Will shouldered open the taverns rear door, his hands otherwise occupied with the supplies he was delivering. Lowering the trays to the counter top, Will called out a greeting to the other occupant of the kitchen, getting a grunt in return.
Fishing in his pocket, Will sought and found the delivery tablet and headed over to where Elizabeth was working and apparently ignoring him.
"Come on, love," Will teased her, giving her a friendly slap on the bottom. "Time to start working."
Elizabeth turned around fast.
"Why don't you keep your fucking hands to yourself, you grinning oaf?" she snarled. "I'm not a piece of cheap meat to be poked and prodded by any fool who comes by."
"Who, hold up there," said Will, surprised. "Who's been yanking on your chain?"
Will had been on light flirting terms with Elizabeth ever since he started making deliveries for her, and she'd never reacted like this before. If it hadn't been for her husband he would have been strongly tempted to make more of it that the light flirting.
"Nobody," snapped Elizabeth. "Now give me that to sign and then go away. I'm not in the mood for company."
"I'd never have guessed," muttered Will, waiting for Elizabeth to check the deliveries against the invoice.
Something was nagging at his memory. Something about Elizabeth. He considered it for a moment and then it came to him. Ignoring the conventional wisdom in regards to fools and angels, Will rushed to put his foot in it.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" asked Will. "You've been full of what you intended to do today, your day off, and being here wasn't one of the things mentioned."
"What the fuck do you care?" snapped Elizabeth. "You're just like him. Expecting us all to obey your whims and bugger what we might want."
"Ah, did I say something wrong?" asked Will.
Elizabeth gave him a black look, and then sighed.
"Not your fault, I suppose," she grumbled. "Alice called in sick, and instead of having one of the girls put in an extra shift Alf said I had to work it."
"Ouch," sympathised Will. "Wednesday's are generally pretty slack. Couldn't he just cover for Alice himself, and just get one of the girls to come in for a couple of hours at dinner time?"
It appeared that Will had a knack for picking on sore points, that day. Elizabeth gave him a filthy look and Will could almost hear her growling.
"That's what I suggested," she said, frustration boiling in her voice. "It turns out that there's a big game on this afternoon, and Alf insists on watching it."
Elizabeth jerked her head to the large one way window between the kitchen and the bar/dining area. There was Alf, sitting on the customers' side of the bar and apparently looking directly at them.
"Big screen TV above the mirror," said Elizabeth, "and why they have to play a big game in the middle of the week is beyond me. It's eerie. His sitting like that makes me feel he's watching my every move, even though I know he's watching the screen and would only see a mirror if he looked lower."
"Now that you mention it," said Will, "I can hear the sound coming through. He must have it turned up pretty loud."
"He does. If I want him I'll have to go and get him. He won't hear me yelling over that racket."
