Chapter 1: The Crass Question & the Silent Confession
The back booth at The Tipsy Barrel was a island of worn brown leather and faded band posters, lit by the erratic pink flicker of a neon cocktail sign. The air hung thick with the scent of stale beer and fried food, a familiar comfort to the usual crew gathered there. Glasses clinked, a baseline thrummed from the main bar, and laughter erupted in warm, overlapping waves.
Casey slid a fresh pint towards Jamie, her tray tucked under her arm. “Last one for you, I reckon. You’ve got the coordination of a newborn giraffe.”
Jamie, his face flushed from a long shift and several pints already, caught her wrist with a damp hand. His grin was all big teeth and beer foam. “Casey, love, you’re fit as fuck—why the hell are you still single, or are you just picky about who gets a taste?”
The table froze for a half-second, then erupted. Lewi’s booming laugh cracked through the music. Aleisha snorted into her cider. Darcie rolled her eyes so hard it looked painful.
Casey felt the heat rush up her neck, blooming across her cheeks in a furious scarlet wave. She tugged her hand back, wiping it subtly on her apron. “Piss off, Jamie.”
“No, seriously!” Jamie slurred, leaning his bulk across the sticky table. “It’s a mystery. A genuine pub mystery. Like where the missing socks go or why the crisps are always empty. We’ve established you’re not a lesbian—”
“Have we?” Darcie cut in, her voice a dry blade. “Did we take a vote? Did I miss the memo?”
“—so what is it?” Jamie barreled on. “You got a secret husband? A tragic backstory? A thing for garden gnomes?”
Matty, sitting at the head of the booth where he could keep an eye on the bar, felt his knuckles whiten around his pint glass. The image—the taste—flashed, unbidden and vivid, in his mind. He took a long, slow swallow, the beer suddenly bitter.
“Maybe she just has standards,” Mike said quietly, offering Casey a small, sympathetic smile from the other side of the table.
“Standards!” Jamie crowed. “Standards are for people who aren’t drinking their wages away on a Tuesday. Life’s short! You should be… sowing things. Wild oats. Whatever.”
Casey busied herself collecting empty glasses, the clatter a welcome distraction. “Maybe I just haven’t met anyone who doesn’t ask questions like that over a plate of soggy chips.”
“Ouch!” Lewi laughed, clutching his heart. “She’s got you there, mate. You’re about as romantic as a traffic cone.”
“Romance is a conspiracy by card companies,” Jamie muttered, but he was finally retreating, his curiosity momentarily sated by the reaction.
Matty watched Casey. He saw the slight tremble in her hands as she stacked the glasses, the way she wouldn’t meet anyone’s eye. It was more than embarrassment. It was a raw, exposed nerve, and Jamie had jabbed it with a greasy fork. A protective surge, hot and completely unprofessional, tightened his chest.
“Alright, philosopher,” Matty said, his manager’s voice cutting through the chatter. “Switch to water. You’re cut off before you start questioning the meaning of life or the barmaid’s underwear choices.”
The group’s attention shifted, the tension popping like a bubble. Aleisha launched into a story about a disastrous date with a man who brought his own condiments, and the laughter started up again, easier this time.
Casey shot Matty a look of pure gratitude, quick and shining, before disappearing back towards the bar.
He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
An hour later, the crowd had thinned. The staff were wiping down, chairs upturned on tables. Matty was counting the till, the clack of the keys a monotonous rhythm.
He heard the back door sigh open and shut. A moment later, Casey appeared, shrugging into her denim jacket, her blonde hair escaping its messy bun.
“All sorted?” he asked, not looking up.
“Yeah. Till’s done. Floor’s mopped. Jamie’s asleep in the linen cupboard again.”
“Classic.”
She lingered by the end of the bar, chewing her lip. The flickering neon painted her in shifting pink and shadow. “Thanks,” she said finally. “For earlier. With Jamie.”
“Part of the job,” Matty said, too quickly. “Keeping the animals in line.”
“Right.” She offered a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Well. Night, Matty.”
“Night, Case.”
