Twist Of Fate

Fifty One

CHLOE

I need to speak to Harry. I can't sit here in this hotel for the rest of the night, waiting for him to come back steaming drunk and then try and have this conversation with him. I need to have this out with him now, before he drinks himself into oblivion. I shove his phone into the back pocket of my jeans along with the hotel room key and I am out of the door and on my way back towards town before I can change my mind. 

How could he have kept this from me? How has he managed not to mention his own son this whole time that we have been on the run together? We have lived in each other's pockets for weeks, yet he has somehow managed to omit the most important part of his life, a part that defines him as a father and links him to Sofia forever. How could he not have told me?

My insides are quivering as I turn the corner onto the main street and make my way up the road almost at a run. I have no idea what I am going to say to him, or even if I will be able to find him. I don't even know whether he went into the bar opposite the Chinese restaurant, and if he did whether he will still be there now. 

There is a crowd of people outside the bar now, sipping drinks, laughing and chatting in the dusky evening. I have to push my way through them to get to the entrance, muttering awkward apologies and 'excuse me's. The inside is small and cramped with a long bar running all the way across the back wall and low seating scattered around the other three. It is packed with people sitting and standing, warm bodies pressed together creating a suffocating sense of heat and humidity. I stand on tiptoes scanning the room for Harry, peering over shoulders and between groups. I slip through the crowd and reach the bar, leaning forward to glance along it and catching sight of a familiar face at the other end, just turning away and heading in the direction of the mens toilet. I shout his name several times but I am not surprised he can't hear me over the beat of the music and the chatter of the drinkers enjoying themselves. 

I decide against trying to push my way over to the toilets to wait for him and instead wait where I am at this end of the bar. After about ten seconds a barman approaches me with his eyebrows raised and I realise he is waiting to take my order. I am momentarily thrown. I haven't brought any money with me in my haste (I am so used to Harry dipping into his endless supply of cash) so I stare back at him gormlessly until a voice in my right ear says, "I'll get these. What are you having?"

I squeak in fright, turning towards the stranger in shock and shaking my head, muttering a refusal and a thanks simultaneously, but he is not to be deterred.

"Go on, what would you like? A wine? A cocktail? A shot?"

He is smiling at me, his eyes twinkling, and because I can't bear to be rude to someone, even a total stranger, I accept his offer and he orders me some sort of cocktail. 

"I'm Tom," he smiles, extending his hand and beaming when I shake it.

"C-Carly," I stammer, nearly giving my real name in my discomfiture. 

"Well, Carly, it's lovely to meet you," he replies. He has to lean close to my ear to make himself heard over the music, and I feel nervous and anxious at his invasion of my personal space, even though he is being friendly. I dart another glance down the bar but Harry has yet to emerge from the mens toilet.

"Are you not from round here then?" Tom asks, leaning one arm casually on the bar and holding his bottle of beer loosely in his free hand.

"Sorry? Um - no, I'm from, er, Devon," I lie, taking a large gulp of my drink as the blood rushes to my face and hoping he won't notice my fluster.

"Thought the accent sounded a bit foreign," he winks and I look up at him sharply, afraid he is laughing at me. His eyes are crinkly at the corners and he has a trace of stubble across the bottom half of his face, and the way he is smiling I can tell he is teasing rather than poking fun. I can't help but smile back at him. "So what brings you to Dumfries?" he asks.