by Vicki James
It was probably the hardest truth I’d ever had to hear, but he spoke it so innocently, so purely, and with nothing but resignation that it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.
“I can have fun,” I whispered quietly.
He glanced down at my T-shirt again. “Yet you hide who you really are behind a hard mask that tells people you’ll gut them like a fish if they so much as dare to get close.”
“Maybe some people just need to stop being scared of being gutted like fishes by women like me.”
Presley’s eyes searched mine, and his lips parted before he slid even closer, our fingertips now touching. “Or maybe you should just take the fucking mask off and stop being scared of someone wanting you.”
I had goosebumps everywhere. Every. Where. Between my legs ached, which was weird, because Presley had essentially just called me a fucking coward. But I couldn’t argue with him. At least his insult had been accurate.
The silence lingered between us. I knew how I felt. I’d been feeling it for years. For the first time since I’d seen him striding through those school corridors, though, it seemed like Presley might like me back. Even if only as a friend.
“Why do you always bring them here, to this bar?” I asked him quietly. “Your dates, I mean.”
“It’s the only decent place around here.”
“That’s it?”
“Why? Do you want me to tell you that I like the way you study them? Because I do. I enjoy that, too. Yeah, I see the subtle tilt of your head, the narrowing—or rolling—of your eyes. You don’t hide that so well.”
“And you don’t mind?” I scowled, confused.
“It’s nice to know you give a shit, actually.”
I scrunched up my nose and feigned indifference. “You’re just some guy I know from school.”
“Yeah,” he said, reaching out to run his index finger down my cheek. “And you’re just some cherry-haired rebel who will get fired if you keep serving some guy you used to know from school alcohol after closing time.”
That one touch burned me, and I vowed never to wash my face again.
Then, just like that, he put his drink to his mouth and downed it, gasping and wiping his lips with the back of his hand swiftly when he’d finished. With a parting wink and small finger salute in my direction, Presley pushed his hands into the safety of his leather jacket pockets and made his way to the door.
“Good talk. Different girl, same time next week, Cherry?”
He’d disappeared out into the cold before he heard me give him my whispered answer.
“And all the weeks after that.”
Chapter Three
He kept his weekly appointment, and so did I. The only difference being the women. I never renamed any of them Gertrude after Anna. She was responsible for leaving him with me that night, so I liked her now, and that name was growing on me, too. Gertie. Trudy. Gez.
I never said I was normal.
Each Saturday evening, Presley West would saunter into BB’s bar like he owned the place, and every Saturday night, I would take on the persona of Cherry. The one he’d described and created. The girl who dropped her mask. The woman who swayed her hips when she walked and tried to make tight jeans and baggy T-shirts look seductive. Some weeks he wouldn’t even look my way. Other weeks I caught him staring at me and ignoring his date every chance he got.
Those were my favourite nights, when a simple narrow-eyed glance would make me feel like his queen, patiently biding my time for him to realise he was only ever suited to becoming my king. I couldn’t wait for the day when we created our own kingdom and sat on our thrones. I couldn’t wait to sit on his crown jewels, either.
That single thought made me snicker as I poured one of our regulars, Crooked Nose Clive, a pint of Guinness. I despised serving this drink. It took too much time and concentration, and all I could ever think when I handed it over to the paying customer was Enjoy your brown soup.
“You should wear your smile more often,” Clive mumbled from somewhere under his overgrown, grey moustache.
“And why’s that, Clive?” I pushed the coins of his change across the bar surface with my fingertips, not looking up at him. The less eye contact you made with this one, the sooner he disappeared.
“It makes you look less—”
“Like she’s going to reach under that till, shove her hand through a secret trapdoor, reach for your balls, and twist them until you’re singing Soprano?”
I sure as shit looked up then.
“Hey, Cherry.” Presley winked.
“She scares you, too?” Clive asked, holding his glass to his lips like he had to wait for his Guinness to cool down.
“Hey! I’m not scary.” I scowled.
Clive huffed out a grumble of disagreement before he slapped Presley on the shoulder and turned to leave.
“Am I really that bad?” I asked Presley. I was going for nonchalant, but my heart was ‘chalant’ as fuck, suddenly head banging against my ribcage like there was a Korn! tune for it to get nasty with.
“Only to cowards.”
“Are you Team Fear or Team Courage, Mr West?”
“I’m a fucking hero, baby.”
“Of course. And what’s the hero of Hollings Hill drinking tonight?”
“Tequila.”
“Yikes. Your date going that bad?” I asked, trying to look around him.
Tonight, he was with a flaming redhead. Not fake red like mine. This woman had the kind of hair that looked like it would burn to touch. The kind I’d always loved the most. She sat with her back ramrod straight, her delicate arms placed on the top of the table, and her fingers entwined. Whoever she was, she was beautiful, prim, and very proper.
“I see you have an upgrade tonight. A real princess, as opposed to our beloved Gerty.”
“Quit staring at her. She’ll think you’re jealous.”
“I am. I’m raging with envy over her posture. She looks like she could balance a full teacup on her head all the way to China.”
