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“Look at this, lads! A lady in trousers.” He hooted, grabbing a belt loop at my waist. I shoved his fingers away. “You’re soaked through, miss,” he said, undeterred, and his eyes lingered on my chest, where too much cleavage showed. “Lemme warm you.” He reached for me.

A chill swept through me. Fear. Every muscle in my body became taut.

“Hello, Bernie” came Patrick’s smoke-hazed voice. He stood over my shoulder, a head taller than me, close enough to put a hand on my waist. I felt the heat of his fingertips through my clothes.

Something strange happened then, a reaction. Not just from the man named Bernie, whose eyes had left my face and become afraid. Not just in the energy that left Patrick’s fingertips and imprinted on my skin, but in the entire establishment.

The music stuttered, then softened. The patrons closest immediately quieted, alerted that something was imminent—a sizzle of danger. Whatever silent warning had been sent through the air quickly found the broader crowd. Conversation died. Laughter was smothered. A charge lingered. Each patron stared over my shoulder to where Patrick stood.

I looked back at him to see eyes I did not recognize. Cold as glaciers.

“Patty,” the man named Bernie said, pulling his cap from his head. “I… I meant no harm, Pat. Apol-gees.” But the bluff made the consonants blend where they shouldn’t. He tried again. “Apologies, miss. I thought you were alone.”

Silence. For a moment, Patrick only stared at the man, but the effect was haunting.

Then he looked across the room. Smiled thinly. “No trouble,” he said, eyes finding Bernie again. “A misunderstanding.”

Shoulders relaxed, breaths were exhaled. The piano man picked up in the middle of the melody, right where he’d left off.

I, too, drew a breath as the tension broke, and all eyes turned away once more. But Patrick stepped closer to Bernie. He patted the man’sshoulder amenably and leaned down to his ear: “You don’t want to do that again, Bernie, or I’d have to cut a piece out of you. You know that.”

“Pat, I—”

“Go home to your missus,” Patrick said, straightening. “Wash your fuckin’ mouth out before you get there.”

I watched, entranced, as Bernie nodded fervently, eyes rolling in his great head. He donned his cap and skirted around us with his nose down, then fled. There was no other word for it.

Around us, festivities continued.

Patrick grimaced. “This way.” He took my wrist as he passed, fingers pressing firmly into the flesh, and the sounds, the smells, the feel of his calloused palm on my skin—it sent a roar of memory shuddering through me.

My father’s hands had been the same, skin thickened and worn.

He threaded us through the crowd with a sense of urgency, to the side of the bar where a door waited. Before he pulled me through it, I caught sight of a woman glowering at the two of us. She stood by a large keg, a dishcloth tucked into the apron around her waist, jaw taut, mousy hair tied back, eyes as blue as Patrick’s.

Then the door swung shut, and we were in a claustrophobic spiral stairwell.

“Let go of me.” I said immediately, pulling my hand free.

Patrick shook his head, then began taking the stairs two at a time. “Thought that school might’ve taught you better manners.”

I cursed beneath my breath, hurrying to keep up once more.

He tsked. “You can take the girl out of Scurry, but you can’t—”

“Fucking hell, Patrick, slowdown!”

He gave a low whistle but didn’t slow at all. “Still got a pin in your arse, I see.”

I stumbled as the echoes of his quiet laughter spiraled up to the distant ceiling.

We climbed to the very top, finally arriving on the last landing. A narrow hallway with three doors, brass numbers screwed into the wood:13, 14, 15.

A young man no older than eighteen or so sat on a stool at the end of the skinny hall. He stood at the sight of us. “Pat,” he greeted, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Patrick nodded to him, then pulled a key from his pocket. He ignored the door to the left and the right and unlocked the last one, number fifteen. “As you were, Sam,” Patrick told the boy, and I looked back to see Sam nod eagerly, sitting straight-backed on the stool and looking dead ahead, except for the furtive glance he spared for me.

Patrick had to duck his head to enter the room. I followed him, and the door shut with a weak thud.