Chapter 13 #2
Is she proving something by managing it? Continuing a legacy? Or just forging her own path, determined to do better than her father did?
I can get behind a revenge story. Shit, half the turf wars back home were nothing but revenge that should’ve died out decades prior. Battles between families that had no business carrying generation to generation, but we all got wrapped up in them and lives were lost over it.
Like my dad’s.
Pointless deaths never sat well with me, but when it was his? That was my last straw.
Making a restaurant successful is the kind of point I’m too happy to prove.
I pivot my focus back to that before thoughts of my dad hit too hard. “Good thing she’s got me then.” Confidence has never been my problem, and when I accent my words with a smirk, it draws attention from more than just the three men at the table.
A little blonde thing sways over to the table, sultry eyes trained on mine.
“Well, aren’t you just what the doctor ordered,” she purrs, placing a delicate hand on my arm.
“Find someone else to fill your prescription, sweetheart.”
“Hallie,” Wyatt says, acknowledging her presence with a nod.
She flushes, jumping in recognition, eyes flashing around the table to take in who all is here.
“Grady,” she whispers, eyes down, sheepish all of a sudden.
“You’ll have better luck on the other side of the bar tonight,” Ronnie cracks. “Nothing but taken men, and one who’s got a thing for someone who definitely isn’t you.”
Her cute features darken into a scowl, glaring at the guy along the wall at my right.
“I wasn’t offering to you, Ronnie,” she seethes, nose scrunched up.
“Happily married. Like I’d take Wyatt’s leftovers. Please. I don’t need to give myself more issues. He probably turned you into an amphitheater by the time he was done with you.”
Hallie’s jaw drops and she crosses her arms over her chest in a way that isn’t nearly as endearing as when Lexi does it.
“Don’t be crass.”
“All I’m saying is you could probably holler into it and get an echo back, like a cave. Your man probably has to go spelunking to find your g-spot, after Grady’s been in there so many times. No bouncing back from that thing.” He hikes a thumb in the direction of Wyatt’s pants.
I splutter some of my bourbon, which is a damn shame.
“The man is just obsessed with you, bro,” Weston whispers loudly to his brother, across the table from Ronnie and me.
“IT’S A NORMAL FASCINATION!” Ronnie yells. “The way poor people are obsessed with rich fuckers. Always nice to dream about what others were blessed with that you weren’t.”
“How does your wife live with you?” Weston asks.
“I have mastered my wife’s body, don’t you worry, young one. This tongue is just as long as either of yours.”
I’m not sure if he forgot Hallie was standing here, or just has no personal boundaries, but she scoffs at his overshare.
“I bet this one’s hung like a buffalo too,” Ronnie chatters on, nodding sideways at me. “Have you seen his hands and feet? The man could double as a brick wall. I hope Lexi survives him.”
“Lexi Weiss? Ew.” Hallie chooses to make her presence known again in a way that doesn’t do her any favors.
A stillness falls around our table, frost settling in. “Watch your mouth,” I warn her, the only one I feel in the mood to issue.
If the rattle in my voice doesn’t warn her of the monster lurking beneath my skin, her survival instincts aren’t enough to earn her the privilege of natural selection.
“You disrespectin’ this lady?” Some prick who can’t reach my belly button tries to swing his dick in my direction.
Wyatt turns his dark baseball cap around, which I didn’t see coming. He’s probably more ready to defend his sister-in-law’s honor than have my back, but I respect a man who can hold his own against a piece of shit.
If my old life didn’t prep me for enough of that, prison sure did. Can’t say that was the last I had to do it either.
“Depends,” I say, cracking my knuckles.
“On?”
Sucking my teeth with my tongue, I eye the newcomer, his too-tight jeans, and the mustache he can’t pull off before unfurling from the stool and standing to my full height.
The way I tower over him is enough to make a hit of fear dart through his eyes, but he hasn’t seen anything yet.
“On whether she’s going to take Alexis Weiss’s name out of her mouth and apologize.”
“You the kind o’ man that’d hit a lady?” he asks.
Let my eyes run up and down his frame and find him very lacking before I respond, “Think you’d do in her place.”
Behind me the Grady brothers rise on my right, and I hear Ronnie’s stool clanking as he clamors to join us. Not sure he’s an asset in this situation, I certainly don’t need any of their help, but maybe this group chat idea of his wasn’t so dumb after all. It’s kind of sweet, them jumping to my aid.
“Lexi?” The ferrety mother fucker laughs around the toothpick in his mouth, looking back at the blonde by his side and then to me. “This is about the Weiss spinster? Been there, done that. Half the town has. She peaked after high school.”
