Free Redemption by Jessica Ashe Page A

inch.    
    “Good effort,” he said, with a slow nod of the head. “But you’re never going to finish that. I’ll go buy you something else.”
    My eyes followed him as he walked to the bar. It was like his ass and my eyes were magnetically linked. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I suddenly felt guilty for scolding men who perved at my chest. Sometimes you just couldn’t help but stare; a work of art deserved to be appreciated.
    If I’d been paying more attention, I might have noticed whoever it was who stole Oliver’s chair right out from under me. Shit. I looked around, but there were no spare seats.
    “Is this your way of getting me to sit on your lap?” Oliver asked, standing over me with the drinks. “That’s fine with me, but I warn you, I’m heavy.”
    “Sorry, I was a million miles away.” I moved up and made room for Oliver on the bench. He sat down and managed to fit about three quarters of his ass on the chair and needed to squeeze up next to me in the process.
    “This one is a lager top,” he said, passing me a much more golden-colored beer this time. “It’s about three-quarters lager and then topped up with lemonade.”
    “Lemonade? Lemonade with beer? That sounds gross.”
    “It’s not the lemonade you’re thinking of. It’s like Sprite, not the freshly squeezed stuff. I guess you could ask for a lager and Sprite but it would sound odd. No one here describes it that way.”    
    I took a sip and this time I genuinely enjoyed the drink. It was remarkably refreshing and couldn’t have tasted much more different to the previous beer.    
    “It’s good,” I said. “Still not a cocktail, but it’s good.”
    I kept checking my phone to see if Maisie had been in touch, but there were no messages. That was good I suppose. She only got in touch if it was an emergency.
    “You worried about Maisie?” Oliver asked.
    “No,” I lied. “Well, maybe a bit. I just hope she doesn’t do anything silly.”
    “She’ll be fine. Shaun’s a good kid.”    
    “I still can’t believe you have a child,” I said. “I mean, I know he’s not yours as such, but still, it’s kind of incredible.”
    “Yeah,” Oliver said. “It’s certainly that.”
    “You’ve done a great job,” I said. “With Shaun. That can’t have been easy taking him in after his parents passed away.”
    “No. It wasn’t.”    
    “You don’t want to talk about it?” I asked. I recognized the signs of someone trying to avoid a topic of conversation. I’d done the same thing often enough.
    “It’s not that,” he said. “I’ll talk about Shaun all day. He’s a huge part of my life. But the circumstances leading up to that were… not pleasant.”
    “I know the feeling. How did we both end up as parents to fourteen and fifteen year olds in our early twenties?”
    “You’ve been a parent to Maisie ever since I’ve known you,” Oliver said softly. “She wouldn’t be the woman she is today without you.”
    A light feeling of nausea washed over me as it always did when I contemplated my part in what happened to Maisie.    
    “I didn’t mean the burn on her face,” Oliver said quickly, reading my mind. “That’s one hundred percent on me. I mean that she’s an excellent athlete and a phenomenal young woman. That’s down to you.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Sorry, I keep saying the wrong thing, don’t I?”    
    “Let’s just talk about something else. We’re in a rugby pub aren’t we?”
    Oliver gave a gentle shrug of the shoulders. “It does tend to get a lot of rugby fans and amateur players.”    
    “In that case, why don’t you teach me some of these drinking games you lot play. I promised myself and Maisie that I’m going to have fun tonight. Getting drunk with you seems like a good place to start.”

“This might not have been a good idea,” I remarked, as Michelle finished off half a pint of beer in one go before half slamming, half dropping the beer down