She narrows her eyes as she reaches for a glass cup under the counter. “Do you want water with your ice?”
My fake smile is shining on my face. “Just ice straight up.”
She rolls her eyes at me as she retreats to the back of the bar. She scoops some ice out of a bucket and then drops the glass down in front of me, before heading to an older guy with salt-and-pepper hair sitting down at the end of the bar.
I pick up the glass and press it to my cheek, wincing at first from the sting but then letting out a relieved breath as the cold begins to soothe the heat. I prop my elbow on the counter and rest my head against my hand as I listen to some guys cheer from behind me. There’s a mirror behind the counter, giving me a good glimpse of how bad I look at the moment. My mascara is running down my flushed skin and my hair is a little frizzier than normal because of the heat. My cheek is so puffy it looks like I’m carrying a giant jawbreaker in it and the skin is tinting purplish blue.
The song switches to a more upbeat one and if it’s possible the guys in the bar get even noisier, cheering for more. I decide it’s time to take the glass and bail because I have a long walk ahead of me and very little patience left. I hop off the barstool while the bartender’s distracted by the old dude at the end of the bar. I’m headed to the door when I notice that the cheering has shifted to shouting. I glance over my shoulder just in time to see a chair flying through the air and then it smashes into the stage. It causes a domino effect and suddenly everyone’s shoving up from the seats and the stripper takes off running from the stage. I’ve never actually seen a bar fight… or a strip club fight, but the idea of jumping in makes my pulse beat faster. It speeds up even more when I spot the guy in the middle of the room getting held back by two guys that look large enough to be bouncers.
Luke Price. He’s wearing a long-sleeved gray shirt with the sleeves pushed up and there’s blood staining the front from a trail dripping from his cut lip. His jeans also have blood on them and his boots are untied. His arms are being held back as a thinner, but taller guy stands in front of him rolling up his sleeve. Luke looks like he’s relishing the fact that he’s getting his ass kicked. I kind of understand it, although I usually try to avoid the actually physical part of a fight, just letting it work up to almost getting there then bailing.
There’s a thin guy wearing a tight black shirt and steel-toed boots standing in front of Luke and he says something to him. Luke laughs as he slams his head back, crashing it into one of the bouncers faces, the taller one with a more rounder gut. Blood gushes from the guy’s nose as he releases Luke. He starts cursing as he clutches his nose, blood dripping down his hands and arms. The bouncer begins to raise one of his arms to punch Luke.
I feel this wave of something, not adrenaline, but close to it, and suddenly I’m shoving through the crowd toward Luke, carrying so much energy in me it’s hard to know what to do with it. I don’t help people out. Ever. But with Luke I feel obligated because he’s helped me out more than once.
A few guys give me a look like I’m insane as I squeeze by them, but I’m too amped up on shock and adrenaline to care. With each step, the emotional aspects of tonight slowly erase, the confusion Preston put in me. The way he hurt me, the feelings that surfaced from his words and his inappropriate touching. By the time I reach Luke and the bouncers, I’m so silent inside I feel like I could do anything.
Luke’s attention darts to me as I step through the last of the bodies and out between him and the thinner guy standing in front of him. The taller and rounder bouncer is hunched over, his nose bleeding all over the floor and the other one has wrapped his arm around the skinny guy’s neck. The thin guy has a puffy nose and a swollen eye, which I’m guessing is why Luke’s knuckles are scraped.
Luke looks at me curiously, his gaze lingering on my cheek, before gliding up to my eyes. I can tell he’s having a hard time focusing and standing, probably because he’s beyond drunk.
“Who the hell are you?” the thin guy asks then spits blood on the floor, his boots crunching against the glass and peanut shells as he turns toward me.
I glance from him to the big guys and then at the thinner one, realizing I should have created a plan before I walked into this mess. Thankfully, being in the middle of guys pumped up on alcohol and testosterone is giving me even more silence from the earlier emotions Preston—the entire shitty day—put in me. I feel high, like I’m flying and could fall at any time. Blood is pouring through my veins and roaring in my ears. It’s like I’m invincible and it feels like I could do anything.
