Present Day, London

I found a job at a bar that had been converted from an old pub into something trendy and modern and served overly complicated cocktails with pretentious names. I’d worked as a bartender before but with my limited training I had a hard time adapting to the venue’s upscale menu. Luckily, I had someone more experienced to be my guide. In spite of the Goldcrest’s mystique, Lyla was utterly no nonsense, a veteran bartender who knew her stuff even though she seemed like the last person who would care about herbal infusions or bitters with exotic names. She drank her own bourbon straight, but she knew that there was money to be had from serving a young crowd with too much money and not enough sense.

“That is not how you muddle,” she scoffed when she saw me pummeling mint leaves into the bottom of a glass. “Give that here.”

She rocked the muddler in a fresh glass with efficiency to show me how it was done. “Just enough to release the oils on the leaves,” she explained. 

“Got it,” I replied, mimicking her movements precisely.

She gave me a grin that showed off a dimple, her nose ring flashing in the light as she nodded. “You learn fast, K.”

Why she had picked that letter out of my name to use as my nickname, I had no idea, but I hadn’t bothered to correct her. Lyla was not the type of person to take correction lightly. I was the opposite, adept at learning partially because of the practice I’d gotten with Yun Seo. Back then I’d had to be a quick study or I wouldn’t have lasted long at his side. 

“Now, just a dash of bitters.” She rolled her eyes when she saw my attempt. “You call that a dash? Are you tenderizing steak? Here. Like this.” Her wrist flicked and I tried to follow her example, pleased to see that my movement had a similar effect on my own concoction.

“Very good. I’ll make a bartender out of you yet!”

Soon we were working together like clockwork, filling orders and raking in tips that got more outrageous the later the hour and the more inebriated the customer. I didn’t mind taking the last shift and neither did Lyla, so we shut down the Goldcrest most nights and often walked back to our apartment building together after closing time. 

I’d met Lyla on the elevator the day I moved into Thom’s building, overhearing her conversation with a friend about a coworker who had just quit. Grinning at my luck, I mentioned to her that I was looking for a job and she’d given me a skeptical look but allowed me to follow her to the bar. I think she expected me to strike out, but her boss was friendly and gave me a chance in spite of Lyla’s reservations. As it turned out, skepticism was Lyla’s dominant trait in most things and she kept everyone at arm's-length until they gave her good reason to trust them. I wasn’t sure if I had reached that level with her yet, but I was slowly getting there.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to protect you on the way home tonight,” Lyla said one day, a smirk curling her lips as she unloaded the dishwasher behind the bar. Lyla had more mass than me and between her various scars and a full sleeve tattoo, she looked like the sort of person who didn’t fear much. I, on the other hand, was tall but lean and had the look of someone who could be blown over by a stiff wind. In reality, I’d been training in martial arts since I was a child and could hold my own in a fight, but Lyla liked to tease me about my skinny ass and long, delicate fingers as if these characteristics made me unlikely to defend myself. 

“What’s the reason for leaving me so vulnerable?” I asked with feigned offense. “What if I get mugged?”

“Who would mug you? You look like you’ve got all of a fiver to your name.” She grinned proudly as she added, “Besides, I have a very good reason for ditching. I’ve got a date!”

I laughed. “A date? At this hour? Are you sure it isn’t just a hookup?”

“Call it what you like,” she replied, giving me a punch that landed hard enough for me to feel a shock of pain down my arm. “Either way, I’m getting some tonight. Don’t be too jealous.”

“Good for you,” I replied genuinely. I had avoided any casual hookups since my night with Ian, deciding a dry spell would probably do me good. 

I let Lyla leave early and took over her share of the chores as I closed down the bar, taking the trash out to the alley and bringing all of the half-drunk bottles of beer to the basement for the resident Biersal to clean up. The owner pled ignorance when I mentioned the house spirit, but based on the gleam in his eye and the fact that he occasionally left beer at the foot of the stairs himself, he knew exactly what Hadley was. 

Hadley rarely came out of hiding, but he seemed to recognize me as someone who was safe to interact with, drifting out of the shadows for a chat as he slurped down the leftovers from my shift. According to his meandering stories, the Biersal had lived in the basement of the pub since long before it was converted into the Goldcrest, and he kept the cellars nice and tidy in exchange for his share of beer. 

“The fiery vixen isn’t with you tonight, is she, laddie?” Hadley asked, hungry eyes focused on the bottles I’d arranged across the bottom step. He maintained his distance like a skittish animal that wanted a treat but wasn’t willing to take unnecessary risks.

