Page 13 of Mine before Dawn
A squeeze. A linger.
She pretended not to notice.
Work was work.
She needed this job.
And then there was the big man with silver eyes.
He sat in the back nursing a beer but his eyes seemed to follow her. He had sat with another man with grey, curly hair and a face darkened with soot.
But his eyes had followed her until Mavis had told her off for the two broken glasses and then sent her off to bed with the day's wage counted out into the palm of her hand.
A shiver had run down her spine, as she felt his attention like a touch on the nape of her neck as she picked her sleeping boy up and made for the stairs.
***
Asha blinked, the present slipping back into place as she finished tying her hair. One day had blurred into another—long, aching stretches of the same routine. Morning slipped into afternoon. Afternoon slid into night.
And then, without her really noticing, days became weeks.
Weeks folded into months. One, then six. The boy had started school and she was now working two jobs. Life was hard but there was food on the table and a roof over their heads.
At first, everything had revolved around the pub.
The early starts. The smell of stale ale and cigarette smoke clinging to her clothes.
She was a quick learner. She soon realized she needed to make herself indispensable to Mavis.
She learned which customers to avoid, which ones tipped, which ones got handsy and how to smile shyly and angle herself just out of range without making a scene.
Patrick still grunted more than he spoke, but he still set the boy to work counting pennies or helped him with his homework behind the counter.
Mavis watched her with eagle eyes. There was another pair of quicksilver eyes that watched her still. And more than once, he had caught her hand when she reached for an empty glass with a knowing look on his broad face. Those nights, she still remembered the feel of his callused thumb on her wrist before he let go.
Another night, long before she had a place of her own, she had slipped upstairs to take a toilet break between orders.
The bathroom light was harsh, a single bulb that buzzed faintly overhead. She washed quickly, splashed water over her face and then she stepped out.
The light from the narrow hallway fell behind a large man blocking her path. It stretched his shadow forward and swallowed hers.
He stood in the narrow corridor, broad enough to fill it, the bulb beyond him blotted by his frame. She couldn’t see his eyes, just the still outline of him.
Her heart seized, sharp and sudden when he recognised him.
“Don’t be scared, girl,” he said in a husky growl.
His voice was a low lazy baritone, not threatening in any way. But it made the fine hairs on the back of her neck and arms stand on end.
Asha lowered her gaze immediately. “I need…I need to get back,” she mumbled in no more than a whisper.
She tried to sidestep him but he moved with her like he could predict her next move..
The corridor felt smaller with him in it.
She tried again, a little quicker this time.
He didn’t let her pass.
