Page 17 of Nick & Nora Martinis

“Well what?” Like I don't know what she's referring to. Grinning.

“For fucks’ sake don't keep me in suspense, just tell me how you've done,” she says, raising her voice.

I just shake my head and walk away, giggling to myself.

“Oh shit Abs, I'm so sorry,” I hear her say from behind me.

I can't wind her up any more. I turn to face her and she can see that I'm laughing.

“You bitch, I was devastated for you.”

“Sorry, couldn't resist, grab me a drink of anything, I'm celebrating,” I say, smiling like a Cheshire cat.

It's a bit busy and it looks like Mary is covering one end of the bar and Owen the other.

“Hey Smithy, how's it going?” Owen shouts out.

“All good,” I tell him.

Jayne passes me my drink, “Cheers, you not having one?”

“No, not while on duty,” she tells me.

“Well I'll just be over here blending in, mixing with the punters.” On that I turn and walk away. As I walk past the door that leads to both male and female toilets I hear shouting and a lot of banging in the corridor. I open the main door and two girls are arguing.

“Hey, hey,” I bellow. “What the hell do you think you're doing?!” I say to one girl with multi-coloured hair.

“Let her go! Now!”

“Fuck you bitch, you don't tell me,” she counters back.

Just as she says that, the other girl breaks free, barging past me. As she does, she knocks me out of the doorway and onto my arse. The contents of my drink go all over me and I lose grip of the glass, which falls from my hand to the wooden floor, smashing. Before I even have the time to get up, the girl with the coloured hair that was swearing is out the door, jumping over me and grabbing the other one from behind, swinging her back round.

I scramble up and go to them, pulling them apart. “Enough!” I shout. The next thing, the other girl swings and punches me in the face, at the top of my cheekbone.

“Get the fuck off me ya prick. Let me fucking go!” I hear her shout.

As I look up, Rob has the girl with coloured hair in a lock, holding her from behind. He glares at me, he doesn't look happy. “Shut up!” he roars. I look towards the other girl, shocked that she punched me. Owen has her in a vice-like grip.

“You are barred.” I look between them. “Both of you. I will not tolerate violence of any sort, you're not welcome, get them out of here.”

Owen and Rob walk the girls out the door, and I make a mental note of what they look like, and a couple of other girls follow them out. I walk back through the door marked toilets, to the cleaning cupboard to grab a wet floor sign, mop and broom.

I sweep the glass into the corridor, then mop the floor, placing the sign in front of the wetness. I go and put the mop and broom back and take hold of the dustpan and brush, going back to collect the glass. I feel a hand touch my arm. I stand up fast and spin to see Rob staring at me. “What?” I snap.

“Don't you ever fucking do that again.”

“Do what?” I bite. “Look after my bar, stop two stupid girls fighting, what?” He just stands there. Our glare is intense. I'm breathing heavily. He steps closer to me.

“Don't ever try to stop a fight, come get me or Owen, or one of the other lads.” His voice is raspy, he wipes his thumb over my cheekbone. “You're going to have a nice shiner.”

“I don't need your help, it could have been Jay or Mary. Why the fuck do you men always think we need help?”

I put my hand up to touch my face but his hand is still there. As I go to move it he grabs ahold of my hand.

“You've cut yourself,” taking my hand into his. “Let me look at it, you might have glass in it.” I turn my hand over to let him look.

“Everything okay here?” Jayne asks as she pokes her head around the door.

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