‘Poor woman.’ Tamsyn shook her head dramatically. ‘I didn’t even know Jenni only had one eye.’ Nobody was sober enough to explain.
‘What happened to Jenni?’ asked Daisy.
‘Went off travelling and didn’t come back,’ said Jason.
‘Did she die?’ asked Tamsyn.
‘No.’ He shook his head for emphasis. ‘She hooked up with a mechanic in Dover and missed her ferry.’
Daisy was still processing this when Ross passed some cocktails and straws across the bar and said something, but it was lost as a pack of wild girls entered the bar with feather boas flowing and t-shirts declaring it was Olivia’s Hen Night.
They teemed around the bar forcing Daisy and Tamsyn to grab their glasses and retreat to a table in a dark corner. ‘How are the job ideas coming along?’ asked Daisy
‘I’ve been thinking about what I was good at in school and seeing if there’s a link to a job.’
‘Good approach. What’s on the list?’
‘Spelling and Irish dancing,’ said Tamsyn.
Daisy opened her mouth but she couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say, so instead she focused on the cocktails. ‘They all look different,’ noted Daisy, pointing at them. ‘Shall we have a try of each other’s with the straws?’
‘Nope. One, two, three …’ said Tamsyn and she tipped back her drink in one smooth motion. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘I could do another of those.’ She pointed a finger in the general direction of her glass.
‘You didn’t even taste it,’ said Jason, with a shudder. He and Daisy tried each other’s cocktails with their straws while Tamsyn looked on.
They were distracted by a kerfuffle at the bar caused by the hen party making whooping noises. ‘It’s like the mating call of the baboon,’ said Jason, glancing distastefully at the noisy group. A few of the party broke into a slurred rendition of the stripper music.
‘Looks like they’ve got some traditional hen night entertainment,’ said Daisy, trying to get a better look at the man among them, who wasn’t actually having to strip as the women seemed to be doing that for him. A shirt flew out of the crowd landing on the floor between Jason and Daisy. They were giggling as they looked at the pale blue shirt until realisation finally struck them.
‘Max!’ they both yelled, jumping to their feet and ploughing into the hen party.
Max was on the floor fighting hard to hang on to his trousers. ‘Get off him. He’s not a stripper!’ shouted Daisy, but the women were making too much noise for her to be heard.
‘Enough!’ hollered Jason, sounding manlier than Daisy had ever heard him before. ‘I’m a police officer—’
Daisy wasn’t sure what he said after that because the women clearly thought he was also part of the act and started to excitedly grab at his clothes too. Daisy got pushed out of the chanting circle, her drink-addled brain failing to come up with a better strategy for rescuing her friends. Eventually Ross rang the last orders bell and kept on ringing until everyone took notice. Daisy pushed her way back through the crowd and offered a hand to Jason who was sitting on the floor clutching his ripped shirt to his chest. Max was busy being straddled by the bride-to-be who was oblivious to the bell and was trying hard to kiss him.
‘Excuse me,’ said Daisy, tapping the woman on the shoulder.
‘Yeah, come on, Olivia. Apparently he’s really not a stripper,’ said one of the others.
Olivia burst into hysterics and had to be lifted off an embarrassed-looking Max who was trying to rub the bright pink lipstick off his face, but only managing to smear it further. Daisy offered Max a hand to help him to his feet. He hesitated and Daisy tilted her head. ‘Come on. This is my chance to return the favour.’
‘What favour?’ Max looked puzzled.
‘This is me saving you. We’re quits now. Okay?’ She gave him a cheeky smile.
Max smirked. ‘Yeah, right.’
‘I can ask the ladies back if you like.’ She went up on her toes as if about to try to get their attention.
‘No. You’re okay.’ He took her hand and she pulled him to his feet. She noticed how his stomach muscles clenched as he stood up and how toned his body was. It took her a few moments to drag her eyes back up to his face.
‘Are you sure you’re not my stripper?’ slurred Olivia, staggering back towards them.
‘NO!’ chorused Daisy and Max together.
Back at the table they found Tamsyn doing a sitting down version of Irish dancing and Jason inspecting his trashed clothing. Max scooped up his shirt from the floor and put it back on quickly discovering it no longer had all its buttons. He let it hang open and sat down opposite Daisy who was forcing herself not to stare at his bare chest – his tanned taut chest with its tantalising smattering of neat chest hair making a path down his lightly sculpted abs to …
‘Daisy. For Christ sake are you dozing off too?’
‘What?’ Daisy jolted her head up and tried again to maintain eye contact but all she was doing was opening her eyes super wide and making herself look like she was startled.
‘Where’s mine?’ Max pointed to the row of empty cocktail glasses. Tamsyn still had a straw between her lips, it didn’t take a genius to work out what had happened.
Ross appeared at the table. ‘I am mortified about them.’ He motioned towards the loud women. ‘My speciality martinis – on the house. You’ll have all this to deal with when you open up.’ He laughed and went over to speak to the rowdy group.
‘How do you deal with people like that?’ said Daisy, realising her voice didn’t sound quite right. She gestured towards the hen party who were now boob flashing men through the window. She would be solely responsible in her bar and it bothered her.
‘You call the police,’ said Jason, swaying towards her and then away again with a silly grin on his face.
‘Yeah, you’ll be brilliant,’ she said, giving his ripped shirt a tug. Perhaps this needed more thought.
‘Ohh, I love this shirt,’ said Jason, pulling at the shreds.
An hour or so of drinking later she realised it was definitely time to go home when she found herself having a cross purposes conversation with a tall youth.
‘It’s like everything he does, he does to wind me up. He chews his own toenails. That’s not normal is it?’ Daisy said, scowling at the recollection.
‘Could be a fetish,’ suggested the youth.
Daisy pouted as if considering this explanation. ‘You see he’s black, but I’ve told him he still has to have a bath but he doesn’t get it,’ she slurred.
‘He doesn’t bath? That’s disgusting,’ said the youth.
‘I
