Page 8 of Cherry Beats

He laughed softly and unleashed his baby blues on me. “I waste my time on women like her, as you put it, because what else is there these days? Every woman is hiding behind something. Every guy, too. It’s just what the world is fucking breeding, Cherry. Anna hides behind her over-curled hair, her layered lipstick, and her revealing dresses. So what? That doesn’t make her bad. It just makes her too insecure to be who she really needs to be. In this fickle world, can you blame her? Can you blame any of them? I like digging through those layers, seeing who is salvageable and who is a lost cause. The girl I brought in last week hid behind her academic achievements, thinking she had to be a goddamn nuclear scientist with A grades coming out of her arse in order to be respected in this world. She had no idea how kind and endearing she could be if she just let her barriers down. She didn’t need to be anything other than herself to be attractive. The girl before her, the weight lifter, hid behind her body, saying she wanted it to be perfect to be healthy, too scared to tell herself the truth: that she wanted to get the attention from Instagram that she’d missed out on her whole growing life. If I had to listen to one more lie about body confidence versus body shaming, I was about ready to blow my own brains out. But who am I to judge? Just because I see things differently, it doesn’t mean I’m better than any of them. Everyone hides behind something, Cherry. People don’t like to be themselves anymore. They don’t see themselves having fun with it.”

It was probably the hardest truth I’d ever had to hear, but he spoke it so innocently, so purely, and with nothing but resignation that it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.

“I can have fun,” I whispered quietly.

He glanced down at my T-shirt again. “Yet you hide who you really are behind a hard mask that tells people you’ll gut them like a fish if they so much as dare to get close.”

“Maybe some people just need to stop being scared of being gutted like fishes by women like me.”

Presley’s eyes searched mine, and his lips parted before he slid even closer, our fingertips now touching. “Or maybe you should just take the fucking mask off and stop being scared of someone wanting you.”

I had goosebumps everywhere. Every. Where. Between my legs ached, which was weird, because Presley had essentially just called me a fucking coward. But I couldn’t argue with him. At least his insult had been accurate.

The silence lingered between us. I knew how I felt. I’d been feeling it for years. For the first time since I’d seen him striding through those school corridors, though, it seemed like Presley might like me back. Even if only as a friend.

“Why do you always bring them here, to this bar?” I asked him quietly. “Your dates, I mean.”

“It’s the only decent place around here.”

“That’s it?”

“Why? Do you want me to tell you that I like the way you study them? Because I do. I enjoy that, too. Yeah, I see the subtle tilt of your head, the narrowing—or rolling—of your eyes. You don’t hidethatso well.”

“And you don’t mind?” I scowled, confused.

“It’s nice to know you give a shit, actually.”

I scrunched up my nose and feigned indifference. “You’re just some guy I know from school.”

“Yeah,” he said, reaching out to run his index finger down my cheek. “And you’re just some cherry-haired rebel who will get fired if you keep serving some guy you used to know from school alcohol after closing time.”

That one touch burned me, and I vowed never to wash my face again.

Then, just like that, he put his drink to his mouth and downed it, gasping and wiping his lips with the back of his hand swiftly when he’d finished. With a parting wink and small finger salute in my direction, Presley pushed his hands into the safety of his leather jacket pockets and made his way to the door.

“Good talk. Different girl, same time next week, Cherry?”

He’d disappeared out into the cold before he heard me give him my whispered answer.

“And all the weeks after that.”

Chapter Three

He kept his weekly appointment, and so did I. The only difference being the women. I never renamed any of them Gertrude after Anna. She was responsible for leaving him with me that night, so I liked her now, and that name was growing on me, too. Gertie. Trudy. Gez.

I never said I was normal.

Each Saturday evening, Presley West would saunter into BB’s bar like he owned the place, and every Saturday night, I would take on the persona of Cherry. The one he’d described and created. The girl who dropped her mask. The woman who swayed her hips when she walked and tried to make tight jeans and baggy T-shirts look seductive. Some weeks he wouldn’t even look my way. Other weeks I caught him staring at me and ignoring his date every chance he got.

Those were my favourite nights, when a simple narrow-eyed glance would make me feel like his queen, patiently biding my time for him to realise he was only ever suited to becoming my king. I couldn’t wait for the day when we created our own kingdom and sat on our thrones. I couldn’t wait to sit on his crown jewels, either.

That single thought made me snicker as I poured one of our regulars, Crooked Nose Clive, a pint of Guinness. I despised serving this drink. It took too much time and concentration, and all I could ever think when I handed it over to the paying customer wasEnjoy your brown soup.

“You should wear your smile more often,” Clive mumbled from somewhere under his overgrown, grey moustache.

“And why’s that, Clive?” I pushed the coins of his change across the bar surface with my fingertips, not looking up at him. The less eye contact you made with this one, the sooner he disappeared.

“It makes you look less—”

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