“At least she had a high point. You never even got off the ground,” Ronnie says, eyes narrowing on the first douchebag I’ve met in this town.
“Hey, Gary, how is living in your mom’s basement deep in your thirties? Are you feeling the shame like an oil on your skin, or is that just the creeper vibes you give off?” Weston asks, shoulder brushing the top of my arm as he widens his stance next to me.
“Hey!” Gary bites back. “My mom needs me, okay. Not the other way around.”
“I’m sure she’d have no way to go on if you stopped watching porn in her basement all day,” Wyatt hums. “But it must be hard to find work so you can get your own place when you can’t be fucked to show up.”
“I’m not you guys,” Gary wails. “I wasn’t meant to be a mechanic.”
“Or a bartender. Or in construction. Or at the plant,” Ronnie adds on.
“What’s your point?” He puffs up the sorry excuse he has for a chest and it just makes the beer belly he’s getting stick out more.
“That you’re the shittiest part about this town,” I speak up. “Only been here a few weeks and I already see it. You’re the genital wart on the taint of the Heights, now fuck off.”
Wrapping an arm around Hallie in some sort of what’s probably supposed to be comfort—she shrugs to shake him off, but he just tightens his grip—the two of them turn around and start walking away.
The way he snarled insults about Lexi still rings in my ears, even as I watch him go.
He doesn’t get to talk about her like that.
It’s not going to happen again.
My mouth does the talking, but my body is too eager to say the rest. “Make sure that’s the last time Lexi’s name comes out of your mouth.”
I watch as his shoulders pull back, head popping from shoulder to shoulder, before he turns around, malice brewing in his shit-colored eyes.
“Yeah? And what are you gonna do about it if it’s not, big boy?”
A familiar darkness coils through my limbs, energizing my cells into a constant buzz they’re only too eager to expend.
“I’d be happy to show you a few things I learned in the pen,” I purr through my teeth.
“Well, this has been fun,” comes Ronnie’s chipper tone as he steps forward, one hand on my arm and one in front of Gary’s face.
“How about you fuck off now, Gary. Let’s give the first responders the night off, yeah?
They don’t need to stop having fun to scrape your flesh off the sidewalk, and really, I think Duke’s been through enough, don’t you?
Are we going to make him pressure wash this place to get your guts off of it?
That just feels insensitive, if you’re asking me. ”
Weston cackles, and I think even Wyatt smirks beneath all that scruff on his face.
But before Gary can decide his own fate, Dallas pushes through the crowd of folks to step between us. He chooses to shove me away from Gary, like I’m the one who started this.
It takes me by surprise, and he gets me a few steps back because of it, by the high-top again, before I regain my balance and hold my own. First time someone’s managed to push me in a long time, and it throws me for a beat.
“He’s not worth it,” Dallas says so low I doubt anyone else hears him.
“I know,” I mutter back. “I wasn’t gonna.”
Probably.
Dropping his hands from my chest, Dallas takes a step back but keeps his voice impossibly low.
“Miserable fuck makes a game of ruining others’ nights.
Don’t let him.” He turns to the rest of my group, dark eyes writhing, like the shadows come to life in his darkness.
“Why don’t you guys take your night elsewhere. Cool off.”
It’s not a suggestion.
Gary snickers, clearly having heard us be asked to leave, and Dallas whirls to face him, creeping forward to press into his personal space. “Last warning, ’stache.”
“I was just defending her,” he tries to weasel out of it.
“Leave me out of this,” Hallie retorts, and weaves through the bodies around us to get away.
Dallas humphs, one brow arched, staring Gary down until he gets the point, tucking his tail and going back to his greasy corner of the world, hopefully under a rock with the other cockroaches.
“You’re done for the night anyway, right?” the quiet bartender asks Wyatt.
My eyes flick to the glasses on the tabletop, barely a sip of bourbon left between them. I down what’s left of mine to get a better taste in my mouth after that exchange that left me fired up with no outlet.
“Yeah,” Wyatt confirms.
“We’ll get some fresh air,” Weston suggests.
Dallas hands us four bottles of water as we pass by the bar on our way out with a nod of thanks for not making a scene.
The guys toss out a few ideas before we settle on hanging out in the parking lot where their pickups are all parked.
Wyatt drops the tailgate on his navy Ram, and we settle in, the three of us standing around while Ronnie props himself up on the back of the truck, one leg hanging over the edge of the tailgate.
“You gonna tell us what that was about?” Ronnie asks, all their eyes on me.