13. Esperr #2
“You don’t get to decide that.”
I raise a brow, my head falling to the side. “I do.”
Silence stretches thin and uncomfortable as Jason cuts the music off and customers start to file out.
Dean laughs, loud and ugly. “Wow. Guess you’re feeling important tonight, huh?”
His words shouldn’t mean anything to me, but it feels like needles pressing into my chest. “Drink the water or don’t,” I tell him, turning away. “But you’re cut off.”
He slaps the bar once, the sound cracking through the room, and pushes back from it hard enough that the stool next to him tips. One of his friends mutters a curse as they right it, but Dean doesn’t bother to look back. He shrugs into his jacket, movements sloppy and frustrated.
He heads for the door, his friend following after him, letting the door swing shut.
Jason clears his throat from beside me. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, because right now that’s the only thing that feels like I can say without breaking down.
He watches me for a second, like he’s deciding whether to call bullshit, but then nods once and turns and begins stacking chairs while I grab the broom. We move in steadiness and quiet; I sweep and then he mops. I gather the dirty glasses, tossing them into the dishwasher.
We don’t talk much, not that we ever do, especially at this point. And within thirty minutes we have this place cleaned and stocked for tomorrow.
Jason ties off one of the trash bags and picks it up. “You want me to take that too?”
“I’ll get the last one,” I tell him, nodding towards the smaller bag by the back door. “You can go ahead.”
He frowns, glancing around. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” I force a small smile, this one not feeling so fake, just tiredness. “I’m right behind you.”
He hesitates and then shrugs. “Lock up behind you.”
“Always.”
The back door thumps shut after him, the sound echoing briefly before silence settles over me. It feels nice as I finish wiping down the counters and then knot the last bag tightly, the plastic stretching and squealing softly under my fingers.
Grabbing my jacket from the hook, I shrug it on, flipping the switch by the back door before stepping outside.
The alley is quiet, barely lit from the streetlamp a street over. The air is colder, snowflakes beginning to fall from the sky.
I blow out a breath and head toward the dumpster across the alley.
I’m about halfway there when something shifts behind me, an instinctive prickle at the back of my neck, a sudden awareness that I’m not alone.
It’s the same feeling I’ve had growing up, the one that made the hair on my arms stand up.
I turn?—
Pain explodes across my face.
The impact lands hard on my face, a blunt crushing force that snaps my head to the side before I even understand what’s happening. White flashes behind my eyes, bright and disorienting, and my teeth clack together with a sharp crack that sends a jolt straight through my jaw to my neck.
I stumble back, shoes skidding on the damp concrete as the trash bags slip from my hand and burst against the ground, bottles clattering and breaking. My cheek burns, hot and immediate, throbbing with my pulse.
My tongue darts out, tasting blood, while my ears ring, and it takes a second too long to register Dean standing in front of me, fist still clenched, shoulders heaving like he’s surprised at his actions.
“You! You embarrassed me,” he slurs.
I blink, the world tilting slightly to the left as my vision swims. My right eye burns, already swelling shut, heat radiating through my cheekbone like it’s been lit from the inside.
“What the fuck?” I breathe, the words scraping out of my throat more in disbelief than anger.
He laughs, a short and ugly sound. “You don’t get to act like that, turning me down last week and now thinking you can just cut me off!” He takes a step closer, pointing at my chest. “You think that doesn’t make me look bad?”
I try to move back, but my heel catches on the uneven concrete, almost causing me to fall backwards. “I didn’t embarrass you,” I hiss, even though my voice shakes. “You did that yourself.”
Now dealing with men who have power over their heads, I’ve learned the right and wrong things to say—this was the time that this was the wrong thing to say.
Not that it wasn’t true; I didn’t do shit.
But I also know that I can’t fight a six-foot dude when I’m five foot two and maybe one hundred and twenty pounds.
Dean’s face twists, confidence turning into something mean. “You don’t talk to me like that!”
And then he lunges, and I don’t have time to think, let alone run. I throw my hands up, trying to push him away, palms hitting his chest hard enough to make him stumble half a step.
It’s not enough; he’s much heavier than me, and though he’s drunk, he’s still solid. His hand tangles in my jacket, and he yanks, the fabric biting into my throat as I lose my balance.
I hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the air out of me in a panicked gasp. My palms scrape against the concrete as I try to scoot back, pain flaring up my spine.
“Get away from me,” I choke, scrambling back, my hands searching for something, anything, that could be used to hit him with.
For a split second the alley tilts, and the concrete beneath my palms feel too familiar, too much like another floor… another night, another body pressed too close.
I see the hallway first, the light shining from the kitchen, spilling across the hardwood in a long pale strip.
I step out, my bare feet hitting the ground, warm underneath from the day—the air smells wrong.
Metallic and sweet, mixing together in a nauseating way, but then my mother’s perfume cuts through it.
“M–mom?” My voice cracks, and I move further into the hall, skidding to a stop just as he steps out of my parents’ room. His jacket is dark, almost wet looking, and his eyes aren’t wild or angry, just fixated on me.
“You don’t have to run,” he tells me, his voice steady enough that I almost second-guess myself. “I’m not going to hurt you if you don’t make me.”
I frown, the split second of believing him is just long enough that I stop moving and his hands reach for me.
The present slams back into me as Dean’s weight crashes down over me, a knee slamming into my thigh hard enough that stars burst behind my eyes.
My breath leaves me in a broken gasp, my palms scraping uselessly against the concrete as I try to twist out from under him.
His jacket smells like sweat and whiskey, something sour that makes my stomach turn and bile rise in my throat.
“Stop fighting, you bitch,” he mutters, like I’m the problem, like he’s not the one attacking a female.
The words crawl under my skin, tearing me apart.
Memories of the pressure of a hand at my neck, his breath steady against my ear as he told me that struggling would only make it worse.
I remember the way his grip tightened when I tried to claw at him, how his patience vanished the second I refused to be quiet.