by Clare London
Henry Vickers twisted at the waist in front of the sink in the Gents, trying to see down the length of his back.
The toilet mirror at Bar du Bijou was the minimum size for guys to touch up their hair, not for a full twirl facility. He could only see down to his shoulder blades. But so many people had been staring at his arse this afternoon, he knew something was wrong. Of course, he knew he had a superb arse—could bounce a penny off those buns, though he hadn’t done that party trick since late 2010—but he could tell it wasn’t that kind of attention.
Standing behind him, though the space was rather squashed for three patrons at the same time, his employees Debbie and Stuart smirked. Their gazes were also on Henry’s arse.
“Is it chocolate?” Debbie hazarded a guess.
“Better not be anything more gross,” Stuart said.
They glanced at each other, screwed up their faces, and made an ewwww look.
The door swung open again and Henry tensed, in case a customer, no, client, was coming in. The bar had been quiet since the lunchtime trade ended, but who knew when a coach party of gorgeous creatures may arrive, demanding service, on their way to one of the fashionable clubs in town? His chagrin gave way to relief when he saw it was Abi, the new guy. Tall, dark, with the most astonishingly bright smile. Though what was more perplexing, Abi kept full wattage on it all day, every day. Who the hell had that much to be happy about?
Abi’s gaze settled on Henry with smiling, yet genuine, concern. “What’s happening?”
That smile. Henry felt a weird, worryingly familiar frisson in his groin area. Oh dear me, no. He had only one rule when it came to men, and that was don’t soil on your own lawn. Of course, he’d noticed Abi’s good looks when the guy started—no way was he completely dead from the waist down, despite so few prompts to his libido over the last year—but there were plenty of cute boys out there for Henry to play with when he had an itch to scratch. Cute boys whose salary wasn’t paid by Henry himself.
But Abi’s smile… open, fulsome, clear of mockery. That was something totally new. Weird. Henry took a quick glance at Abi from under his lashes. He was beautiful, actually. “We all have to be beautiful bitches,” Stuart had told Abi when he started in the bar. But the word bitch scratched at Henry’s ears today, like a rather vicious, long-beaked, mean-spirited bird.
That’s not Abi.
Henry felt oddly shamed. And it had always been one of his favourite epithets.
Abi stepped closer. “Henry, are you okay?”
“There’s something stuck on me,” Henry said. As Abi’s smile moved to puzzlement, he added, “On my behind.” He wouldn’t have believed a man with skin as dark as Abi’s could show such a deep, delicious flush.
“Well, on his trousers, to be precise,” Debbie added helpfully. “Take a look!”
“Henry? May I?”
Good God, was Abi asking his permission? Henry nodded, temporarily mute at the embarrassment. Two fingers pointing at his arse, three pairs of eyes staring at his nether regions. And no sign of gratuitous sex to follow; no one offering anything beyond ridicule.
Not from Abi, though. He leaned in and took a proper, objective look, then… smiled.
“It’s chocolate,” he confirmed. “It’ll come out with a flush of cold water and then some detergent. Have you… um… sat on something today?”
Debbie sniggered.
“These trousers were clean on this morning,” Henry protested. “I pressed them myself. I only drove from my flat to the bar.”
“There’s also something caught under the hem of your jacket.” Abi pulled away, holding an unidentifiable blob of something wrapped in silver foil.
Henry stared in horror at it. Of course! He’d stopped in at Donnie’s on the way here. There’d been that moment, at Donnie’s front door. One of the grotesque shapes must have caught on his jacket as Donnie pushed so rudely past him. “It’s one of Donnie’s disasters!”
“Donnie’s his best mate,” Debbie offered helpfully to Abi. “Cute boy.”
“Disasters?” Stuart asked, eyes a-gleam for the latest gossip.
“He’s been baking chocolate eggs for Easter. There was an accident.” Kind of. “He dropped a whole bunch of them on the pavement outside his flat. I left him picking them up.” Henry looked up to catch Abi’s steady gaze.
“You left him there?” Abi asked, mildly enough. Still smiling… but.
