by C.J Duggan
***
Walking through the front bar as I started the evening shift, my gaze instinctively turned towards the poolroom. Surprisingly, I spotted Sean, alone at the bar. He wasn't often on his own so I jumped at the opportunity to give him the heads up on what was going around.
I hadn't anticipated how hilarious he'd find it. Sean's entire body convulsed in spasmodic fits of thigh-slapping laughter.
I glared at him.
He wiped away tears and fought to catch his breath. Chris walked through from the main bar, casting a curious gaze from Sean to me.
"What's so funny?"
"I think I'm to expect a heart to heart with your uncle soon, Chris." Sean saluted him with his beer. "I can't wait."
I rolled my eyes. "You're seriously demented, you know that, right?"
"Maybe we should get Unc to chaperone us like in the olden days, he could walk ten paces behind us while we take a turn in the garden."
He was loving every minute of this.
"Or better yet ?" I leaned closer. "My dad can escort you to a shallow grave in the Perry Ranges, because if he finds out, that is going to be a far more probable outcome."
"If who finds out what?" Stan said, as he and Toby walked through the poolroom door.
My heart leapt at the sight of them. I hadn't even heard the door open. Stan was in his usual good humour, but Toby looked between Sean and me in guarded silence.
It made me uneasy; aside from the small exchange this afternoon over the beer nuts, we hadn't spoken at all since the ranges. Now there was not so much as a hello; he didn't say it, so I didn't say it.
Since Sean had been alone in the bar, I'd figured Toby must have had better things to do tonight. But here he was, flicking his wallet out of his back pocket and ordering a beer, looking better than ever. Tonight he'd opted for jeans and a Pink Floyd T-shirt under an open black and white checked shirt; his hair was still damp from the shower and glistening from a little carefree product application. It probably took him only seconds to arrange it into its gorgeously disheveled state. It was sexy. He walked behind me to settle on a stool, and the fragrance of his aftershave made me want to press closer, but I had to control myself. Even if I did want to squeal and jump up and down clapping like a wind-up monkey with brass symbols for hands.
"Oh nothing, just some trouble in paradise." Sean winked and gave me a wicked smile.
It was nice that he found it all so amusing, but I'd been serious about my dad not being happy. I didn't even dare let on that I was spending most of my days with a group of men (though young ones). There was no way he or Mum would approve.
I shrugged and gathered the last of the empty pots and pints on my way to the kitchen.
"It's your funeral."
I gave Toby a wide berth as I headed back to the kitchen. Though I was over the moon to see him, I didn't want him to think that he was in any way obligated to take me home after work. This spur-of-the-moment bet was starting to seriously backfire, and I wished that I'd never made it, or at best that I'd let him win. I would have made him his damn pies and that would have been the end of it. Maybe now he'd be greeting me with a smile instead of this weird silence. I may not have acknowledged him, but it's not like he acknowledged me. Ha!
Geez. And I was critical of Ellie's mind games. Could it be that I was playing my own? Either way, I'd told myself on the way back up Coronary Hill this afternoon that the next time I saw Toby Morrison I would play it cool, and that was exactly what I'd done. I just didn't expect him to do it, too, and so well.