AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Something up, Barney?” Terry inquired as he became my perfect wingman and stood shoulder to shoulder beside me.
“Barney?” the redhead asked, her eyes furrowed in confusion.
“Just asking my pot man if we’ve got a problem here? Terry, head bartender,” he added softer, turning on his charm. He held a hand out with an authoritative tone in his voice.
“Pot man? What’s that? I have no idea what you mean?”
“I’m sorry. Let me start again,” Terry said. “I saw you approach my member of staff and from the look on your face it had appeared as if you were having a problem.”
“Staff? This guy’s not staff, he’s Jamie Fontaine,” she stated loudly, drawing attention to me from some of the other customers. Low murmurs temporarily changed the atmosphere in the bar.
“Not that old chestnut again.” Terry chuckled. “Jesus, Barney, if you had a euro for every woman that figured you were that dick from DistRoyed you’d be retired by now, eh?” He slapped my back hard, grinning, like he’d found her suggestion funny.
“Catrina,” she stated, tapping her chest to remind me of her name, like she was in danger of not giving up. “Same name as your sister, remember? Encore Hotel, Boston Harbor; ring any bells?” she asked, giving me further prompts of the hotel where our tryst had taken place.
For a few beats I could feel my heartrate pulse in my mouth until I heard Daisy’s calm voice when she interjected.
“Can I be of assistance?” My girl asked, looking every part the professional she was in her workplace. “Back to work, Barney, those glasses aren’t going to clean themselves,” she barked in an order toward me. Without looking back at the girl, I took Daisy’s out, but my chest felt so tight I felt dizzy. I could hardly breathe at the thought of leaving Daisy alone with my ‘one and done’. My heart pounded erratically as I walked over to the bar, slid behind the hatch at the side, and placed the glasses down on the counter near the sink.
“Fuck,” I muttered, and began stacking them carefully into the glass washer, my concentration shot to shit at the scene unfolding a few feet away from me. I knew outwardly I appeared calm, but inside my body, chaos reigned.
“I guess that’s what got you into this mess,” Terry advised me when he heard me cuss. Like I hadn’t known his witty comment to be the truth. I glanced back toward Daisy,, still talking to the redhead and I instantly felt ashamed. “Don’t sweat it, you think Daisy hasn’t faced this kind of scenario before. This is a small city,” Terry reminded me. “There’s always someone who has been connected to someone else.”
“I’m not out of the woods by a long shot,” I confessed. “If I remember rightly, I had a lot of issues shaking that one off,” I admitted. “What the fuck, it’s just my luck she’s shown up here of all places.”
“Just keep your head down and do your job, don’t engage and leave the rest to us,” Terry warned.
Leaving the rest to Daisy was dangerous as far as I was concerned, but I had no words for how it had made me feel to know a fast talking guy like Terry had had my back. However, the moment he told me to keep my head down, it had felt like a challenge. It reminded me of those times back in high school when someone had said ‘don’t look now’ and your instincts were automatically programmed to look— so I did.
My girl stood wringing a glass towel in her hand, deep in conversation with my one night stand. In the past, it would have been a situation that would have made me laugh, but not so when it involved the one girl I was desperately trying to convince was my once in a lifetime love. Apart from the towel being worked in her hands, Daisy appeared effortlessly calm.
The program on the glass cleaning machine beeped, signalling the end of the glass cleaning cycle and I jumped, my legs weak, when it startled me. Terry chuckled at my reaction and I smirked before opening the small door. Steam bellowed out affording me another glance in the two women’s direction and my heart squeezed when I saw how they both laughed together like they were old friends. Daisy looked completely at ease with the towel now under her arm as she gestured the redhead toward a table. To my surprise, the girl looked far meeker when she sat down beside it .
“Two elderflower gins,” Daisy said to Terry when she walked over to the bar without looking at me. I willed her to, but had a strong vibe she was deliberately not giving me eye contact.
“Everything okay?” I asked, which had been a stupid question. I was a famous rock star, stood cleaning glasses in a pub in Ireland, pretending to be an anonymous glass collector while the landlady of said bar, my girlfriend no less, saved my ass from a persistent fan I’d screwed in the past. I couldn’t have made that story up had I been forced to.
So, no. Everything wasn’t okay. In fact, everything couldn’t have been more of a slow motion car crash.
After an hour of watching Daisy and the girl intently, the girl got up and left without another glance back toward me. My girl stood up and paused with her back to me for a moment and I wondered what had been said between them. I was about to go over to her when she picked up their two glasses and headed back to the bar.
“Well that was enlightening,” she said, flatly as she placed the glasses on the counter and headed up the stairs to her apartment.
“I think that’s your cue,” Terry said, tipping his chin toward the stairs. Leaning over, he picked up a clean towel and began polishing the glasses I’d let stack up. I’d been too anxious imagining what the two women were saying to do my job.
“Thanks, Terry,” I muttered, throwing the towel I’d been using in the laundry bin and heading up after her.
I noticed the two guys at the bar do a double take as I walked past them and as I climbed the stairs, I heard a guy ask. “Is that the guy from DistTroyed?”
“Oh lord, not that one again?” Maria said, interjecting after an exaggerated sigh. “It’s not him. Think before you speak, you eejit. Why would an American rock star be in a Dublin Bar the day after Christmas cleaning glasses? You both need to get your eyes tested.”
Chapter 13
“Don’t.” Daisy said, holding up her hand as I strode toward her. My intention had been to hug her. In that one word she’d uttered, I’d heard hurt, irritation and anger.
“Fuck, baby, I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice pleading with her to try to understand that girl was before I ever knew her.
“I know. I read that on your face when I walked over to you both… I can see it now in your eyes,” she admitted, wringing her hands as she paced the room, her hands touching her lips, her hair, her hips.
