divorced and never talk about it again. Extremely flush, the bartender clamps his eyes shut, and then agrees. His friend gives him a kiss on the cheek and then rushes away to clean off the drink he had thrown at him.
The owner grins and slides an arm around the bartender’s waist. She has some dresses in the van he’s welcome to help himself to and wear tonight. The rest of the staff can run the event just fine. Overwhelmed at everything that’s happened in the last five minutes, much less weeks since starting working at the bar, he demands to know who she really is. She’s not some simple out of town rich bar owner. She grins and says of course not. The bar was just a means to an end, she had no intention of continuing to own the place. When she’s ready to move on, she’ll just gift it to one of the other staff. Her real trade is in matchmaking. Oh his friend never knew either. She just put together a simple plan when she heard both of them griping that first night she met them.