Heists and Hotel Suites
Chapter One
Before Ste had even had the chance to clock the hourly rate of a job in the paper, the Chester Herald was snatched from his grip and thrown to the other end of the bar.
"Break's over," said the snarly Irish voice.
"Oi! I was reading that!" Ste said, the biro falling from his mouth to his hand.
"Yeah? And I've got a club to run. Your point being?" He wore a big collared shirt today, flared up like a peacock's tail ready for attention. Or trouble.
"Nothing," Ste replied sulkily, jumping from the bar stool. He was about to head back round behind the bar when Brendan stopped him with his palm to Ste's chest, licked his thumb and rubbed it over a black mark above Ste's lip.
Ste pushed him off.
"Biro," Brendan said with a shrug, watching as Ste now stood wiping his mouth viciously with his sleeve.
And this is how it had been for the last few months: boss and employee, cold and stroppy. Not a single explosion of after-hours passion. No longing looks, no reconciliation. No slow build of trust and friendship, no signs of apologies or change. No cat and mouse games which leads to sex and confrontation and a heavy weight of regret. None of that.
It had been difficult, it was a set up that needed to be acted and forced. Behaving so frostily, clipping conversations and glances to the necessary minimum didn't come naturally to either of them; there was and probably always would be, this underlying buzz in the air. Tension and sparks were ignored and Ste did his very best to keep any interaction they had out in public, not alone and definitely not behind closed doors.
Moments later when Brendan picked up the paper himself, lounging by the bar with a cup of tea and close enough to aggravate Ste, he hummed loudly.
Taking the bait, Ste was forced to ask. "What?"
"Someone's been scribbling over the job section," he said, rubbing at the biro smudge on his thumb and looking to Ste, "Spreading your wings Stephen?"
He tensed uncomfortably, suddenly the scuffed marks on the bar being of greater interest to him. Even since Amy had left her job at the school, finding her working relationship with Pete too tough to handle since the crash and burn of their brief romance, things had been tight especially with the kids to consider. Despite Brendan giving him a bigger pay packet than the other bar staff – for obvious reasons – it was beginning to look like he needed to step up and take on extra work.
"Don't ask him for any more shifts," Amy had said one morning when they frowned over money woes, their hands wrinkled in the washing up bowl. "You're at the club all the week as it is. You see him far more than you see Noah even!"
Ste couldn't even really argue with that: she had a point. But there were no jobs at the spa, which ruled out the killing two birds with one stone option. He'd asked at Relish, at the pub even (despite Heidi Costello's scowl) but there was nothing. He idly considered working as the council's skivvy again – but he was better than that now, he thought.
Delivering catalogues – he could do that – he'd thought as he'd circled the paper.
"You know you earn more here in day than you'd earn in a fortnight doin' that," Brendan said, running his finger over the advert Ste had circled and starred. He threw the paper down onto the coffee table, its pages flopping limply and strode over to the bar with his mug in hand.
Ste took his turn to ignore him once more, sorting crisps under the bar.
"If it's a loan you need Stephen…" Brendan began, slipping his hand into the inside of his jacket pocket.
"No," Ste said, "I don't want your money." Brendan's hold over him was great enough without him owing Brendan money too.
Brendan gave him a smug smile of amusement. He knew Ste was too proud to ask for money these days, he wasn't as easily paid off as he had been before. He dropped his wallet back into his pocket.
"There's always a spot of poker…same cut as before, providing you feed me the necessary information," Brendan said, his voice quiet. The description of cheating on his tongue sounded like a seductive foreplay rather than simple trickery.
Ste, being wise to the fact his offer was likely more than just a game of cards, refused. "I'm not getting involved in anything like that. Again,"
Flashing him a teeth baring smile, Brendan turned and left. "Happy job hunting then, Stephen. " As a parting shot, he left his empty mug on the bar top, "Put this in the dishwasher will ya?"