Don’t You Forget About Me(86)

Kitty’s voice can be heard squeaking: ‘What’s going on? Is Georgina OK?’

Lucas gallantly manoeuvres himself without letting go of me, bending down and returning my cardigan, which I accept and hold draped across my front, like a beach towel. The top is going to need a good wring out and to sit on a hot radiator unless they want this to be a wet-t-shirt establishment for the afternoon.

‘All sorted; seems Georgina got a dousing from an unknown clear liquid.’

‘I’ll refrain from any off-colour jokes which aren’t occurring to me right now, you know that’s not my style.’

‘Get LOST, Devlin.’

‘Hahaha. The assailant ran off and it took Kitty too long to get round the bar to give chase. What was it about?’

‘The prime suspect is the strip-o-gram we ejected, Georgina says.’

‘I think it was revenge served cold for me hitting him.’

‘Right. Never a dull moment, eh?’ Dev says.

He withdraws and I pull my cardigan on and rebutton it, which strangely feels more intimate in front of Lucas than not wearing it. Must be something in the implications of the process of getting dressed around him. There’s only one other sort of occasion when it might take place. I think he feels it too because he looks away and blathers vaguely about the necessity of calling the police.

‘What do we say though? Someone throwing water is like reporting a toerag for a balloon in the street.’

‘I think it might’ve crossed their minds you’d think it was acid, the sadists,’ Lucas says. ‘I think it’s worth flagging. If it sends someone in uniform round to see him to remind him of the sentence for throwing worse things, it won’t be in vain.’

‘True. What a shift!’ I say, tucking sodden hair behind my ears, aware my make-up must be ‘member of Kiss’.

‘Yeah, it’s been eventful,’ Lucas says. ‘All things considered, you’re allowed to knock off now.’

‘I’d like to go home, shower, change, come back and down several large stiff drinks, please.’

Lucas gives me an appraising look. ‘For the shock?’

‘For the shock.’

‘We’ve established my shock was worse,’ Lucas says.

‘You best have a stiff drink too then.’

Lucas checks his watch. ‘See you in an hour or so.’

A session? The two of us? I’m aquiver with anticipation. I keep thinking of what Lucas said when he held me. He gave himself away.

I have hope.





36


‘Yes, madam, what’ll it be?’ Devlin says.

‘Half of Strippers Piss, please,’ I say, when I present myself back at the bar half an hour before closing, fluttery with expectation, having spent more care over my freshening up and outfit than was strictly necessary for a lock-in. I’m wearing a tight Cure t-shirt. Sometimes being subtle is overrated.

‘I’ve taken it off, that was coming through cloudy. I think the pipes need cleaning,’ Lucas calls over, and we laugh in a goonish way. It’s Devlin rolling his eyes for once. Wow, Bobby, you did me a favour. Extraordinary.

I can’t believe I only recently thought of Lucas as standoffish. Seems I had to learn the lesson of the person behind the fa?ade, twice. He just needs to trust you.

Usually when Lucas is working, I’m working too. Parked with a glass of red wine at a table, I get to watch him for once. I have a covert ogling licence and I intend to use it.

I’d not admitted to myself until now what the sight of Lucas does to me. It was too masochistic, with someone who didn’t like me, who thought so little of me that he had erased me. Now I’m wondering if this wasn’t in fact, ideal – no history to worry about. An untainted second chance.

I prop my chin on my hand. He reaches up to get a bottle from a shelf and his t-shirt rides up, exposing several inches of abdomen. A considerate customer changes their mind about which gin they want, and he has to put it back and get another one down, and this time I see the muscles above his belt flex as he strains to grasp it. My own, less flat gut flexes in response.

Even the way he stands over the till does something to me, the tension in his shoulders, the loose way his body moves. Oh God, and look at the way he’s pushing his inky hair out of the light sweat on his brow … He glances over at me and I quickly move my eyes back to my phone.

He did suggest he might drink with me, right? My disappointment if he doesn’t will be considerable.

I adore Dev and yet I’m effusive with gratitude when he says apologetically that he would have a jar but Mo and the kids are over and he’s leaving early. Lucas waves away my offer to help with the clean-up. When the last punters clatter out of the door, it’s me, Lucas and Massive Attack on the speakers. Stand in front of you …

I shiver with anticipation.

‘Is that, this?’ he holds up a bottle of red, points at the label, points at the glass.

I nod. He walks over holding it, with a glass, and I sit rod-straight with contained tension. He sits opposite on the second shabby-chic easy armchair at my table, unscrews the cap, tops me up, pours his, and says:

‘So then, Georgina Horspool. This is highly preferable to us sitting in some hospital’s serious burns unit, eh?’

He picks up his glass and clinks it against mine, pulling a grimace.