Assuming he meant Lyla with her bright red hair and air of violence, I replied, “She has a date.”

“A date!” As soon as I set the last bottle down and retreated to the middle of the stairs to sit down, the Biersal moved quickly from his hiding place behind a rack of barrels and began pouring the beer down his throat, tossing the empties neatly in a nearby crate of recycling. “I thought she might take up with you if you ever got your act together,” he said, pausing before taking the last bottle. “Guess you’re still working on that act?”

“Me?” I laughed, wiping my hands off on my apron. “I’m not Lyla’s type regardless of my act.”

Hadley frowned at me, but seemed interested only as long as the beer lasted. “Well, good luck, then,” he replied, backing into the darkness beyond the stairs. “‘Til tomorrow night.”

The evening felt colder than I’d expected when I finally stepped outside and I huddled in my light jacket for warmth, walking quickly down the dark streets and keeping my eyes on the ground in front of my feet. When I heard a clatter on a nearby roof, I paused and looked up, frowning at the sight of a hooded figure hanging from a billboard on a nearby building. The sign was an advertisement for Walden Construction and depicted a smiling middle-aged man with his arms crossed over his chest standing in front of a row of shiny, high-rise apartments. “Let’s make our city beautiful,” read the headline, but the hooded figure was spraying lines over the words to make it read, “Let’s ruin our city,” instead. They scrawled x marks across the smiling man’s eyes and drew a forked tongue unfurling from his mouth before finishing with a little signature next to the destructive art, a crown with a cat’s nose and whiskers beneath.

“Hey!” I shouted at the figure and he flinched, hopping down to the nearest rooftop and taking off at a run. He was nimble and fast, hopping from roof to roof like a parkour artist and I soon lost sight of him. 

Sighing, I resumed my journey with a shrug. I could understand why the construction company might be a target for social commentary. I had seen fences around several sites in the neighborhood emblazoned with the Walden Construction logo, so I knew they were one of the companies responsible for knocking down older buildings and erecting modern eyesores in their place, capitalizing on the popularity of the area to build expensive apartments that would further push the current inhabitants out. 

The apartment I shared with Thom was in a building that had been converted from an old warehouse and retained many elements of the original structure, from the stained brick walls to the oversized window frames. The windows themselves had been upgraded, but the style and shape of the panes looked authentic. The rawness of the style immediately appealed to me, and I’d known after my first night in the cramped apartment that I was going to sign the sublease in spite of my reservations about Thom. There was something homey about the space in spite of the modern decor that Thom preferred, and it was a convenient launching place for my life in the city.

I wasn’t surprised to find the apartment empty now in spite of the late hour. Thom kept to himself most of the time, his hours as off kilter as my own even though his day job was flexible. Painting murals on the side of buildings was an activity that required sunlight typically, but he also painted murals indoors and tended to work whenever inspiration struck rather than following a planned schedule. Apparently, mural painting was in high demand because Thom was booked with work for months in advance.

The front door opened as I stepped out of the bathroom fresh from a shower. Peeking my head into the main room, I saw Thom slink into the kitchen and pull a carton of milk out of the refrigerator, taking a few swallows straight from the container. He looked fresh from a run, dressed in a dark pair of joggers and a hoodie, his forehead damp with sweat, and for a moment I wondered. He was dressed identically to the person I’d seen on the rooftop earlier. He was a muralist. It wouldn’t take a stretch of the imagination to assume he painted graffiti as well. 

“Evening,” I said, keeping my tone friendly. “Odd time to workout.”

“Is it?” he asked, wiping his lips with the back of his hand and giving me a look that made a full appraisal of my bare chest and legs, his gaze snagging on the knot of the towel wrapped around my hips before returning to my eyes. “I like a late night run. Fewer obstacles that way.”

Thom had a way of being intense and attentive regardless of the situation so I dismissed his scrutiny as curiosity rather than interest. “Well, I can’t argue with that,” I said finally, waving a hand at him. “Night.”

The weight of those hazel eyes lingered on me as I walked away, and I had a hard time getting to sleep that night, tossing and turning until I finally succumbed to the itch under my skin and took the edge off my body’s needs, doing my best not to think of a haunting gaze or the way droplets of sweat had rolled enticingly over dark skin. There was no denying that Thom was attractive, but I really wasn’t interested in starting anything with anyone at the moment, especially with a roommate. If things went south, I would be out of a place to stay. And if they went well, then I was likely to get tangled up in distractions from my pain instead of spending the time I needed on figuring myself out.