I gave my mother an evaluatory stare. She had always been my biggest critic: through college, through starting up the online dating company, through buying a bookshop, she had always had an opinion as to whether I was doing her parenting skills justice. The same when I had a girlfriend. She told me she brought me up to be a perfect gentleman, never once sayingI brought you up to not be like your father,although that was clearly what she meant. I’ve never been sure whether or not I made it to perfect level, but I liked to think I was nearer to that than complete arse.
Today could quite easily send me down to that level.
“I was presumptuous and insulting,” I confessed and then told her the rest of the sorry encounter.
“What did she look like?”
“You’ve seen her picture. That.”
My mother shook her head. “No. What did she look like on a Saturday afternoon in a book shop? Not when she’s dressed up being lawyerly.”
I stifled a groan. I knew exactly what my mother was doing and it wasn’t fair; I wasn’t falling for it. “She looked like her picture just not dressed for the office. I was more concerned with the fact she was obsessing over taking a photo of my bookcases without checking if she was treading on anyone.” She hadn’t. She’d looked like a fiery pixie with a blonde bob and the biggest blue eyes I’d never drowned in.
“Okay, fine.” She didn’t believe me. “Forget about the letter from Dave’s lawyer and your encounter with the pretty book-buying lawyer and focus on getting tonight organised. That needs your attention.”
* * *
The first shop I’d started was small. It still existed— in fact it was the ones Dave was part owner of—and had its own speciality of genre books along with an upstairs dedicated to crime. Given its size, no one had believed me when I said I was going to turn it into a live music venue, but people believing in me had never been a prerequisite to actually getting stuff done. It held thirty people, plus a band and we sold out each time. Cases had a reputation almost immediately for atmospheric music, jazz or country acoustic sets, in an intimate venue and it wasn’t long before my contacts from my own music days started bringing in fairly well-known names who were keen to play somewhere smaller that was just about the tunes.
Tonight we had an acoustic set from a band I’d been following for some time, the lead guitarist was a guy I’d known briefly when I was at college. Tickets had sold out some weeks ago, so we had a full house in the largest bookstore in my group and I needed to boss some staff about, given that my manager had broken his arm playing five-a-side-football last weekend and had just undergone surgery to re-pin it.
We had closed at six, an hour earlier than usual for a Saturday, giving us ninety minutes to put the leather Chesterfields and tables in the storage rooms down the sides and clear the centre to make a stage area. This store was the perfect venue: big without being huge—it maxed out at one hundred and fifty—and people could watch from the mezzanine floor above where the bar was as well as downstairs.
“Owen, there’s a woman asking for you,” Mick, my assistant manager and resident muso shouted above the din of furniture being shifted.
I looked up to the last remaining soft seat where a woman with long auburn hair was lounging, a broad smile on her face. Immediately, my stomach sank. I didn’t need this today, not today of all days when everything else had been such a shitter.
“Win,” I said, taking a few footsteps towards her with the faint hope she’d keep her voice quiet so my employees didn’t have to hear about my private life, or current lack of. “What can I do for you?”
Her eyes grew larger, as if she was hoping they’d turn into black holes and she could swallow me with them. “I was hoping to hang out tonight.”
“It’s sold out so we’re at capacity,” I said. “I’m sorry. I can put reservations on a couple of tickets for you for the next gig. Ricky Whisky is here next Saturday. I’ll make sure you get a decent discount.” I was aware that my words would be nowhere near my mother’s required standards for how to treat someone you’ve fucked a few times, but I had no intention of leading Win on. She’d wanted more. I’d wanted away.
She let loose a loud sigh and stood up, then took the remaining few steps so she could put her arms around me and pull herself close. “I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t want to hurt you by making you come back to me so I thought I’d make the first move. I missed you.” She pushed her tits onto my chest and thankfully my cock received the message from my brain that getting anywhere near hard right now would result in blue balls and absolutely no jacking off material.
Untangling myself from her limbs, I edged a step back, aware that Mick was watching us closely. “Win, I’m sorry if I’ve given out the wrong signals but I’m really not interested in anything else happening between us. We had a good few nights together, but I don’t want anything more.”
“Are you sleeping with someone else?” she said, horror striking her face. “I’m not into sloppy seconds.”
And she totally had the wrong idea about that phrase.
“No, I’m really not but it wouldn’t matter if I was because we ended a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t been in touch, so I assumed you’d understood that we were through.” I rubbed my brow. I wanted to go home, have a shower, kick some computer-based asses and have a beer before sleeping in really late in the morning. Then maybe I’d hit the gym and run a good twenty-k before Ash, my best mate, turned up hungover and in need of a Sunday lunch—also getting out of his apartment while his Saturday night hook up cleared off. However, I had a business and this was it, so I was here. And in a moment Win wouldn’t be.
“How very fucking shitty of you,” she said, blinking so hard one of her false eyelashes started to dislodge. “I thought you were this gentleman businessman. With biceps.” She gave one a slight squeeze and I wondered if this was how women felt when someone grabbed their arse.
“I’m really trying to be gentleman like, but it’s hard when I’m not talking to a lady. So if you’d kindly take a hint before I’m really not a gentleman and have security help you out of here…”
She shot daggers at me from her eyes and strutted out, her heels clicking on the tiled floor.
I rubbed my eyes, only opening them when I heard Mick laughing. “Sorry, O. It’s good to see you’re human and make mistakes like the rest of us,” he said, shifting the last chair like it weighed the same as a bag of cotton.
“I think the last fortnight has just been a murder of mistakes,” I said, butchering the English language and its collective nouns for my purpose. I really could do with a fairy godmother right now.”
Or even a pixie-sized one in a suit.I shook the thought out of my head. I did not need to make life any more complicated right now.
Chapter Three
Payton
