“Barred, what does that mean?” Jamie asked, his eyes shifting from my customer to me. He appeared less sure of himself.
Ronan, another of the locals, immediately replied. “It means, you’ll not be getting a drink in here any time soon.”
Jamie snickered and looked toward me, his cocky smile melting the ice around my heart. Fortunately, there was still enough rage within me not to allow my heart to totally mess with my head.
“You can serve him, Terry, his money is the same as everyone else’s … providing he has euros, of course,” I snapped in a cool tone, reminding him he’d had no foreign cash the last time he’d been in Dublin.
“You know I didn’t come here for a drink, Daisy, I came to talk to you.”
“Oh, is that right?” I challenged, staring him down and tapping my pen against the ledger I’d been writing in. “After all this time you want to talk? As far as I know, we have nothing to talk about.”
“Not true, we have a lot to talk about. I’ve flown all the way here so that you can hear me out.”
“Hear you out?” I shrieked. “Why the hell should I? And why did you fly here? Is it because your executive assistant thought we might need a DNA test, so you shit your pants and dragged your ass here to find out for yourself?” I finished, my breath heaving. I’d used sarcastic quote marks at my use of executive assistant.
“No, actually, she was calling on behalf of someone else. But I came here to apologize, to explain where I’ve been and to make amends, but it would be nicer to do that with some privacy instead of having a geriatric audience.”
I glanced around at the two single customers over by the door and the three old regulars sat at the bar. I noted everyone stared and had been hanging on our every word. Not much of an audience considering what Mr. Rockstar was used to.
“Listen, Barney, just because Daisy wears racy T-shirts doesn’t mean she’s easy,” Seamus explained. My eyes darted in his direction wondering what the hell that meant.
“Yeah, you can’t pick her up and put her down at your convenience,” Archie, informed him in my defense, from the other end of the bar. Relieved they were just having my back, I relaxed, surprised Archie had remembered anything at all from the day before.
“I thought we weren’t to mention we’d seen that pyjama top,” their drinking buddy, Ronan chipped in, elbowing drunk Seamus in the ribs.
My jaw dropped for a second and I glared at Terry, who had obviously lied to me. From the conversation that must have taken place, it appeared as if they had all not only seen the top I’d accidently pulled on, but they’d discussed it at some point as well.
Men, I can’t trust any of them.
“I think you should go to your hotel and I’ll consider whether we have anything to discuss when I’ve had time to think. Seeing you hasn’t made me feel the most rational person right now,” I said, lowering my gaze from those big pleading eyes that told me how exhausted he was from the flight.
He sighed. “Come on, Daisy. You know I don’t have a hotel. I was hoping I could stay here with you tonight.”
“Wow. How presumptuous of you. Is that how it works in your world? You’re sadly mistaken if you think you can come back here and slide right in.”
My jaw clenched tight when I saw his lips quirk in a half-smile, like he’d thought what I’d said was funny, until I realized what I’d implied. I scowled that my remark had carried a double entendre.
Under the weight of my drilling eyes he quickly regained his serious composure as I willed him not to push me while I gathered my thoughts.
I had never expected to see Jamie again, but he was right, we needed to talk. Correction, I wanted answers and I’d needed to vent because, for months, my mind had been consumed by all the things I would have said to him if ever I’d had the opportunity to again.
However, I was angry with how cocksure of himself he appeared to be, by the way he had strolled back into my bar without a care in his tone.
Does he think I’ll roll over and take him back?
No matter how excited I felt inside, I knew in my heart when I considered the possibilities of a future with him, they didn’t stack up. The only conclusion I came up with was the potential of having my heart broken more.
Jamie had already flitted in and back out of my life with no contact for months, and that had been at our beginning. With that in mind, I couldn’t see how much farther we could go.
“Last time I took a lodger, he wasn’t trustworthy, so my overnight rate now stands at ten thousand euros a night.”
“Sounds reasonable, under the circumstances, I’ll take it,” Jamie replied without hesitation, in a deadly serious tone.
“Bejesus, Barney, you can have my whole flat for a month for that money,” Archie offered, and Ronan shoved his friend again. “What? My place is only a five-minute walk from here,” he insisted, missing the point of his friend’s silent prompt.
Ronan shook his head and stared down at his drink. “Judas,” he muttered.
“Nice offer, but I’ll pay what it takes to stay here in the pub and to have an opportunity to talk to Daisy.”
“That was a crass remark I made, Archie. I’d never take money from a man I’d—” I stopped abruptly before I reminded everyone the guy before them had practically been living with me.
I studied the three old men at the end of the bar before I looked back to Jamie. As much as I didn’t want to be alone with him, I knew there was no way we could continue to talk in front of my customers if I was ever going to continue to save face.
“Fine, you can stay until we talk, but that’s not saying you’re staying. It doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for anything. I’m only conceding to a point because you look exhausted. But you can earn your keep by bottling up and cleaning everything after closing time, and then maybe we’ll talk.”
“Anything you say, Daisy,” he replied with a soft smile. Relief was evidence on his face.
“Put your bag in the spare room and you can rest there. Some of us have work to do,” I told him. I cleared my papers and lifted the hatch. When he walked through it and stood behind me the familiar scent of his cologne, which I loved on him, tugged at my heart and an ache grew in my stomach.
After he’d brushed past me, he stopped, and for a second I felt as if he was going to hug me. I held my breath because I sensed he’d wanted to. But, before he’d found his courage to act, I moved away from him, grabbed a glass to wash, and by the time I’d plucked up the courage to turn back to look at him, he’d gone.
My heart sank in my chest, filled with angst, instantly depressed at how weak I felt to resist him since he’d come back. I was torn because from the moment I’d first seen him standing there in the bar again, I had never felt more like punching and kissing anyone at the same time.
However, no matter that he was my biggest weakness, I guessed I’d have to rely on my dignity and refuse to allow him to treat me like one of his groupies.
When we were unusually busy that night, I knew news that Barney, the ‘Canadian Jamie Fontaine look-alike and sound-alike’, was back at the pub.
Hordes of twenty to thirty-year-old women came to drink in the pub for no other reason than to watch Jamie collect, wash their glasses, and carry out the empty bottles to the recycling bins. If I’d had a euro for every wistful sigh I witnessed, I’d have been as rich as he was by the end of that night.