Presley laughed quietly, and I could feel his eyes burning into my skin. That wasn’t just a metaphor, either. It was literal. Wherever his eyes locked in on me, my skin burned, flashing like a neon sign that would probably say Yes! You have my permission to touch right here.
“You ever thought of doing stand-up comedy, Cherry?”
I reached for two shot glasses beneath the bar, placed them between us, and then spun around to grab the bottle of tequila from the back shelf. I’d worn tight—super tight—leather trousers that night. I knew I had a good arse. It was one of the many benefits of walking absolutely everywhere and never sitting down. My butt cheeks could crack cashew nuts.
Paw nuts, too.
My smile broke free when I glanced through the mirror on the back shelf and saw Presley’s eyes lingering over my leather-clad derriere.
Ding, ding! Leather is a winner. Never taking these babies off… unless it’s for him when he strips me naked.
“You want to take a picture, Presley?”
His eyes shot up to mine through the mirror, and that seductive bad boy, dimple-inducing smirk of his broke free.
“Would you mind? It would make excellent wank-bank material.”
“That’s not at all inappropriate,” I quipped.
“Those pants are very inappropriate,” he bit back, while I turned around with the bottle in my hand. “Jesus, Cherry. I’m on a date with another woman, here. What are you wearing those booty huggers for?”
“Because I like them, and I dress for me. Not for some guy who can’t seem to stay away from this place. It’s not my fault you like what you see even when it’s not for sale.”
That was a lie. Almost everything I said against him was a lie. I was for sale. He could take my soul for a kiss.
“You don’t like me bringing them here?” He placed his hand over his heart. “Well, shit. I guess I can always find a new place to take my—”
“Tinder hookups?” I arched
a brow.
Presley glanced back at his date, and she looked up at him nervously, flashing a very weak, strained smile. I was waiting for the small finger wave that she was bound to offer next, but he turned back to me too quickly, and that poor woman’s shoulders drooped just an inch before she corrected herself. She’d have tea all over her face right now if she had been balancing a cup on her head.
“Does she look like a Tinder hookup to you?”
I mused as I poured him his two shots. “Not sure, but she definitely looks like a Zara. Or a Zoë but with those two fancy little dots over the E. Or a…”
“Her name is Blossom.”
“And there I was thinking this one was respectful.”
“What’s wrong with Blossom?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head as I turned back around to place the bottle on the back shelf again. “In fact, if me and her hooked up we’d make a beautiful spring tree.”
Silence.
I spun around to face him.
“Pres, quit checking out my arse.”
“It’s your fault,” he croaked, quickly clearing his voice and raising his eyes to mine. “You just put the best visual in my head. Cherry and Blossom together. Me watching.” He rolled his eyes into the back of his head and let his mouth fall open. “I’m never going to get rid of this fantasy.”
“Please. I’d destroy her.”
His head fell forward, and he finally reached for his drinks, throwing a ten-pound note on the bar before he did.
“Keep the change, Cherry. That’s a mental image worth tipping.”
I was turned on and tuned out all at once.
Presley sauntered back to his date without so much as a glance over his shoulder, and it stayed that way all night. I tried to keep busy, but it was getting harder to pretend the two of us weren’t forming some kind of relationship… friendship. A common ground. An easy banter. I came alive around him, and no matter what he said or pretended, I knew he felt the same. Our jokes sailed through the tension so easily. So freely.
And he’d admitted to liking the look of my arse.
One day I was going to make damn sure he got a closer look.
Later that night, Bourbon tried to get me to leave so he could lock up—again—but I refused—again.
“Careful, Tess. You fall in love with a man like him, and you’ll spend the rest of your life comparing us regular losers to a rock star you once almost kissed. There’s nothing quite as shitty as living with disappointment until the day you die.”
“Have you ever thought about performing inspirational speeches in schools for kids, boss?”
Bourbon laughed and kissed my head, forcing me to close my eyes to enjoy his affection and smile softly. I loved that man.
I thought nothing more of it until I opened my eyes and saw Presley staring right at the two of us, ignoring every word a tipsy Blossom was throwing his way. He had a small scowl on his face, and he was chewing his bottom lip as he stared right at me and then raised a brow.
I was being questioned without actually being able to hear what information he needed from me. There was no rhyme or reason for me to feel uneasy, so I kept myself busy, not shouting my usual insults to throw him off his stride and make his date uncomfortable. I didn’t try and warn him that he only had ten minutes before I wanted to turn off all the lights, close my back on work for the night, and hit those streets with my stride. I didn’t even turn the music off to try and hint that they were outstaying their welcome. I let those tunes rain free.
Once the cleaning was done, all the surfaces wiped, and the floors were swept down, I waited. My lower back had a horizontal line imprinted on it from the bar I’d been resting against for a good fifteen minutes when I finally heard the scraping of a chair. I didn’t look up from the studying of my extremely chewed-down nails. My eyes stayed trained in place, cast downwards. I had no desire to see him leave with a woman that night—especially not a woman as naturally wonderful as Blossom.
This infatuation was turning into something else, and I hated feeling out of control.