Henry scowled. “I was going to be late otherwise. I was needed here.” What was that look in Abi’s eyes?
“Donnie’s the World’s Worst Cook,” Debbie added, her tone adding the capitalisation. “Scrambled egg looks like a nuclear bomb went off inside a cushion.”
“We’re still using one of his scones as a door stop,” Stuart added.
“Is that true?” Abi looked to Henry for an answer.
“Well, you could say, it’s an urban myth.” Henry had a horrible feeling he’d been the one to plant that particular urban myth himself. It had seemed like a fabulously witty joke at the time.
What was that look in Abi’s eyes?
“Slip out of your clothes and I’ll deal with the mess,” Abi said.
“Like Henry’s never heard that line before,” Stuart murmured.
“Stuart?” Henry snapped. “Go back to the bar and put an ‘out of order’ sign on the door. Everyone can use the Ladies in the meantime. Though if I find an inordinate amount of stray splash around the pedestals—”
“I’ll be cleaning it up.” Stuart nodded, scowling. “Gotcha, boss.”
“And Debbie, go and find my spare clothes in the office. They’re in a Burberry suit bag by my desk.”
“Albeit with the Marks and Spencer sale labels cut out.” Debbie smirked at Stuart.
“Out!” Henry almost shouted. “Leave the clothes outside the door and get back to work.”
The two of them left the toilet, grumbling, protesting that there weren’t enough customers at this time of day to keep a one-armed chimpanzee busy, let alone two experienced hospitality managers like themselves. Henry was tempted either to make them draw lots as to whom he’d fire, or fire them both and just employ the chimpanzee. It’d be a lot less trouble.
People management had never been his forte. Before he took over the Dirty Dog—and some locals still dared to describe a visit to his chic bar as ‘going to the Dogs’!—he’d been a senior sommelier at a London hotel. He had excellent rapport with the clientele there, even though he never seemed to make many friends with the other staff.
This chocolate violation appeared to be bringing on unwelcome introspection. He shouldn’t feel so disturbed: he ran a bar, and things had been spilled on his clothes before, despite his best attempts to leave the messy serving business to others. He hadn’t always been the glittering star he was now. He hadn’t always been attractive, well dressed, well off, and with a rapier-sharp wit.
But Henry didn’t like to think about the even earlier days. They had been full of poverty, ugliness, and misery, and he didn’t dwell on that kind of thing. He’d had his share of crummy jobs and second-hand clothes, but he had escaped at the earliest opportunity. He’d worked damn hard for what he had now. He’d even had his heart broken in the same old story he heard from clients, night after night, leaning on the bar until closing time, trying to drown their sorrows and betrayal in a succession of expensive cocktails, and boring the pants off anyone who would listen to them.
Unlike these clients, however, Henry had kept silent about his own angst, moved swiftly on to the next opportunity, and downright refused to let that happen to him again.
“Henry?”
Abi was still there, sincere concern shining from every damned inch of his lovely smile. Henry bit back a snide comment, quickly peeled off his trousers and placed his jacket on the hook behind a cubicle door.
When he turned back, in just his shirt tails and underwear, Abi flushed again. Why was that? Ah. Henry had a horrible, mortifying feeling he knew. “This isn’t in your j
ob description, Abi.”
“I’m sorry?”
Henry took care to moderate his usual imperious tone. “Cleaning my clothes. I have no right to ask you to do this.”
“You mean, because it was your own fault?”
“It was… what?” Henry gaped. Abi was now peering at the hem of Henry’s jacket, dabbing it with clean, cold water. He surely hadn’t meant to criticise Henry so blatantly, had he? “No. I mean because you were hired as a bar tender, not a domestic.”
Abi’s smile increased in brightness. “Oh, I don’t mind at all. I always like making things clean again. And helping a friend.”
Henry couldn’t remember the last time he was so tongue-tied. Did Abi really think Henry was a friend? He cleared his throat. “I’ll slip into my change of clothes. They’ll be fine for a quiet night in the bar.”
