Sam
It didn’t matter how many times I explained to my Yorkshire kin that the London pub I worked in was as civilised as you could get, they still thought I worked in a spit-and-sawdust boozer in Hackney, fighting knife crime and dodging bullets. TheDaily Mailhad a lot to answer for in the seaside town I called home.
Not that I called Whitby home anymore. I’d been a Londoner for eight years and couldn’t see that changing. I loved city life. Even on weekdays, surrounded by yuppies and bankers with their bluster and excess.
I preferred Saturdays, though. The Fox was down the road from the Barbican and got enough custom from tourists and locals to keep things interesting. Lucky for me, today was Saturday, and it was getting late. Food service was over, leaving the tourists sipping cocktails and the locals chugging pints. The only exception was my flatmate in the corner, nursing his customary Diet Coke with ice and lemon and thumbing through his phone.
Micah caught my eye as I wove through the crowd collecting empty glasses. As ever, his dark gaze made me weak at the knees, but I dampened the sensation down like a pro. I was happy with my place in his friend zone.
I had to be. There was nothing else... right?
* * *
Micah
The pub was busy, but Sam still breezed past every ten minutes to check on me, even though he knew I’d never finish the drink he’d put in front of me at six o’clock. Sometimes I wondered how on earth he hadn’t figured out that I didn’t frequent this shithole pub every weekend for the quality of its carbonated brown water. Most nights, though, I thanked my lucky stars that he liked me enough to let me stalk him at work all night long.
The thought made me smile as I glanced up at just the right time to catch his attention. His blue eyes sparkled at me across the crowded bar, and for a fleeting moment, stars aligned. Then some fucker called his name and he was gone, leaving me to curse the fact that his easy grin wasn’t only for me.
I shook my head with my gaze still fixed on him. The bar was moodily dark, but somehow Sam’s golden hair still glinted like the sun. He was wearing skinny jeans and Docs, a Motörhead T-shirt, and an apron that made his slim waist look tiny. He slipped between tables and stools, stacking glasses and wielding a wet cloth. Men and women alike were watching him like I was. And he had no idea. Because that was the thing about Sam: he was the most gorgeous bloke on the planet, and he had no fucking clue.
Still shaking my head, I went back to scrolling mindlessly through my phone. A few messages pinged in. I ignored most of them, but there was one I couldn’t—Freddie Santos, an old teammate I accidentally owed my life to.
Freddie:yo yo yo, where u at man?
Micah:same place I usually am, bro
Freddie:not that crap hole by Moorgate?
Micah:like you’ve ever taken the tube in your life
Micah:but yeah, that’s where I’m at
Freddie went quiet, and I hoped that was it. He was a genuine friend, but not one I liked enough to talk to more than once in a blue moon.
I returned to the tabloid news site I’d been perusing for no other reason than I was a bored masochist. Enough time had passed since my career-ending meltdown that I was no longer a regular in the red tops, but my mate Dom wasn’t so lucky. He’d stepped away from the circus of elite footballyearsago, and yet somehow papped pics of him and his boyfriend still lit up my screen.
Mauling my bottom lip, I tapped through the images of my one-time teammate strolling through Regent’s Park, hand-in-hand with his beautiful boyfriend. Resentment warred with admiration. Dom had been the first of us yanked out of the closet. To have his life flayed open for all to see, irrevocably blighting the career he’d spent his entire existence building. He’d walked away without looking back.
Me? Fuck. I’d clung on until it had nearly killed me, but that was a story for another day. The scar on my leg throbbed. I rubbed it through my jeans as a soft thumb appeared from nowhere and rescued my lip from my teeth.
“Stop brooding.”
I treated Sam to a scowl we both knew I didn’t mean. Not with him. Never with him. “I’m not brooding, I’m reading.”
“Dude, the only shit you ever read are those wanky tabloids, and they always put you in a foul mood.”
“I’m not in a foul mood.”
“Oh no? So why are you glaring death craters into your phone screen?”
He had me there. But as luck would have it, Freddie saved the day.
Freddie:i’m gonna swing by
I held the message up for Sam to read as evidence of why I was giving my phone the stink eye. On cue, his lovely face folded into his own glower. “What does that knobhead want?”
“A drink, maybe? Thisisa pub.”