The only indication of them having left was the heavy bang of the glass door, which blew an aftershock of blustery air through the now-empty space. It shouldn’t have stung, but that life filled with disappointment that Bourbon had warned me about seemed like more of a reality than I first realised.
Uch. I wanted to be Blossom.
I wanted it so badly that I stood there, pouting and staring at the door for another five minutes. It felt good to pout shamelessly knowing nobody could see me. A permanent ache resided in the very pit of my stomach, forcing me to press my hands into it and lean forward.
“Get over it, Tess. For fuck’s sake. He’s Presley West. A guy like him isn’t interested in being with a girl like you. Bartending Tess Lisbon, with her ridiculous, low-income family, and her wildly underachieving, under-fulfilling life. You have a lazy-as-hell father and a mother who makes you want to scratch your own ears off. There’s nothing good about your world. You sweep floors and break too many glasses for a living. You haven’t bought a new piece of underwear in at least three years. You wear way too much black. You’re a pining, rotten mess. Do not let his charm make you think it’s his desire. Do not let him make you think his seductive smile is offering you affection. When he’s a famous drummer and married to a Victoria’s Secret model, you can stalk his Instagram feed freely and pathetically, but when he’s in front of you, you must… get… a… grip.”
I could hear every word I said out loud to myself, don’t worry. I knew what an idiot looked like, too. Look up the definition of it, and there my mugshot would sit proudly, cheesy-grinning, face pushed up to the lens, with a crazy wave of my hand on the side. I’m the girl your ex-girlfriends warned you about. The one you think is funny and cute, but who secretly presses her hands between her thighs in bed on a night and gets off to the fantasy of our wedding day.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, I stood tall, shook out my arms and fingertips, and I got to work stacking all the chairs on top of the tables. The repetition of it gave me something to do that didn’t involve imagining what Presley’s wavy hair felt like to hold onto while I rode his face.
Screw my so-called life—the one my imagination was conjuring up was SO much better.
The music poured out of the speakers in the bar, my gratitude throbbing from the sound of it. Once the majority of our usual customers left, I sometimes liked to listen to some old school rock ballads. Not the cool ones that everyone pretended to love, and definitely not the bands those basic chicks wore across their chests day in, day out, even though they really didn’t have a Scooby Doo clue what one of AC/DC’s or The Rolling Stones’ songs actually sounded like.
I meant the cheese-fest tunes most people pretended to hate: Whitesnake, Aerosmith, Journey, Meatloaf, Bryan Adams, Bon fucking Jovi.
Lord, I loved Bryan Adams and Bon fucking Jovi.
The first few guitar chords of Bed of Roses rang out right on cue, and it was game on. I didn’t care that the bar was dimly lit and early morning passers-by would be able to see me. I didn’t give a shit that I’d regret it in the morning, or that Bourbon could be recording this on the CCTV he’d had installed last year after a huge fight broke out between two rough women. Rock star had just left me cold, and I may have been slightly buzzing from the cheeky shot of tequila I’d slipped myself once the boss had disappeared.
One shot was all it took for me to let Bon Jovi take over the steering wheel of my soul.
I grabbed hold of the back of the wooden chair, closed my eyes, let my head fall back and began to sway. It was a private, seductive slow dance to myself and the wanting body I was living in. Bon Jovi sang to me, and I sang right back. I told the universe I wanted to lay Presley down on a bed of roses, and then the heavy drum beat kicked in, and I turned, spinning my feet smoothly on the waxed, wooden floor, letting my head roll full circle as I whipped my hair around like I was working at a damn strip club. But then the slow verse ki
cked in, and Bon Jovi peeled away a layer of my heart by admitting to the world that he was lonely.
Me, too, Bon Bon. Me, too.
When the beat kicked in again, angry and loud, furious with the injustice of everything not being a perfect fantasy, I let myself roll with it. I swayed, and I thrashed my hair around like my whole life and future happiness depended on it. When Bon Jovi cried and screamed, so did I, bending over and pushing my fists into my stomach to give it my all.
It’s always easier to give your all when you think nobody is watching, until you finish what you’re doing, push your hair away from your smiling, sweaty face, and you look up to see you have an audience.
A live audience.
Of one.
Presley was standing inside the bar like he owned it. The door very firmly shut behind him. His leather jacket was wet from the rain. His hair, too. His legs were parted, and his arms hung limply down by his thighs—but those eyes of his were dark and heated. His mouth was open slightly as he stared at me, completely silent and unmoving while Bon Jovi drifted away and the sounds of INXS’s I Need You Tonight took over.
I believe this was called irony.
One of us had to move, and I was the one allergic to awkward silences.
I need you tonight.
“Yeah, you weren’t meant to be here to see that,” I admitted hoarsely.
Presley continued to stare at me.
“Nobody was meant to see… that.” The words came out slow and staggered, perfect confirmation that not even my voice was my friend. My heart, however, was dancing around like a fucking frog in a box.
Presley swallowed, rubbed his lips together, and then impaled his bottom lip with his teeth.
Holy mother of standing orgasm.