“Henry, no one really notices what people wear, except for—”
Me. Yes, Henry got that, even though Abi hadn’t said it aloud, apparently too engrossed in a spot of chocolate that had ingrained itself in the stitching of the jacket vent. Yet again, Henry was startled at the young man’s confident dismissal of everything Henry held dear. But, whatever this bizarre situation, Henry wouldn’t spend the rest of the night hiding in the toilet in his designer boxers and socks. He went to poke his head out and check the corridor to the toilets was clear of clients.
The door wouldn’t open.
He rattled the handle, yanked at it, pressed hard on the bottom of the door in case the wood had somehow warped within the last fifteen minutes when they’d all entered perfectly easily. It didn’t budge.
“The door’s jammed,” he said to the room in general, but of course only Abi was there to hear. He crouched down quickly and peered through the hole in the door. Or not, as the case proved to be. “I can’t see anything. It looks like the key is still in the lock.”
Abi turned, a cloth in one hand and the other holding the jacket hem. Smiling, of course. “Never mind. I suspect Debbie did it.”
“Did what?”
“Locked us in here. I think she may have heard that comment about you firing one or both of them.”
Good God, had he said that aloud? “You mean deliberately? But they must come and let us out. At once.” He thumped on the door. Shouted a couple of times. There was no response, except his heart beat had increased and his throat felt tighter.
“Yes, Henry.” Abi’s tone was unchanged. “Can you bring the trousers over to the sink? There’s detergent in the cupboard under the hand drier.”
“Abi?” Henry stood abruptly, his knees cracking. What was he missing here? “Aren’t you furious too? This is a bloody childish trick.”
Abi shrugged gently. “Oh, they’ll come and let you out soon, I expect. Someone will ask for you in the bar, and they’ll be too scared to lie, to deny you’re here. After all, your car’s still in the car park, your phone’s on the counter.”
“My phone?” Oh God, yes, he’d just rushed in here without thinking to bring it with him. He couldn’t even call Debbie and Stuart and shout at them through satellite technology.
“It’s just a silly prank,” Abi said. He stood back from the jacket, apparently pleased with the first part of his renovation work. “I’m sure they see it as a lesson.”
What the hell? “What do you mean, a lesson?”
“Henry.” Abi turned to face him, leaning back on the sink edge, arms folded. Still smiling. “You are such an intelligent and handsome man—a really nice one too, I believe in my heart—but you are your own worst enemy.”
There was so much to unwrap in that that, Henry felt the need to sit down. This situation was horrific! Abi was being so… forward. And so damned nonchalant. Henry had never liked confined spaces, and this was very confined, trapped in a toilet with an insolent, overly nonchalant man. A very attractive man. God, did his heart just skip a beat? Was that from lust or the onset of a panic attack?
He perched gingerly on the top of the supplies cupboard. It wasn’t too uncomfortable in the very short term, as long as he didn’t get up too quickly and decapitate himself on the drier. He glanced up at Abi. The man looked really fine, his biceps straining the sleeves of his Bar du Bijou branded polo shirt. Beautiful features, graceful movement, comfortable with his body. Eyes always warm with happiness. He was gazing at Henry and his expression was kind.
Kind. Henry didn’t come across that very often nowadays.
“Maybe they thought you needed to take time out, Henry. Realise you’re not the only person with feelings here. Realise being the boss doesn’t qualify you as a despot.”
Henry blinked very hard. “How dare you—!”
And suddenly Abi moved, dropping to his knees in front of Henry so he was at the same eye level. He grasped Henry’s hands—did he think Henry was going to hit him? which, by God, Henry was very tempted to do, though it was years since he’d landed a punch, and those struggling, dog-eat-dog days were far in the past, remember?—and squeezed them, tight.
Henry was amazed to find his clenched fists relaxing. Abi’s hands were very strong, his gaze very intense, his expression searching. His damn, damn, gorgeous mouth smiling…
“Are you laughing at me?”
“Of course not. I didn’t know they were going to do this, I swear.” Even Abi’s frown looked cheerful. “And you’ll be let out soon. But there’s good to be found here. We have time to clean up your clothes, and… well, other things.”