He watched her go, the door closing softly behind her. The silence of the closed bar felt heavy, pressing in on him. He finished counting, locked up, and stepped out into the cool, damp night.
The parking lot was poorly lit, puddles gleaming under a single security light. He saw her then, halfway to her car, fumbling with her keys. And he saw the other figure, detaching himself from the shadows near the dumpsters.
Jamie. Unsteady, swaying, but purposeful. He cut off her path.
Matty’s feet were moving before his brain fully processed it, his shoes scraping on the wet tarmac.
“—just a question, Case!” Jamie’s voice carried, a drunken whine. “No need to be a bitch about it all night. I was paying you a compliment!”
“I’m going home, Jamie.” Casey’s voice was low, tight. She tried to step around him.
He sidestepped, blocking her again. “Come on. Why’re you always so uptight? You need to relax. Have a little fun.” His hand reached out, clumsy, aiming for her arm.
Matty closed the last ten feet in a heartbeat. “Jamie.”
His voice wasn’t loud. It was flat, cold, and it stopped the bigger man dead. Jamie turned, his bleary eyes widening slightly at the sight of his manager. Matty positioned himself between them, his back to Casey, his full focus on the drunk kitchen porter.
“The shift is over,” Matty said, each word measured and clear. “Go home.”
“We’re just talking, mate—”
“You’re not talking. You’re harassing a colleague. Now you’re going to walk to your car, or you’re going to walk to the job centre tomorrow. Your choice.”
Something in Matty’s expression—the utter lack of humour, the rigid set of his shoulders—sobered Jamie up a fraction. He muttered something obscene, shot a last glare past Matty, and shambled away into the darkness.
The sound of a car engine sputtering to life and tires on gravel faded.
Only then did Matty turn around.
Casey was leaning against her car door, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. In the yellowed light, she looked younger than twenty-three, and utterly drained. The bravado from the bar was gone.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice softening.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She took a shaky breath, then another.
“He’s a loudmouth. He’s harmless when he’s sober,” Matty said, though the words tasted like a lie after what he’d just seen.
“I know.” She finally looked at him, her brown eyes glistening. “It’s just… it’s exhausting. The questions. The assumptions. Like my life is a puzzle they’re all entitled to solve.”
He wanted to ask. God, he wanted to ask the real question. Instead, he said, “You don’t owe anyone an explanation. Not him. Not the lot in there. Not anyone.”
A single, traitorous tear escaped, tracing a path through the faint glitter of bar dust on her cheek. She wiped it away angrily. “Sorry. It’s been a long night.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
They stood there in the quiet dark, the hum of the city a distant soundtrack. The space between them felt charged, different from the familiar manager-bartender distance of an hour before. He had stepped over a line, and they both knew it.
“Can I…” he started, then stopped. “Your car okay to drive?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Right.” He took a step back, giving her room. “Text me when you’re home. So I know he didn’t follow you.”
It was a thin pretext, and they both knew that too.
She nodded, slid into her car. As she reversed, her headlights swept over him, illuminating his solitary figure in the empty lot. She gave a small, uncertain wave.
He watched her taillights disappear around the corner.
The night air was cold. He felt wide awake, every sense alert. The question Jamie had asked still hung in the air, but now it was his own, private, and burning.
Why are you still single, Casey?
And a more dangerous one, following close behind:
What would happen if I tried to find out?
And a more dangerous one, following close behind:
What would happen if I tried to find out?
The next Friday night at The Tipsy Barrel had the same thrumming energy, the same sticky tables, the same crew piled into the back booth after last call. The neon buzzed overhead. This time, Matty was sitting with them, a half-finished pint in front of him, trying to be one of the lads instead of the manager on duty. The barrier felt thinner, more dangerous.
Casey was laughing at something Lewi said, her head thrown back, the line of her throat pale in the low light. Matty watched the way her smile reached her eyes, how she nudged Darcie with her elbow. He took a swallow of beer to wet his suddenly dry mouth.
Jamie was already three sheets to the wind, his face slick with sweat and ale. His gaze, bleary and fixated, swung between Casey and Matty like a pendulum. The silence from the parking lot a week ago had been festering in him, a bruise on his drunken pride.
