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Chapter 1
She walked into Smokey's Bar like the breeze that sometimes caresses your face on a gray day. Her fair, nearly blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail with two wisps hanging down by each eye. The bustle of the bar absorbed her into its midst and I lost track of her until she surfaced by the gamblers.
They were a group of men who visited lunchtimes who liked telling tales of their successes and forgetting their losses in the beer. Their appreciation of local female talent was shared and bonded with approving winks. She got the treatment in spades. Her denim jeans, slightly frayed at the ankle, rose forever to meet smoothly curved hips and her red tightly stretched cotton shirt hugged her body like they wanted to.
A wave of drinks orders distracted me and by the time I saw her again she was seated at a table by the window. The man she was with wasn't a regular and he was nothing special. Smokey's attracted every element of Central London's low and high life. But this suit looked like a no-lifer. He wore middle age with oozing confidence, bending his baldness towards her with a ravenous smile. She was his lunch for today. His opportunity for courtship was timed to the minute and his body language was in the fast lane.
"Come on Barry. Are you the waking dead or what?"
It was Ron, the gaffer and skinny owner of Smokey's. He was rapidly going under from machine-gun fire orders from erstwhile drinkers who couldn't reach my planet. Smokey's was always busy and he could have kept half a dozen barmen on survival rations like me if that hadn't been against his moral code. He liked lean and mean. He aspired avidly to the status of skinflint.
I grunted meaningfully by way of reply, flicked back my wavy fair hair from my face and squared up to the rush of orders like the condemned. My slender body, honed to perfection by endless contemplation of exercise, whipped backwards and forwards like a medieval ballista hurling alcoholic drinks at the hordes like lead shot. The charges I delivered seemed less lethal but I knew they would get them in the end.
Moments later, the bar was clear and she was standing in front of me. Her large blue eyes fixed on me like twin sparkling lasers in the night. I stood transfixed.
"A pint of bitter and a tomato juice with ice please." She had repeated herself. This time more insistently.
I pushed the cogs of my mind into gear and with as much aplomb as I could muster, dropped the freshly opened tomato juice onto the floor trying to do too many things at once. It mingled noisily with the quagmire of beer and spirits already there. I saw Ron snarl with exasperation but I was in heaven.
"Do you normally have this affect on all men that serve you?" It was a low quip but the best I had to cover my embarrassment as I cleaned up.
"Only on a really good day and when the men are young and red bloodied," she laughed. Her voice was soft like a thousand wind chimes in the night.
"Young men must have some advantages!" I let my eyes drift in the direction of the window seat she would soon desert me for. It was an even lower cut made with the bravado of an adrenaline rush.
"You sound as if you've something to sell! What are you offering?" I noticed that there were flecks of gray drifting in the perfect blue of her teasing streetwise eyes.
"Me? I'm a humble barman ... I just watch and enjoy!"
The drinks were now on the bar. She handed over a five-pound note and collected the drinks with finely tapered fingers.
"You can have the change," she said, batting her eyes at me from behind her wisps.
"You're a friend," I said.
"We all need friends." She tossed her ponytail. "And, anyway, it's not my money."
"I wouldn't have thought a good looking girl like you had any shortage of friends ... or money."
I saw the pain in her eyes as my words registered and mentally kicked myself hard. She knew I was wondering why she was with the old guy. Our eyes locked, hers cool and appraising, mine telling her I was sorry for being an idiot. She seemed to make a decision.
"You can be my friend if you really want to. Three thirty in the center of the park outside. Be there! I'm relying on you!"
Five minutes later, I remembered to close my mouth to stop the barflies making a permanent home.
Fifteen minutes later, she delicately threaded her way through the crush with her man in tow and was gone.
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