Cherry Beats

by Vicki James

  “Great, Elle. Can you check the toilets for me when you next get a break on the bar?”

  “Already been in five minutes ago and signed the cleaning sheet. Everything looks good.”

  “This is why you’re my favourite,” I sang, waltzing past her.

  “You say that to everyone who takes toilet duty off your hands,” she called back over her shoulder.

  I laughed softly and went to grab Molly’s second bottle of Moët. It was stored in the bottom shelf of the backlit fridges behind the bar, tucked away in the corners. I was bent down, resting on the balls of my feet when I felt my phone begin to buzz in the back pocket of my jeans.

  A withheld number was calling, which made it easier for me to roll my eyes, ignore it, and slip the phone back into my pocket. By the time I stood up, pulled my jumper back into place, and was beginning to uncork the Moët, the phone stopped ringing.

  The cork popped strategically into the palm of my hand after I’d twisted the wires and slowly released it. I was just about to take Molly and Trey their drink when my phone began to buzz again.

  A voicemail was waiting for me. Frowning, I pressed the phone to my ear and listened. I couldn’t hear a damn thing because of the music in the bar anyway, but I was pretty certain nobody was saying anything. Static silence stayed on the line for thirty seconds before the caller hung up.

  My heart began to pitter-patter, and I swallowed as I looked down at my phone. Right on cue, it started to ring again—the same withheld number message flashing on my screen.

  My gut was telling me something was off, but my job demanded that I get on with it as another punter called out for a drink. Looking up, I offered them a smile and tucked my phone back into my pocket again.

  “Sorry. I’ll be two seconds. I’ve just got to take this bottle over to that table,” I said, pointing in Molly’s direction.

  “No bother.” Smiled a sweet guy in a chequered shirt who was bouncing his wallet on the surface of the bar.

  “Don’t worry, Tess, I’ll serve him,” Elle called out. I was starting to really like her.

  The phone stopped ringing in my pocket just as I got to Molly and Trey.

  “You okay?” Molly frowned, watching me. “You look pale.”

  “Yeah, I’m gre—” My damn phone buzzed again, and I planted the bottle into the ice bucket with a thud before reaching around to grab my phone. This time it was a text from a number I didn’t recognise.

  You’re going to want to take this call.

  I typed the number into Google, ignoring Molly’s concerns. Nothing came up on Google to say it was anything to do with PPI or Insurance scams, and that only made my spine tingle more.

  Who is this? I typed back.

  Molly reached out to touch my arm, and it made me flinch. I turned to her, scowling hard before I registered the concern on her face, and I straightened up.

  “Sorry,” I said on a sigh, pushing my long fringe back away from my forehead. “Nothing to worry about. You carry on.”

  “Actually, I think we’re going to get this one to go, if that’s okay with you,” Trey interrupted, glancing at Molly with a questioning raise of his brow.

  “Oh, we have a keen one here.” She smirked.

  Trey flipped open his wallet and gave me enough money to cover the cost of his Moët, plus leaving me a nice little tip. I wanted to give him a tip of my own. A warning that told him not to try and top from the bottom, but I decided to keep my mouth shut and move on. With a nod of thanks his way, I tucked the money away in my pocket and turned to Molly.

  “Call me in the morning?” That was my code for ‘you better be damn safe, lady.’

  “Full report.” She winked, and Trey’s triumphant huff of laughter made my skin crawl.

  “Okay, well. Have fun.”

  It didn’t take long for my phone to ring again

  This time, I answered, walking away from Molly and drowning out her giggles before they left. “Hello?”

  Static silence again. I pressed a finger in my other ear and leaned forward as I walked towards the storeroom around the back of the bar. Closing the door, I let the heavy quiet of the room surround me, and I stared blankly at the bottles of alcohol that were kept in there along with a load of other crap we never used.

  “Hello? Can you hear me?”

  “Tessa?”

  “Who is this?”

  “We met yesterday.”

