7. Aidan #4
The stranger turned on me, and I ducked under the swing, ramming into him to wrap my arms around his middle and drive him into a wooden pillar in the center of the room.
I heard Mika grunt in pain and my head snapped to him to see him reeling back from a blow but before his opponent could take advantage, Reno leaped into the fray, away from the guy he’d been grappling with, to bring Mika’s foe down with a bellow.
My head exploded with pain as my inattention allowed a fist to the side of my head that sent me reeling.
The room spun, and I caught sight of a scuffle to my left and the sounds of a full-on brawl happening somewhere behind me.
Then my vision was filled with the man I had been fighting.
Grabbing hold of my shirt, he forced me to take one, two, three punches that left dots floating in my vision even as I yanked up my foot and drove it into his gut, forcing him to let go.
Then Mika was there, bringing his elbow down in an impressive drop and sending the guy sprawling.
He reached for me and, dazed; I tried to take his hand, requiring a couple of attempts before his fingers closed around mine.
We jerked when a blast echoed through the room and made everyone turn to the bar where I saw the woman who’d been working the bar standing there, a shotgun pointed at the ceiling, plaster falling down like dirty rain.
“Good, I got your attention,” she said, eyes flashing. “Now, Jackson—”
“What?” came two outraged calls, and I twisted around to see Jake and the first guy he’d been feuding with looking at each other in surprise.
“The one on the ground,” the bartender clarified.
“I told you more than once that if you keep starting shit in here, you’re not coming back.
So now you’re not coming back. Get your friends and get the fuck out before you find out what birdshot in your ass feels like while you spend the night in jail. ”
“What about us?” Jake demanded, sounding irritated for what had to be the first time since I’d known him.
“I don’t wanna see you in here for a couple of weeks,” she said, laying the shotgun against her shoulder. “You boys normally don’t cause trouble, but I’m not having trouble in this place, you got me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jake said quickly in the same tone he used for Cait when she was on his ass. Apparently, Jake had a whole thing when it came to older women, and I didn’t know if that was a sexual thing, or if he was just a momma’s boy.
“And there had better not be any fighting in the parking lot or anywhere near here,” she shot out as the other group of men shambled their way out, one of them gripping his arm and another limping heavily. “Get your butt over here and pay the tab.”
“I got it,” Carter said, walking up to the bar as we picked ourselves up off the floor, me with Mika’s help.
“Come on,” Colin said mildly. His lip was split, but other than some dust on his shirt, he didn’t look like he’d been in a fight. Except there was a weird energy about him that made me cautious. “Let’s pick up what we can before she waves that thing around.”
None of us were in the mood to argue, and thankfully most of the mess was broken bottles and one broken chair; the rest of the furniture had made it through the brawl.
I half expected the bartender to chase us out when Carter returned, but she just handed him a broom, dustpan, and a trash bag, and we went to work cleaning up the mess.
Jake slapped a bill on the counter as we left to cover the chair.
“What the fuck happened?” I asked as we made it to the truck, looking at each other and taking measure of the damage.
Jake had clearly taken a few punches from the bruising, but he didn’t seem bothered.
Reno and Mika looked slightly better than me, but worse for wear compared with the rest of the group.
“Fucking assholes started running their mouths!” Jake snarled, giving the truck’s tire a swift kick.
“Would you quit?” Mika complained as Reno kept looking at him. “I’m fine!”
“Are you?” Reno asked doubtfully. “I saw the way he had his hand around your neck.”
“I beg the finest of your fucking pardons?” I asked with wide eyes, turning to them and seeing the red marks on his neck. “What the—”
“Great, now you’ve got him going,” Mika complained, and I advanced on him. “Don’t you—”
“Shut your whore mouth and let me fucking see,” I snapped, and with a beleaguered sigh, he craned his head back, and I looked the marks over.
“Whore mouth,” he muttered. I could see he wanted to comment, but the others were too close.
“Those guys were making comments about…” Reno began, stepping back and giving me an odd look as he looked incredibly uncomfortable. “Gay guys.”
“Standard bullshit, ‘we don’t need that kinda thing around here,’ you know,” Carter said with a scowl. “Colin asked them what they meant, and they, uh—”
Reno’s face flushed. “Pointed at me and Jake.”
I blinked, then thought about how they’d been acting.
I hadn’t once thought about how they were with one another as noteworthy…
or gay, for that matter. I had male friends who were comfortable touching each other without the slightest hint of eroticism or romance.
Not to mention, it wasn’t as if they had been acting all that weird.
Jake didn’t care when Reno leaned on him, and Reno didn’t care when Jake’s arm leaned on the back of his chair.
No one batted an eye because, quite frankly, most of the group was comfortable touching each other in platonic ways.
“And Jake…didn’t understand what they meant,” Carter offered, the first to sound amused.
“Well, how the fuck was I supposed to know they thought we were a couple?” Jake demanded and looked at us as if we were going to give him the answer.
“I wouldn’t have thought it, so how the fuck was I…
don’t make no sense, that’s what it is, no sense at all.
Fucking idiots, and then when I asked those fuckers they—”
There was silence, and Mika and I peered at Jake, whose face had fallen into uncomfortable anger. Carter’s cheek twitched, but I thought that was tension, not humor, and Reno was steaming but not saying anything as he looked at me and Mika…and over at Colin.
Understanding dawned the second before Colin spoke. “He used the word ‘faggots’ and Jake flipped the table, getting in his face.”
“Ah,” I said with a snort. “That…makes sense.”
“It’s not fuckin’ funny,” Jake told me with a heavy frown.
Colin eyed him fondly. “Isn’t it cute when straight men get offended over a word that doesn’t include them?”
“It kind of is,” I said with a chuckle then realized my fingers were still on Mika’s neck…in front of everyone, and slid them back with a warning glare, we were going to be talking about his downplaying his injuries later.
“Ain’t right,” Jake muttered, looking annoyed that we were so blase about the whole thing.
Mika glanced at Reno, who had drifted halfway between him and Jake, clearly torn on who to help. “Someone else is the same way, no matter how many times I tell him not to worry about it.”
“He’s right,” Reno said with a scowl, finally giving in to look over Jake, who muttered angrily but only half-heartedly pushed Reno’s concerned touches away. “It’s not right, and I’m not going to stand for that shit any more than Jake will.”
“Ahh to be loved,” Mika said with a shake of his head.
“You’re all getting checked when we get back, understood?” Colin said in that rare tone that allowed no argument. “Good thing you were the DD, Carter, I didn’t see you take too many hits to the head.”
Carter snorted. “Not like Aidan.”
“It was my first fight, give me a break,” I complained around the throbbing of my skull and my face. “And why does Jake look like it’s a normal day for him and Colin looks like…I don’t know, he bumped his head getting out of bed instead of in a fight.”
Jake brightened at that and clapped Colin on the back. “Because this one put some serious hurt down, that’s why. Ass kicker extraordinaire!”
I glanced at Carter, who grunted. “Those two were our MVPs.”
“And you saved our asses,” Reno told Carter. “So let’s agree there was good work done all around and get home.”
“Yeah,” Colin said with a heavy sigh. “Because we’re getting our asses kicked for real when Xander finds out.”
Ah, right, there was that.