Ok, here's the next part, and I'll warn you - Abby is in a bitchy mood!
Thanks for the great reviews so far
*****
Anyone You Don’t Know? – AbbyLuka took me to a bar around the corner from his new apartment. It was okay, nothing special, just the usual neighbourhood hangout. Juke box, pool table, food, selection of regulars by the looks of it. I was absolutely starving hungry by this time as I hadn’t had time for lunch, but Luka seemed in no hurry.
Of course he wasn’t, he’d had pizza, hadn’t he?As we walked in Luka was greeted like a long lost friend by one of the customers, an older guy sitting at a table near the door. “Hey doc.” He called out as we passed.
“Hey, still here?” Luka said with a smile. He took me by the arm and lead me to a small table.
“Do you know them?” I asked, gesturing towards the man and his companion. Luka had a knack of getting people to talk to him, but that was good going, even for him.
He shrugged. “We met at lunch.”
Oh, so you’ve been here already have you? There was me, slaving away at County, being spat at and abused, and you were having a good time, shopping and having lunch.
As I sat silently seething the waitress appeared and instantly annoyed me all the more. She was pretty, I suppose, in an obvious way – all blonde hair and blue eyes. She smiled at Luka and addressed him by name in a French accent.
Great. This evening was getting better by the minute. Now he’s got a not so secret admirer by the look of it. I was used to women looking at Luka when we were out together - come on, who wouldn’t? - but they usually kept their distance once I’d thrown them a couple of dirty looks. This one looked as though she would be ready to jump into his lap at the merest hint of another word from him.
Luka ordered us both drinks, beer for himself and a diet coke for me and I asked our lovely waitress for a couple of menus. I really needed to eat something, and now. Perhaps if I ate I’d feel less angry at the world in general.
“We stop serving at ten.” She told me.
Ten? Was it really that late? Although thinking about it, I hadn’t got off work until eight, then it had taken me ages to find Luka’s place, so I suppose it could be ten. I looked at my watch to make certain.
“It’s like ten-oh-two.”
“I’m sorry.” She said in her pretty little French accent, while Luka sat and smiled at her. I wanted to slap her; in fact I wanted to slap them both.
“I’m starving.” I said, aware that I was getting whiney and kicking Luka’s ankle under the table to get his attention back on me.
He shot me a look, then turned back to the waitress, “Do you have any appetisers?”
She thought for a moment, I could almost see the cogs in her brain turning with the effort. “I think we still have soup.”
Not really what I wanted, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers. If we went somewhere else it was likely to be the same story at this time of night anyway. “What is it?” I asked grudgingly.
“Like a potato cream.”
Yuck, that sounds pretty horrible. Although it sounded like it was that or nothing. “Sure, that’s fine.”
Whatever. I was past caring.
She turned and headed back to the kitchen, with a sly glance and a smile at Luka over her shoulder.
Bitch. Luka, of course, was oblivious, looking over the other side of the bar at someone else he seemed to recognise.
“Anyone here you don’t know?” I said, a little petulantly.
He caught the tone of my voice and shrugged, smiling a little sheepishly. I raised my eyebrows as if to warn him not to push his luck this evening, and he reached out and took my hand, widening his smile into that one I knew so well, the one that was so hard to refuse. I shook my head a little. If he thought he was going to win me over tonight it was going to take more than a smile, however devastating.