  I recognised the voice instantly. It had haunted my short dreams last night, and it instantly made my toes curl inside my Doc Martens.

  “Janey Dominic,” I growled.

  “Don’t hang up,” she said quickly.

  “Like hell I’m going to talk to you.”

  “It’s in your interests. I assure you.”

  “Oh yeah? How so?”

  “Because if you don’t talk to me, I’m not going to have a good enough reason to stop Trey from fucking information about you out of that girlfriend of yours, and who knows what she’ll say after two bottles of champagne in the midst of an orgasm? Rumour has it that she isn’t exactly shy about telling people her whole life story. I heard you’re an intricate part of that life, too.”

  Blood pounded in my head, heating my whole body with burning rage at once. My arms and hands shook as I yanked open the storeroom door and ran out into the bar to stop Molly from leaving with that rat bastard, but I was too late. Their table sat empty, leaving me with a phone pressed to my ear, and my face turning drip white.

  “Go back into the storeroom, Tess,” Janey said calmly in my ear.

  “Are you watching me?” I hissed, looking all around the bar to try and see where she was.

  “I’m a journalist. I have eyes everywhere. And no, you’ll never know where those eyes are, so get in the storeroom and let’s talk like two sensible adults.”

  “This is harassment.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “We both know I won’t be the one getting fucked tonight if you don’t do what I say. That’ll be your best friend.”

  Sweat formed in my palms and on my forehead as I spun in a panic, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do. In the end, I did as I was told. The door closed behind me again, and I ground my teeth together, waiting to hear her speak.

  “You shouldn’t keep such easy company, Miss Lisbon. It makes it far too easy for me to send moles in and get the information you refuse to offer up so freely.”

  The noise I made was feral. “Does the venom in your veins sting a little?”

  “Only when it doesn’t get what it wants.”

  “What do you want?”

  “What all good reporters want: the truth. And let’s save the made-up stories for another day when I have time. I know who was in your apartment last night. I saw the infamous jacket over your sofa. So, let me just cut straight to the chase: are you fucking Presley West, Tess?”

  “Not right now.”

  She huffed out a humourless laugh, and I could practically see the way she leaned back in her chair as the leather creaked, and the way she planted her fake heels on her desktop as they clinked together with perfect Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct precision.

  “I don’t like being lied to.”

  “Take your daddy issues up with your parents, Janey. I have nothing to say to you.”

  “You’re sounding awfully defensive for someone who is lying through their teeth. I only want to know what your relationship with Presley is.”

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “You’ve told me lies. I need more than that. I need your honesty.”

  “Why? Do you want him for yourself? Here’s a little insider info. Presley doesn’t like cheap.”

  “Yet the minute he’s in trouble, he flees to the grotty little apartment with the working-class barmaid living inside it. Seems to me like cheap is exactly what Presley West likes.”

  My hands shook violently, and I couldn’t ignore that her words rang true in my jaded mind
, leaving me temporarily speechless.

  “It doesn’t make sense, does it?” she asked with sarcasm. “What hold have you got over him, Tessa? Did he knock you up once and make you get rid of the baby?”

  “Is that the best you can come up with?”

  “Does he have a secret fetish you fulfil for him?”

  “Go to Hell.”

  “Is he paying you to keep quiet about a secret you have over him?”

  “... And once you’re in Hell, crawl into the fiery pits for me.”

  “Do you bribe him with sex? Make him yours so you feel like you’ve made it and aren’t just a crummy little barmaid with a wet cloth constantly hanging over her shoulder?”

  I glanced at my shoulder and frowned at the tatty bar towel hanging there.

  “Are you his source for drugs? Is that how you’ve really been able to get your own place so young in life?”

  “Wow, Janey. Really? You’re not even close to being hot.”

