Brew Books

Chapter 24

It's Friday night, and I'm sitting at the bar. I didn't want to hang out here tonight, but I also didn't want Charlotte to think I was hiding in my bedroom, afraid to venture into her territory. Defending my pride won out. I'm wearing a tight bandage skirt that clings to my butt, in an effort to compete with the bar girls.

'A Ruth cocktail, for you,' Harper says, putting a pink creation in front of me. 'I haven't seen you much this week. Everything all good with you?'

I look up into Harper's kind eyes, partially hidden under his messy brown hair. I remember his bewildered expression as I ran past him in the stairwell.

'Yeah, I'm fine,' I say, putting on a cheerful voice. 'Just busy with various things! How has your week been?'

Charlotte hasn't come downstairs yet, so it's just Harper manning the bar. Will's sitting at a booth, reading, despite the dim light. Ed is back at his parent's house for the weekend. For someone who doesn't like talking about his parents, he sure visits them a lot.

'Alright,' Harper says. 'So are you going to let me have another guess at your favourite book?'

I take a sip of the sweet Ruth cocktail. 'Go on, then.'

'So you live in London, you're a bit posh...'

I laugh. 'Me, posh?'

'Well, you're from Brighton,' Harper says. 'Bit more posh than South London.' He puts on a particularly cockney accent to say it.

I laugh.

'So I reckon you might like Mrs Dalloway,' Harper says.

'Mmm,' I say. 'I do like that book.'

Harper raises his eyebrows.

'But it's not my favourite,' I say.

'Damn,' Harper says.

'Catcher in the Rye,' I say, without missing a beat.

'Nope,' Harper says. 'Tomorrow, then, Mrs Dalloway.'

'Tomorrow, Holden,' I say, and Harper grins at my reference. 'This cocktail's great, by the way.'

'Thanks,' Harper says. 'I tweaked it a bit. It was too sweet before.'

'Are you saying I'm not sweet?' I ask.

'I'm not,' Harper says, leaning across the bar. 'You're very sweet, which inspired me to create this cocktail for you. But I think there are more layers to you, Jane Ruth.'

I bite my lip to stop myself from grinning, and hide my smile by taking another sip of the cocktail.

'Come on,' Harper says, and suddenly he lifts the panel entrance to the bar. 'Let me teach you how to make a good cocktail.'

I slip off my barstool and through the gap, and Harper lowers the bar door behind me, grazing my arm with his hand as he does. I realise I've been working at the café upstairs for over a month now, and I've never actually been behind the bar down here.

Harper pulls down a couple of bottles of spirits from the shelf, a jug of juice, and sets them in front of me. He shows me how to hold the shot measure between two fingers so I can pour the spirit and then tip it into the cocktail shaker in one quick movement. Once we've assembled the ingredients, he slips a glass into the cocktail shaker, whacks it neatly so that it's sealed, and then hands it to me.

'Go on, give it a shake,' he tells me. I shake it, but I can't achieve the same speed that Harper does.

'You have to shake harder,' Harper says, and he laughs at my effort. 'Come on, how weak are your arms!'

'My arms aren't weak!' I say, laughing. Harper tries to grab the cocktail shaker out of my hand but I refuse to let go, so he just holds onto my hands and shakes it with me. We're both laughing, when we hear the slam of the wooden panel closing.

'Oh, hey Char,' Harper says. He lets go of the cocktail shaker at the same time I do, and the glass drops to the ground, shattering. Pink liquid explodes everywhere.

'Jane, what are you doing back here?' Charlotte snaps, her accent becoming more pronounced than usual.

'Oh, I didn't mean to!' I say, and I desperately look around for paper towels.

'Just get out,' Charlotte says. 'Let me deal with it.'

I let myself out and hover awkwardly at the bar, watching as Harper and Charlotte clean up the spill and the glass.

I realise now that I absolutely don't want to make a conversation with Charlotte and Harper, considering it hasn't been too long since the two of them kissed. I glance over at Will, hoping he'll join us, but he's absorbed in his book, so I stammer an excuse and then run out of the bar, up the wrought iron steps and onto the street, and then through the door and up the stairs to my flat.

When I get inside I decide I'm just going to spend this evening reading. There's no point getting drunk downstairs with Harper and Charlotte. I should leave them alone.

There's more mail on the kitchen surface - someone must have brought it in. I flick through it, in case there's anything for me, and notice there's more mail for Matt.

I grab it and head to Ed's room, intending to leave it on Ed's dresser, because I assume Ed will forward the mail on to his brother.

Ed's door is open, so I step inside and reach out to leave the mail on his dresser, when I notice a black laptop sitting on Ed's bedside table. It confuses me, because I've seen Ed working on his laptop every day, and it's always a silver laptop.

Before I know what I'm doing, I sit down on Ed's bed and open the laptop. The login screen displays after a minute of the computer booting up. The desktop is a picture of a humpback whale breaching in beautiful blue waters.

The login name is Matthew Lyndon-Reed.

Why does Ed have Matt's laptop? As far as I know, Matt hasn't been to visit us. No one's seen him for ages, and I'm sure I would have heard if he'd popped by.

I close the laptop and leave it where it was on Ed's bedside table, and then look at the letters where I left them on Ed's chest of drawers.

I scoop the letters up and take them to my room.

• Author's Note •

Sneaky Jane... what do you think are in the letters?

What's your phone lockscreen or desktop background?

Thanks for reading, and for voting!

elle xx