“You’re quiet tonight, boss,” Jamie slurred, leaning into Matty’s space, his breath a fog of hops and onions. “Thinking hard, are we?”
“Just enjoying the peace, Jamie,” Matty said, his voice even. “Try it sometime.”
Jamie’s grin widened, a crack in a ruddy face. “Nah. Peace is boring. I’m a thinker, me. I’ve been thinking about our Casey. And about you.”
A warning chill went down Matty’s spine. He set his glass down carefully. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Jamie spread his hands, the picture of innocent inquiry. The table had gone quieter, Aleisha and Lewi’s conversation dying mid-sentence. Casey was staring hard at a knot in the wooden table, her cheeks flushing.
“You’re always looking out for her, ain’t ya?” Jamie continued, his voice dropping to a theatrical, confidential whisper that carried to every corner of the booth. “Very protective. Very… specific. Makes a man wonder.”
Mike shifted in his seat. “Jamie, for Christ’s sake, leave it.”
“I’m just curious!” Jamie insisted, his small mouth pursed. His eyes, glinting with malicious curiosity, locked onto Matty. “It’s a simple question of human nature. Biological impulses. We’ve all got ‘em.” He paused, letting the dreadful, humid silence build. Then he asked it, his words perfectly clear and obscene in the quiet. “So, Matty. Be honest with the lads. You ever jerked off alone to Casey’s pictures? On the social media, like. Or just in your head?”
Time split.
The air was sucked from the booth. Lewi’s mouth hung open. Aleisha gasped. Darcie’s eyes flashed pure fury. Mike looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him whole.
Casey made a small, choked sound. She stood up so fast her knee cracked against the table, sloshing drinks. She didn’t look at anyone, just turned and walked, stiff and fast, towards the staff door to the back alley.
Matty saw red. A pure, white-hot rage filled his vision, narrowing it to Jamie’s smug, waiting face. Every professional instinct, every carefully maintained boundary, shattered. He was across the bench seat in a movement, his hand fisting in the front of Jamie’s grease-stained shirt, twisting the fabric tight against his throat.
He didn’t shout. His voice was a low, venomous rasp, his face inches from Jamie’s. “You’re finished. You hear me? You ever speak to her, or about her, or even look in her direction again, and I won’t fire you. I will personally dismantle you. Get out of my sight.”
He shoved Jamie back so hard the man’s head smacked against the leather booth with a dull thud. For a second, pure shock wiped the drunken glee from Jamie’s face, replaced by a flicker of animal fear.
Without another word, Matty turned and stalked after Casey, pushing through the staff door into the cool, dank silence of the back alley.
The door swung shut behind him, muffling the stunned noise from the booth. He found her a few paces away, arms wrapped around herself, facing the brick wall.
“Casey.”
“Don’t,” she whispered, her voice thick.
“I’m sorry. He’s gone. He’s not coming back.”
“That’s not…” She shook her head, finally turning to face him. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but her jaw was set. “Why did he say that? Why would he even think that?”
Because it’s true.
The confession screamed in his skull. He couldn’t voice it. He took a step closer, the gravel crunching under his shoe. “Because he’s a disgusting, drunk little bastard who gets a thrill from making people feel small.”
“But he said it to you.” Her gaze searched his face, desperate for an answer he couldn’t give. “It was about you. What you… what you might have done. Do people think that? Is that what they all see when they look at us?”
The distance between them in the dim alley was less than a foot. He could see the rapid flutter of her pulse in her throat. The neon from a sign across the street painted her in streaks of blue and white, making her look like a ghost, or a dream.
He was tired. Tired of the pretense, the management, the careful neutrality. The image Jamie had vomited into the room was vile, but it had clawed the truth bare.
“I don’t care what they see,” he said, his voice rough. “I care what you see.”
He didn’t move. He simply stood there, offering the raw, unvarnished truth of his expression—the want, the fear, the years of silence—and let her look. Let her see the man, not the manager. The risk was absolute, and the alley was terribly, terribly quiet.
Her breath hitched. The anger and humiliation in her eyes softened into something else, wide and uncertain. She took a half-step back, her shoulders touching the cold brick.