  “Or,” she drew out, making her voice sound like a song. “Could it be that Presley West just likes his women a bit rough and ready? He likes to play it dirty. Keep his ego in check by slumming it with the average Tessa who can’t keep her legs closed whenever he so much as looks her way—”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Go ahead,” she said smugly. “It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t tell me. Molly is already inebriated. Trey has his claws in her. Their next stop is going to be a quiet little spot on his sofa, where he’ll wine and dine her a little bit more before he talks about you just as Youth Gone Wild’s latest song happens to play on the radio. Then Molly will gasp…” Janey faked an exaggerated gasp of surprise, “and, desperate to impress him, she’ll tell Trey how she knows Presley. How Presley is secretly in love with her best friend Tessa, and how she’s always been ever so slightly, oh so secretly jealous of the fact that she dresses like a whore but can’t get a look in, while you dress like a little boy and seem to get all the attention Molly has ever desired.”

  I swallowed the gigantic lump in my throat, too shook up to think of anything funny or witty to say as I stared at an old bottle of Bourbon on the shelf. Bourbon. How I wished he was here right now. How I wished I hadn’t told him I could cope. How I wish I had a friend to tell me what the hell to do.

  Then I thought of Presley. His warm smile. His charming smirk. That impressive body. Those hands. That mouth. His voice… How he always told me to drop the mask and get straight to the point.

  “Janey?”

  “Mmm?”

  I pressed my mouth as close to the phone as I could get it. “Fuck. You.”

  The second I ended the call, the phone fell from my shaking fingers, landing on a pile of bubble wrap that had been left lying around.

  My hands flew to my mouth, and I stood there, rooted by fear for myself, and for my friend who’d just been used because of a situation I’d landed her in, and for Presley, knowing he had those kinds of sharks after him every second of every day, trying to tear him down.

  What the fuck was I going to do now?

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Tess, for the hundredth time, I’ll be fine. Go.”

  “But, I’ve never let you lock up before,” I said with a shaky voice as I reached underneath the bar to scramble for the spare keys. Over an hour had passed with me trying to get in touch with Molly, but no matter how many times I tried, she was refusing to pick up her phone. I’d gone from mild panic to managing to catastrophise every scenario I came up with until I’d had a vision of my best friend lying in a ditch somewhere, her glassy eyes staring at the starry sky as she whispered my name through her last breath. I currently had my phone pressed to my ear with my other hand, as I listened to Molly’s phone ring and ring and ring and ring.

  “I’m fine. I’ve got Milo and Lou on tonight, too. They’re good people, so will you just leave already?”

  “Trying. I’m really… trying.” I ducked lower and squinted, trying to find what I was looking for. “Maybe this is a sign. A sign I shouldn’t leave you alone for the very first time.”

  Elle nudged me out of the way, reaching under the bar and pulling the key I was searching for out in one swift movement. She stood back, swirled the key around her finger, and tilted her head to one side. Her short, bobbed brown hair swayed as she cocked her hip and raised a brow at me.

  “Go,” she mouthed, looking at the door.

  I rushed over to give her a one-armed hug. “Thank you. You’re a lifesaver. I’ll cover your shifts any time you need me to.”

  After one last worried glance over my shoulder, Elle’s confident glare reassured me enough to leave. I was pushing through the glass doors, about to end another call to Molly when I came chest-to-chest with a wall of muscle.

  “Shit, Tess, slow your fucking roll.”

  I looked up and immediately saw my arsehole younger brother smirking smugly at me.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Freddie?” I asked breathlessly, taking in his cheap shirt, bad quiff, and his overuse of whatever aftershave he’d drowned himself in. My nose curled. “Jesus, you smell like you’re trying to lose your virginity.”

  “I think we both know I lost mine before you’d even had your first kiss.”

  “You’re such a pig.”

  “Correct.”

  Freddie glanced over my shoulder, and I followed his gaze, seeing Elle’s smiling face as she served a customer without a care in the world.

  Spinning back to face Freddie again, I pointed a finger straight at him. “Don’t you even think about it.”