I fix my attention back to the thin guy with barbed wire tattoos on his arm. “I’m here for him.” I hitch my finger over my shoulder at Luke and give the skinny guy one of my best charming smiles.
The skinny one frowns, unimpressed, and crosses his arms. “Your friend broke the rules and he’s got to pay for it.” He leans to the side to look at Luke. “No touching the dancers.” He points to a sign hanging on the wall to my right that matches what he just said.
I look over my shoulder at Luke again, fighting an eye roll. “Really? You couldn’t have just gone home and jerked off.”
He shakes his head, his brown eyes darkened by the alcohol I can smell flowing off his breath. “I couldn’t wait that long.” He has this silly, drunk, innocent look on his face that actually makes my heart miss a beat and I don’t like it.
I’m seriously debating whether or not just to let him handle this on his own, but then remember how he helped me to and from class and gave me a ride to McDonald’s. My shoulders slump as I turn around to face the skinny guy, doing the one thing that I’m good at. Bullshitting people.
“Look… he’s really sorry he broke the rules, but can’t you just let him go?” I ask with a sweet smile.
The thin guy narrows his eyes. “I was just going to kick him out but then he f**king sucker punched me in the nose when I asked him to leave. He gets a freebie for touching, but I’m not about to let some idiot punk get away with punching me.”
My eyes sweep the crowd of people watching us, racking my brain for an idea. “So you’re just going to hit him and let him go?”
The thin guy shrugs. “Haven’t you ever heard of an eye for an eye? He hit me so I hit him, then he can walk out of here.”
The idea of watching this guy ram his fist into Luke’s not too-bad-looking nose makes me squirm. I should do something… for him… and for me maybe, too. I’ve had a crappy night and testing my boundaries in a fight seems so much better at the moment than feeling the weight of the crappiness. It’d take my mind off Preston, the detective, the fact that I’m probably homeless.
I feel my heart pitter-patter with excitement as I dive headfirst into the mess with no regard for my future. “Look…” I pause so the thin guy will give me his name, but he doesn’t catch on. I inhale quietly through my nose and exhale through my lips, preparing myself to create one of the best lies I’ve ever come up with. “You can’t kick my boyfriend’s ass. He does this sometimes, you know. But he just found out that we were going to have a baby.” I rub my stomach, blowing it out a little. “And he’s been really stressed working two jobs so we can move out of the apartment and get a house.” I take a deep breath and let it out, releasing the tears I only let flow when I’m playing a part. “Plus, he has a drinking problem and I don’t really know what to do anymore but he’s the father of my child and I need him, you know?” I let tears drip out of my eyes and the thin guy shifts awkwardly. “You can’t hurt him otherwise he’s going to have to miss work and we can’t afford it.”
I’m not sure if he’s buying it or not but he’s definitely not comfortable with the crying. Most guys aren’t, which makes my ability to cry at the drop of a hat spectacularly good luck. And I don’t mind the crying, just as long as it doesn’t have any emotion behind it.
“Please just let him go.” I finish it off with a heart-wrenching sob, letting my shoulders curve inward as I cover my face with my hand. “Please, I can’t deal with this right now… everything’s just too stressful.”
The whole room is so quiet you can hear a pin drop and some of the guys start to wander back to the tables, over the drama. I glance up and the thin guy is staring at me like I’ve just escaped from a mental institution.
Then he shakes his head and throws his hand in the air exasperatedly. “Just let him go so he can get the f**k out of here. I’m too old to deal with this shit.”
The large guy shoots him a harsh look. “What about setting an example? You want things to go back to what they where pre-Ted?”
“Ted was a moron who had no idea how to run a strip club,” the thin guy says, cupping his hand over his puffy nose and wincing.
The large guy shakes his head in disgust, but releases Luke and steps away toward the stage. Luke stumbles forward and bumps his shoulder into mine as he grabs on to my arms to hold his balance.
“Sugar dearest,” he whispers with a snorting laugh, his fingers digging into my arms as he laughs in my ear.
