Chapter 1
Mad Men
Urvi
“Mad Man! What’ll it be?” I shouted across the bar. It was Friday night happy hour, and the place was heaving. My feet ached from overuse, my hands ached from mixing endless cocktails, my head ached from the relentless music and my cheeks ached from my fake smile. Working at Dragon’s Den was about as far from helping out at the local pub back home as you could get, and not always in a good way. The only music that got played in the Nag’s Head back in Bogner was an occasional bit of Elton John, and even then only when Mandy the landlady was feeling frisky.
Terry, my boss, had had me on the floor for a while serving at tables but there were . . . problems: wandering hands, up-skirting photos and a higher proportion of split drinks versus actual ones served. Now I was kept firmlybehindthe bar despite my poor cocktail-making skills. Terry said it was safer that way.
Mad Man, aka Jack leaned over the bar and smiled at me. He was a regular. Nearly every week he brought clients here. He and his other designer-suit-wearing friends propped up the bar and flashed their cash most Friday nights. Everything about them screamedloaded, from their Italian leather shoes to their tailored suits complete with tie clips.Tie clips. To me they were the Mad Men, as most of them worked as advertising executives in the same company round the corner. And Jack was my firm favourite - his dark hair, gorgeous five o’clock shadow, and piercing blue eyes. He was just somaleand grown up andburly. I don’t think I’d ever described a man as burly before. Probably because the adjective had been left in the 80s where it belonged to describe lumberjacks, bikers and Vikings. But, despite the designer togs and perfect grooming,burlyjust seemed to suit Jack down to the ground. He was nothing like the boys at the Academy. Jack was tall and well-built and oozed confidence. He was a proper adult and he seemed to have his shit together. As someone with their shit very much all over the place, I found that unbelievably attractive. Plus, he was just a thoroughly decent, funny-as-hell guy.
“Three Corona’s please, Urvi,” he said through his smile, and I felt heat rise to my cheeks. He always pronounced my name theproperway, the way my family said it, with the right intonation and everything. Even my closest friends didn’t say it the correct way, and for some reason it made me feel connected to Jack like heknewme.
Which was ridiculous.
Yes he could charm the spikes off a hedgehog, and yes there had beenthat time– the time when he hadn’t come in with a clientorhis mates, but instead sat alone at the end of the bar all night. He’d stayed on until it was just him and a couple of other stragglers at the bar, and I’d asked him if he was ok. You know, like a good barmaid should - be a sounding board for other peoples issues, have some chat, tell bad jokes, make them feel listened to. But keep myself out of it.
“What’s with sad, frowny badger face?” I’d asked him, which had managed to lift the corners of his mouth a tiny fraction.
“Badger?” he asked through his not-quite-there-smile.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re just in the early stages of badgering.” I pointed in the general direction of his beard which had some grey in it and given him a wide smile. “It’s a compliment, just to clarify. Badgers are hot.”
He blinked at me and the smile had started to creep out a little more. “Badgers are hotis not a phrase you hear often.”
“Well, you’ve never met my roommate, you lucky bastard,” I muttered. “Listen it can’t be that bad can it? I bet you’ll sort it all-”
“It’s not really the type of thing I cansortas such,” he said as his smile faded and his grim expression returned.
My eyes went wide. “God, I’m sorry, what if itisthat bad? What if someone’s died? What ifyou’redying? See, there you are adulting and saying appropriate stuff at all times, and here I am insulting a grieving and or dying man.”
He blinked again and the blood drained out of my face, but just as I started to think I might have really insulted him he finally given me a full smile, before letting out a deep, sexy chuckle.
“I didn’t think I’d laugh today. You’re not so bad at this adulting thing either you know. You make a bloody good barmaid.”
I’d pulled a face but decided not to disabuse him of this opinion. The fact was that my life was circling the drain - quite literally myactuallife. As in, if I didn’t get my shit together quickly I wouldn’t evenhavea life. But I’d just made this man laugh, and barmaids did not bang on about themselves, so I kept my mouth shut about my depressing problems.
I’d continued on my mission to turn his frown upside-down – I think I even used that phrase. I teased him about working for theThe Dark Sideand asked him if his head would explode if he wore a pair of jeans once in a while. He asked me why I was the only barmaid who didn’t do the whole flipping bottles and cocktail shakers thing. This had led to an explanatory demonstration (luckily with a shatter proof cocktail maker, which ended up sailing past his head). Then we just talked: about London, about the client he’d lost and the bad business decisions he’d made that had led him to brooding all night. We’d covered everything from politics and global warming, to whether Jaffa Cakes were a biscuit or a cake (I won that particular argument – size matters people: I can put away ten of those bad boys in under a minute, try doing that with actual cakes.Try it).
It was two hours past closing by the time we’d left, and Jack made no move on me in all that time. He walked me to the bus stop and even offered to call me an Uber on his app (an offer I’d turned down – I wasn’t a charity case. Not yet anyway). He’d been the perfect gentleman, which I’d found both admirable and intensely disappointing. But I’d felt like weconnected, as though we already knew each other and that life had led us back together again.
It was the strangest feeling and not, I knew, a realistic one. These advertising people reeked of money, the whole bar did. They werenotinterested in being my friend. Maybe a cheeky shag so they had something to tell their mates, but not anything real, not with the barmaid.
Now, looking at him across the bar I wondered whether there was a trace of that connection left.
“There you go, hun,” I said with a smile to Jack, putting the three bottles of Corona in front of him and shoving three lime wedges into the tops. He murmured a thank you and smiled at me. That was the other thing about Jack – his smiles weren’t just perfunctory bits of politeness. When he smiled at me his eyes sparked and his whole face lit up. As if just seeing me had made his day better. Being smiled at by Jack felt amazing.
“Are you working all night?” he asked.
“Er . . .” I let out a light laugh and my eyes swept the packed bar. “Not sure my boss would be too happy if I didn’t.”
Jack opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by one of his clients clapping his hand onto his back and jolting him enough to spill some of his beer.
“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered under his breath as he shook his beer-covered hand, frowning at the oblivious idiot next to him. I passed him a clump of napkins from behind the bar and he gave me a grateful smile. See?Perfect barmaid.
“Askher,” Mr Annoying Client said, his cheeks and nose were red and his eyes glassy. This chap was already well-oiled by the looks of him. “Bit on the exotic side but still in our target audience, right?”
I blinked and clenched my jaw, trying to force a fake smile to my lips, which was probably more of a grimace. I wasn’t “exotic”. I was from Bogner Regis.
