no one looked away, I huffed. “And for everyone's information, you heard none of that call. It. Never. Happened. Understood? Repeat it and you’re barred from my pub,” I threatened and scowled.
“Absolutely,” Terry replied and quiet mumbles in agreement came quickly from the other loyal regulars.
“What phone call?” asked one.
“Never heard a thing,” said another.
Archie was practically steaming drunk and reprimanding the barstool for falling over of its own accord, so I knew he was no threat, either. I figured he wouldn’t even remember falling the following morning.
With my chest still heaving from losing my temper, I took a measured breath and reminded myself this was my place of work and my patrons came to my bar as a means of escape. Plastering on my best landlady smile, I began lining up some glasses knowing I had to turn my mood and that of the bar’s atmosphere around.
“Excellent, drinks are on the house, as my penance for using not enough curse words in that call … that none of you heard.”
“We love you, Daisy,” came a joint reply.
Chapter 2
The bar fell quiet just after 9:00 p.m. and I used the time to take an early night, leaving Terry to lock up on his own. While I ran a bath, I fired off a text to Maria.
Me: Bath, pj’s, bed, wine, chocolate. I’m charging my phone because I really need to vent.
As soon as I sent the message, Maria replied.
Maria: It's a date, call me when you’re ready… it had better be good. I have an essay due for college tomorrow. xx
Fifteen minutes later, I’d filled her in on my details from the call.
“You gotta be fecking kidding,” Maria cried out in disbelief. “He has some nerve popping up out of the blue. So, you’re not going to talk to him?”
“Would you?”
“But he really appeared to like you,” she mused, and my heart squeezed because I had thought he had, too. When I said nothing, she yawned. “Well, you definitely win first prize in the ‘I’ve had a Shite Day’ competition. I can’t begin to compete. My only entry is my latest research paper reads like someone watching a fly circle a lightbulb.”
I chuckled. “Sorry to hear that. I’ll try to create some drama around you next time you’re serving behind the bar.”
Maria snorted, but fell serious. “Never mind poor me, this call is supposed to be about you. What are you going to do, Daisy? It's been months since he disappeared.”
“Three months with no contact, apart from a ‘missing you’ text the day after he’d gone. Where the fuck has he been— outer Mongolia? It’s bull shite, him getting in touch now. I have to admit, I must have been sick in the head to have thought that relationship had any real chance of being normal.”
“Yeah, but I can’t get over the way he looked at you. No one can fake the way he looked so adoringly toward you. Why don’t you just hear the woman out? You didn’t even let her tell you why she’d called,” Maria asked, gently.
I ignored her comments. I’d seen articles about him during the previous months. “What about those articles in those gossip and celebrity magazines in the States? Frances found those online, remember? Did he look like he was pining for me in those pictures of him with leggy models? No, Maria, I’m not chasing someone who’s here one minute and gone the next.”
“If that’s what you feel. It might be better not to engage, like you said. He could come back for another taste and disappear again,” she admitted. “But just think of all the women in the world that have dreamed of what happened to you. Actually, I take back what I said. You’re a fecking legend for hanging up on that woman.”
“Thanks for listening, Maria. I’m going to catch up on some sleep. I’ve not been sleeping well. Terry felt sorry for me and is coming in early as well to clear the bottles, sort out the cellar and clean the pipes. G’night, sweetheart, sleep well.”
The following morning, Terry had come back inside from washing Halloween string from the windows outside, while I had kept watch over the bar. It was barely opening time and I left him to deal with the same three old regulars who always came in minutes after we unlocked the door.
Meanwhile, I stood at the other end of the bar and studied the contents of a box file I had put together during the previous