“Matty, I…”
The staff door banged open. Darcie stepped out, her green eyes sharp, taking in the scene. “Everything okay out here?” Her tone was neutral, but it was a lifeline, or a interruption, depending on who you were.
The moment snapped. Casey blinked, pulling the familiar, reserved mask over her features, but it was cracked. Everyone could see the cracks.
“Fine,” Casey mumbled, ducking past Darcie. “I’m going home.”
Matty watched her go, the energy of his confession still buzzing in his veins, unanswered. Darcie gave him a long, knowing look, one that said the back booth had just become a battlefield and the lines were irrevocably drawn.
“You’ve got a mess to clean up in there,” she said quietly, before following Casey inside.
Alone in the alley, Matty finally let out a shuddering breath. The dangerous question had been answered. He had tried to find out. And now, everything was different.
And now, everything was different.
The silence in his flat was absolute, a stark contrast to the roar of the bar and the shouted obscenities. Matty locked the door, leaned back against it, and closed his eyes. The image burned on the backs of his eyelids: Casey’s wide, wounded eyes in the alley, the pulse in her throat, the way she’d looked at him after Darcie interrupted—not with anger, but with a stunned, terrifying recognition.
He pushed off from the door, the routine of home—keys in the bowl, shoes kicked off—feeling alien. He poured a whisky, didn’t drink it. Just held the cold glass against his forehead. Jamie’s voice looped, a toxic recording. You ever jerked off alone to Casey’s pictures?
It was meant to humiliate them both, to reduce something complex and aching into something crude and small. But the violation wasn’t in the question’s vulgarity. It was in its terrifying accuracy. It had torn open a secret room inside him and shone a brutal, public light on the contents.
He drained the whisky, the heat doing nothing to settle the riot in his nerves. He walked to the bathroom, turned the shower on hot, and stripped. The steam fogged the mirror before he could see his own reflection.
But under the scalding water, he couldn’t wash it away. The evening played in fragments. The feel of Jamie’s shirt in his fist. The crack of his head against the booth. The sharp scent of Casey’s perfume in the alley, cut through with the damp smell of garbage. Her whisper. Why would he even think that?
His hand moved.
It wasn’t a decision. It was a collision. The physical release was a frantic, desperate necessity, a pressure valve blowing. He braced his other arm against the slick tiles, head bowed, water sluicing over his neck.
He thought of her laugh from earlier in the night, bright and unguarded. The way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear when concentrating on a complex order. The defiant set of her shoulders as she carried a heavy keg. Ordinary moments, now sacred and stolen.
Then the darker, sharper images, fuelled by the night’s raw exposure: how close he’d been to her in the alley. What if he hadn’t stopped? What if he’d closed that last foot of space? The imagined feel of her denim jacket under his hands, the shock of her mouth on his, not gentle but hungry, a mutual surrender to the thing they’d both been pretending wasn’t there. The fantasy was vivid, intense, and colored with a brutal possessiveness that shocked him—a direct, ugly answer to Jamie’s violation.
It was over quickly, a rushed, tense climax that left him breathless. No relief. Just a hollow, shuddering emptiness.
He shut off the water. The silence echoed.
Wrapped in a towel, he stood in his dark bedroom. The city lights painted faint stripes across the floor. He felt scraped raw. The professional boundary was not just crossed; it was obliterated. He had confessed everything to her in that alley without saying a word, and then he had come home and confirmed the crudest possible interpretation of his feelings in the most basic, lonely way.
He lay on the bed, the ceiling a blank slate. The momentum of the night was gone, replaced by a dreadful, still clarity. He had made a choice. He had chosen her side, violently and publicly. He had shown his hand.
Tomorrow, the fallout would begin. Jamie would be gone, but the rumor would remain, slithering through the staff. Casey would have to look at him across the bar. And she would know. She would know exactly what he was, what he wanted, what he’d done alone in the dark thinking of her.
Everything was different because he was now, irrevocably, a man who wanted, not a manager who oversaw. And the wanting felt like a freefall with no ground in sight.