I grab on to his arm, helping him get his feet firmly under him. Then holding on to each other, we wind around the tipped-over chairs, broken glass crunching under our shoes. Some of the guys are watching us, but others have already forgotten, staring at the stage. Luke leans his weight on me, gripping at his ribs, and I wonder if he got punched there.
Once we’re outside and safely behind a row of trucks where no one can see us through the bar window, I step away from him and his arm falls from my grip. The sky is a sheet of black, the stars twinkling, and neon lights in the windows of the strip club light up the ground around us.
“So what was that about?” I ask as he trips to the side, fighting to stand up straight on his own.
He glances over me with unresponsiveness, his body tottering to the side. “You’re kind of crazy, Violet with no last name.”
“I’m crazy.” I point at myself as I gape at him. “I’m not the one who groped a stripper in a sketchy club in the middle of nowhere that has bouncers with their own special rules.”
He shrugs with his hands out to the side, tripping over his own feet. “She stuck her ass in my face. I didn’t touch her. She touched me.”
I raise my eyebrows accusingly as I fold my arms. “Is that really what happened?”
He wavers as he blinks his glazed-over eyes and then braces his hand on the bumper of a lifted pickup beside him. “I might have put my hand on her, too.”
“Why would you do that? Why not just go grope one of those skanks you always have hanging around you?”
His mouth dips to a frown. “Because I wanted the bouncers to hit me.”
“What? Why?” Actually, I can think of a few reasons, but that would imply Luke was like me and I doubt that’s possible.
“So I could hit them back,” he replies with a casual shrug.
Now I’m more curious than concerned. “Why would you want to get hit?”
He wipes some blood off his forehead that is coming from a cut on his hairline and then winces as he pulls his hand back, flexing his fingers. “I didn’t want to get hit. I wanted to get into a fight.”
Okay, now I’m just confused because that sounds like something I would do and I’ve never met anyone who has a weird obsession with danger like I do. I want to know if that’s why he wanted to get hit. If it was because he wanted the thrill of an adrenaline rush. If Luke is like me for whatever reason. “But why would you want to get into a fight? For kicks and giggles? Or do you just like getting your ass kicked?”
He grabs at the bottom of his shirt, shaking his head. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“I ask a lot of questions?” I watch him as he tries to get the bottom of his shirt up high enough so that he can wipe his lip. The low lighting around us is enough to highlight his stomach muscles and I can see how ripped he is and that he has tattoos. Jesus. I’ve seen muscled and tattooed guys before, but I’ve never had this much curiosity and draw toward them.
He nods his head exaggeratedly as he continues to fight with his shirt to wipe his lip, pulling a face at the uncooperative fabric. “Yeah, you do.”
Blinking my gaze from his muscles, I shuffle forward and snatch hold of the bottom of his shirt. I move the fabric up to his lip and he gets this goofy grin on his face.
“I knew it.” His speech is slurred and his breath reeks of booze and cigarettes. He gazes over my shoulder at the road where it sounds like a semi truck is driving by, the headlights reflecting in his eyes. “Knew that you wanted me.”
I snort a laugh and stretch his shirt far enough that I can wipe the blood from his lip. “I don’t want you and I think you know I don’t.” But as I say it, I actually picture what it would be like to press my lips against his, blood and cuts and all. In fact, it might be a bonus, make things more intense and wrong—making him more intense and wrong. My stomach warms and coils just thinking about it.
He winces, his relentless gaze eating me up as I smear the blood from his cut lip. “Not even a little bit.” He seems slightly saddened, which amuses me.
I let go of his shirt and step away from him, the weird stomach sensations simmering down now that I put the space between us. “Maybe you should stop talking before you say something really stupid.” But the inside of me doesn’t match my words. I feel the smallest acceleration in my pulse and my stomach starts doing the weird warm, coiling thing again.
“I only say the truth when I’m drunk,” he tells me, stepping forward. “And the truth is,” he leans in toward me, passion and Jack Daniel’s dripping off him, “That you drive me f**king crazy.” His pupils are large, the brown in them blending in with the black. “Rubbing up against my dick one moment and the next moment you’re running off all because I say you’re beautiful and I want to f**k you.”