“Have you heard from him?” Tess asked.
“Only through Chris or Aunty Lynda and Uncle Ray. He moves around a lot. I think he’s pretty high up in the rankings. Apparently he is a real fitness freak now, too. Who’d have thought, Adam in the army, being all disciplined and stuff?”
Tess laughed. “Well, he always had so much energy to burn off; it sounds perfect for him.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I looked around the empty bar – it was hard to imagine that it used to house all of us three years ago. Adam, Chris, Stan, Ringer, Toby, Tess, Ellie, and Sean. And me, I guess.
“Amy.” Lost in thought, my head snapped up to look at Tess, who smiled her sweet, warm smile. “You’re going to be just fine.”
Chapter Nineteen
“How do I look?” I asked, hoping for some last-minute advice before I officially unlocked the door.
Tess looked me over. “Stunning.”
It was almost as if I expected a sea of people to emerge from the outside as I unlocked the door, as if the Onslow was in such hot demand that I would have to unlock the door and just stand back. But it was all rather anticlimactic – there wasn’t a huge onslaught of locals and tourists that stampeded me; in fact, for the first hour there was no one. I needn’t have worried about being prepared for the worst because the worst didn’t happen. Well, not until nine p.m., because that’s when the night officially turned to shit.
The Onslow Boys were noticeably absent, but Tess had received a text from Toby saying they were all out having a look at Sean’s lake house. I couldn’t help but visibly sag in disappointment when Tess read out the message.
“They’ll be here, Amy. Just later on,” she assured me.
“Yeah, no worries.” I half laughed it off, as if it really didn’t matter one way or another. But it did matter, more than I would ever want to admit. There was a steady influx of people now, old faces and new, but somehow it lacked that certain something. Or someone. It was a good night, but it wasn’t magical. I mentally slapped the thought aside and just kept busy, filling glasses and retrieving them off tables to be cleaned, then filling them some more. Tess offered to help, although I wasn’t exactly flat out so it wasn’t necessary. She sat at the bar chatting with me instead. It looked like I wasn’t in any need of backup, after all, I could handle it, until the bar room door opened in a long, aching screech. I turned expectantly, thinking maybe the boys were here at last.
Instead, I saw a figure appear in the entrance with a few friends in tow … Matt.
Oh, perfect.
His beady eyes rounded the bar and like a lion stalking a gazelle they landed on their intended target: me. He saluted me with a cocky smirk and then said something to his sidekicks that I couldn’t quite make out over the noise of the jukebox. His friends looked me over with a long, cool, assessing gaze before the three of them slinked their way into the poolroom.
“Friends of yours?” Tess asked with interest, having watched the whole show.
“Remember the thieving barman?”
Tess’s eyes widened. “You mean the one you fired today?”
“The one and only.” My lips pursed into a grim line. “I wonder what he’s doing here.”
“I don’t know, but I bet it’s trouble,” Tess said.
“He’s got some nerve, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t like the looks of this. I’ll call Toby and see where they’re at.”
I grabbed Tess’s hand before she could reach for her phone. “No! No, look, it’s all right, they’re not doing anything. I can handle it.”
For now, I wanted to hold my own. I didn’t want the Onslow Boys to run to my rescue; I didn’t want anyone to. The last thing I wanted was to portray a damsel in distress. I was a Henderson, for God’s sake. Matt was on my turf and I doubted he was stupid enough to try anything. Was he?
As if on cue, smashing glass sounded from the poolroom, followed by the scraping of bar stools along the floorboards. Yelling travelled up to the main bar. Tess and I looked at one another before I dashed up to the other end.
People stood around, giving the huge puddle of shattered glass a wide berth.
“What happened?” I questioned.
Matt’s mates snickered as he held up his hands in mock innocence. “They just fell off the table.” He smugly perched himself on the arm of the sofa near the jukebox. My eyes trailed around to take note of anyone else’s rendition of events, but the ones who hadn’t already turned away and started up conversations again just glared over at the mess, as if it was nothing more than an annoyance – an inconvenience for them. It was obvious no one was going to give them up.