On Dublin Street(11)

I’d offered more times that I could count. She always said no.


“Nah.” She shook her head and pressed a soft kiss to my cheek. “I’ll find someone new. I always do.”


She wandered away with a slump to her shoulders and I found myself worrying about her when I really didn’t want to. Jo was one of the misunderstood. She could grate on your nerves with her materialism, but humble you with her loyalty to her family. She might love pretty shoes but they took a backburner when it came to making sure her kid brother and mom were okay. Unfortunately, that loyalty also meant she’d trample over anyone who got in her way, and be trampled over by anyone willing to use her situation against her. “I’m going on my break. I’ll send Craig out.”


I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me, wondering who her next victim would be. Or was that whose victim she would next become?


“It’s quiet tonight.” Craig ambled towards me two minutes later with a can of soda in hand. Tall, dark-haired and good-looking, Craig probably pulled in just as many tips as Jo and I did. He was a perennial flirt. And he was good at it.


“It’s summer,” I mused, casting an eye around the quiet club before turning my back to lean on the bar. “It’ll pick up weekdays again when August comes around.” I didn’t have to explain I meant it would pick up because of the Edinburgh Festival. In August, the entire city was taken over by the famous festival. Tourists descended on the city, stealing all the best tables in all the best restaurants and there was always so many of them they made walking five steps into a five minute journey.


Tips were great though.


Craig groaned and leaned closer to me. “I’m bored.” He flicked his eyes over my body with lazy perusal. “Want to shag me in the men’s toilets?”


He asked me this every shift.


I always said no, and then told him to ‘shag’ Jo instead. His reply: ‘Been there, done that’. I was a friendly challenge and I think he honestly had deluded himself into thinking he’d one day conquer me.


“Well? Do you?” A familiar soft voice asked from behind me.


I whirled around, blinking in surprise to find Ellie on the other side of the bar. Behind her was a guy I didn’t recognize and… Braden.


Blanching instantly, still mortified from yesterday, I barely noted the carefully blank expression in his eyes as he watched Craig.


Wrenching my own gaze from him, I smiled weakly at Ellie. “Um… what are you doing here?”


Ellie and I had, had dinner together the night before. I’d told her Braden had stopped by, but I hadn’t told her about the whole naked thing. She’d told me about her class, and I could understand why she’d make such a great tutor. Her passion for art history was infectious and I found myself listening to her with genuine interest.


All and all, it had been a pleasant first dinner. Ellie had asked me a couple of personal questions that I had managed to deflect back onto her. I now knew that she was a big sister to half-siblings, Hannah (fourteen) and Declan (ten). Her mom, Elodie Nichols, lived in the Stockbridge area of Edinburgh with her husband Clark. Elodie was a part-time manager at the Sheraton Grand Hotel, and Clark, a professor of classical history at the university. It was clear from the way she talked that Ellie adored them all and I got the impression that Braden spent more time with this family than his own mother.


At lunch today, Ellie and I had taken a break from our own work and met in the sitting room for food and a little bit of television. We’d sniggered our way through an episode of classic British comedy ‘Are you Being Served?’ and had bonded in comfortable silence. I’d felt as though I were gaining surprisingly fast but steady ground with my new roommate.


However, turning up at my work with her brother? Well that was not cool. Not that she knew about my incident yesterday with her brother…


“We’re meeting up with some friends for a drink in Tigerlily. We thought we’d stop by to say hi.” She grinned at me, her eyes dancing with mischief in a seventh grader kind of way before she slanted them questioningly in Craig’s direction.


Tigerlily huh? That was a nice place. I noted Ellie’s pretty sequin dress. It looked like something from the 1920’s and screamed designer. It was the first time I’d seen her so put together and with Braden standing next to her wearing another dapper suit as well as their companion, Adam, I felt a little out of sorts. Despite all my money, I wasn’t used to the obviously stylish, ‘cocktails and crème brulee’ kind of lifestyle these guys were used to. Somehow disappointed, I realized I did not fit in with this crowd.


“Oh,” I answered dumbly, ignoring her questioning eyebrows.


“This is Adam.” Ellie turned to the guy behind her as soon as she realized I wasn’t going to answer her silent query. Ellie’s pale eyes turned dark with deep warmth as she looked up at Adam and I wondered if this guy was her boyfriend. Not that she’d mentioned a boyfriend. The dark-haired hottie was just a little shorter than Braden with broad shoulders that filled out his suit nicely.


His warm dark eyes glittered at me under the bar lights as he smiled. “Hi. Nice to meet you.”


“You too.”