  “What?”

  “You are not running another one of my staff out of this job just because you fuck them and dump them.”

  “I can’t help being such a stud.”

  “Did you just say dud?”

  “Oh, loosen the cuffs on me, big sister. You’re so uptight.”

  “No, you’re just a raging arsehole who doesn’t value any woman he gets beneath him.”

  “I’ll value one when the right one comes along.”

  I immediately thought of Presley and how he’d said the same thing to me on that night three years ago. Yet, I loved him for it. Was he really any different to my brother?

  “Whatever. I don’t even care. Just be careful with her. I like this one.”

  “The night is young, sis. Sometimes I go in for one thing and come back out with another… or four others.” He shrugged a casual shoulder.

  “I think that was vomit I just tasted in my throat.”

  Freddie’s cackle faded as he disappeared inside BB’s, leaving me to stare out at the open road with no clue of what to do or where to go. And just as I was about to call a taxi to come and take me directly to Molly’s place, my phone began to ring with her name lighting up my screen. If God himself had descended to stand in front of me and offer me a yacht in Monaco, I wouldn’t have been as happy as I was right there and then.

  Answering in a rush, I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Please tell me you didn’t fuck him.”

  Molly let out a sharp burst of laughter. “Not even I work that fast.”

  “Thank God. Where are you?” I asked, dropping my hand and opening my eyes again. People trickled down the pavement, walking in both directions as they headed to the best bar venue in our small town.

  “I’m fine, Tess. I figured Trey out quickly enough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that when a hot guy like him waltzes in with eyes for you and you alone, pours Moët down your neck like it’s water, and then asks a million and one questions all the way back to his place, you’d have to be stupid to think he wasn’t in it for something other than just your perfect little pussy.”

  “What was he asking you?”

  “All sorts, but mainly things about you. When he mentioned Presley being back in town, I realised what the fuck was going on. Especially after our conversation this morning about that bitch reporter harassing you.”
>
  “I’m so sorry, Molly—so fucking sorry. I had no idea—”

  “Stop it,” she interrupted. “You weren’t to know. We don’t live in that world, Tess. Only Presley does. He doesn’t belong to Hollings Hill anymore. He belongs to them. To the media. To the world. He doesn’t belong to…” she trailed off.

  “To me?”

  “That’s not what I meant. He doesn’t even belong to himself. He’s with a band. A manager. He’s a sensation, and so long as you keep letting him back in—”

  “Once. I let him in once,” I interjected weakly, knowing my defence was brittle and penetrable.

  “Once is enough. One bullet is all it takes to land someone in prison for a lifetime.”

  I pressed my free palm to my forehead and sighed softly.

  “I’m not saying this to be a party pooper, baby girl. I’m saying it because you’re important to me, and I hate seeing the aftereffects of the tornado that’s just torn through your life again. Me, Bourbon, your shitty excuse for a family—we’re the ones who get to see what’s left behind when Presley flies off to another part of the world. We see the damage. The rubble. The destruction. It isn’t pretty, beau. No one should be so broken from having experienced something so beautiful. You’re doing okay now. You’re still you, despite the dents, but the sad truth is, there’s always some opportunist out there willing to wade through your rubble to find a hidden gem or pocket of gold, no matter the cost to those whose lives have just been fucked the hell up.”

  “I had no idea you were so… insightful.”

  “There’s more to me than just my open legs, ruby red lips, and my incredible hair,” she hit back through an obvious smile. “I just choose my moments to show my talents to the world. If everyone knew how fabulous I was, they’d all want a piece of me.”

  I blew out a breath and peeked up at Molly from my position on the sofa. Molly was pacing back and forth in my apartment, her thumbnail trapped between her perfect white teeth. She’d arrived shortly after me, her mystical powers of friendship clearly warning her that my sanity was a little shot right now.

  “You sure you want to do this?” she asked me as I dialled a number on my phone, my thumb then hovering over the call button.