Wake Up Call by JL Merrow

Author:JL Merrow [Merrow, JL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Published: 2017-01-25T16:00:00+00:00

Dev stomped into the Sea Bell and slapped a twenty-pound note on the bar. “Vodka. Double. Don’t bother with the Coke.”

“Ice and a slice?” Jago’s voice was mocking.

Dev could have decked him. Maybe it showed, ’cos the bastard just looked at him a long moment, then turned to pour his drink.

Dev tossed it straight down. The burn on his throat felt fucking awesome. “’Nother.”

The git gave him that stare again.

“You got a problem with that? Thought you was in the business of selling drinks.”

Jago poured the second double measure without a word. But when he turned round again, he put it on the bar and didn’t let go. “Had some bad news?”

“Like you give a fucking monkey’s.”

The hand on the glass didn’t move. “Try me.”

“Me mum’s dead. Happy?”

Another long stare. Jesus, what was fucking with this bastard?

Jago spoke at last, his voice low. “Sorry to hear that, lad. But do you think she’d want you getting drunk?”

Dev almost laughed. “Don’t matter, do it? She ain’t just dead, she never . . . she never even fucking existed. So are you gonna give me my fucking drink or what?”

The bastard took his hand away, but he didn’t stop staring at Dev as he downed his vodka.

This one didn’t go down so easy, and Dev choked a bit, ending up wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “What?” he demanded, daring the git to say something.

Jago didn’t speak, just took down a pint glass from a shelf and filled it with water from the tap. He handed it to Dev.

“What the fuck?”

“No more alcohol until you drink that. Got it?”

Dev was so fucking done with this. He wanted to chuck the water in the bastard’s stupid face. He’d have done it too, if the wanker hadn’t turned away to serve someone else.

Like Dev didn’t fucking exist.

Shit.

Dev’s eyes were stinging again. He wasn’t going to cry.

He wasn’t gonna let someone make him drink a pint of water like some stupid teenager after his first binge, neither. Dev slipped off the stool, steadying himself with one hand on the bar, and headed for the door.

Trouble was, he had nowhere he wanted to go. Dev leaned on the wall outside the pub and tried to think of anywhere he could face heading right now. Not back to the B&B. He couldn’t stand Val and Carol going all motherly on him. Maybe the offie. He could get a bottle of something and take it up by the Round Hole, and if he was really lucky, the ground fucking well would open up and swallow him.

He pushed away from the wall and set off down the path, weaving a bit from two double vodkas on an empty stomach. Christ. He was turning into Mal’s uncle. Next thing he knew it’d be whisky for breakfast and liver disease before he was forty.

Sod the offie. And sod Jago, Kyle . . . her and the whole bloody lot of them. He was heading down the chippie.

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