“Other things?”
Abi flushed again. Henry thought he could feel the heat on his own face as well.
“I’m happy it gives me some time alone with you. To get to know you better.”
Henry sat on a plastic cupboard, in his shirt and underwear, his face probably blotched red with anger and confusion… and the most attractive man he’d seen in years still wanted to know him better.
“Has anyone ever said you’re insufferable?” was all he came out with,
Abi just smiled the more. “My other friends describe me as easy to talk to. Look, I don’t need to know all your business, Henry, but I would like to know you as a man.”
“Like, know in a biblical sense?” Henry felt the familiar bile rising, and he struck out verbally as always. “I don’t fuck staff.”
Abi was unfazed. “I won’t always be staff. Plus,” and there was a mischievous look on his face now, “I could be fucking you.”
The sudden, desperate, consuming reaction to that tone—that confidence! that promise!—had Henry’s eyes rolling and his cock thickening. “I’m sorry?”
Abi’s smile softened and he leaned away again. “But that’s the point Henry, you don’t mean it when you say it like that. Yet I think you are sorry, for a lot of things. You just don’t dare let them out.”
Henry felt something odd behind his eyes. Was he going blind from shock? Were those tears threatening? “I don’t know what’s going on here, Abi. You are a very strange and insolent young man, and I’m sorry, but I will need to reprimand you when we get—”
“Hush,” Abi interrupted, though so quietly, Henry wondered if he could even take offence. “All that pompous talk is just nonsense, a cover up. This is real honesty.” And he tilted forward again and kissed Henry.
Oh God. Oh God. It was… odd and so ridiculous and not expected or in the appropriate setting, and… so fucking fine, Henry thought he may come right there and then in his boxers. He slid a hand around the back of Abi’s neck and held him there, returning the kiss, smelling the weirdly heady smell of toilet cleaner, old cologne, and sexy, sexy man.
They parted eventually, both panting. Abi’s pupils were dilated but the expression of concern, and the smile—the smile!—was as fixed in place as ever.
“Abi. Why the hell are you always so happy?”
“There’s a lot to be happy about, Henry. Great friends, a good job. And you.”
“Dear God, you’re deranged,” Henry scoffed.
Abi shook his head gently. “You can be
happy too, Henry. You don’t need to be like this. The affectation. The snark.”
“Sweetheart, that’s my stock in trade.” Henry’s voice regained some of its edge. “My word is my sword.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be. There’s nothing wrong with being kind, generous, encouraging. In being pleasant. In listening to others, not always looking for ways to score points.”
“No.” Henry didn’t understand, couldn’t cope with this. He felt as if he were being peeled open, like a game of Operation. “I don’t wallow in sentiment. I’m a professional businessman. I’m respected.”
Abi was quiet in reply.
“Am I not respected?” What the hell was he doing, asking such a question? When did a rather tawdry bar toilet become a confessional?
“Henry, I’ve only known you for a few months. But I’ve liked you from the moment I arrived in the bar, when you were suggesting Stuart had been born from the union of Medusa and the Straw Man, and needed a haircut rather more urgently than the world needed peace. And that if Debbie’s shirt were worn any lower, her boobs would be asking for their own Espresso Martinis.”
Henry winced.
“Yet the same day, you handed a generous contribution to the man from the outreach centre—”
Henry gasped. “No one was meant to see that!”
“—and when one of our regulars dropped his notebook in the bar, you went thirty miles out of your way to take it back to him.”
“I never—!”
“Henry. He called in later, when you weren’t here. Said to pass on his thanks, he didn’t know where he’d lost it and it had all his contact details in. He would have lost his job without it.”
Henry was aghast. “You didn’t tell anyone else, did you?”
Abi frowned. “Why hide being a good human being? I know you’re not enjoying life at the moment. I can feel your unhappiness. Why keep up the harsh shell?”
“But it’s what people expect from me,” Henry said. Even he could hear how sad he sounded. Abi tilted his head. Dear God of soft furnishings, was he trying to get Henry on a virtual psychiatrist’s couch, with the “how does that make you feel” look?
