The next two hours passed in a blur of espresso shots and themed drinks and the persistent feeling that someone was watching me from every direction at once. Because someone was. Four someones, actually, plus Iris, plus Sarah, plus Felix, plus approximately two hundred festival attendees who had apparently decided that the vampire butler was the main attraction rather than the drinks he served.
A sophomore girl asked me to sign her cup. I wrote "stay hydrated" and she almost fainted.
By four o'clock the crowd had shifted to mostly upperclassmen and a handful of parents who seemed genuinely confused about why their children were paying seven dollars for drinks served by teenagers in Halloween costumes. Patterson had disappeared into the back to count revenue with the manic energy of a man who could taste victory, and Felix had abandoned his Dracula accent entirely in favor of just being Felix, which honestly worked better for tips.
