Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,25

had before tonight. Fuck, I hated men sometimes.

I looked back to my son. “Did you give him what he deserved?”

He gave me a decidedly teenage look of what do you think?

This time I did smile. I couldn’t help myself. That look was the exact one his father had given me seventeen years ago after he got into a bar fight over some guy who grabbed my ass.

Even as a nineteen-year-old who didn’t know much about life, I was not attracted to violence—something instilled in me by my father, who was tall, muscled, and scary looking but one of the gentlest men I’ve had the honor of knowing.

A good man can know how to use his fists, princess, but he never talks with them. Never raises them, not for pride, not for power, not for anything short of protecting his family and only if there’s no other option. A man’s kneejerk response of violence has something to do with biology, mostly to do with something else. Biology can be changed, but male pride is harder to wrestle with. Remember that, mouse.

I had remembered that, and because of my father, of my stable, happy upbringing, I never longed to rebel with a ‘bad boy,’ never gravitated toward those menacing looking guys; instead, I was drawn toward a blond haired, tanned, blue eyed swimmer from a good family.

My gentle, safe boyfriend had showed me even he wasn’t immune to that violent biological instinct when he knocked some guy out cold. But not before getting himself bloodied and the both of us kicked out of the bar.

I didn’t talk to him for the entire ride home, not even when I dragged him into the bathroom and started tending to his cuts.

His hands settled on my hips. “Babe, you can’t be mad at me.”

I raised my brow and used that moment to wipe his cut with alcohol. He flinched. “Can’t?” I repeated. “I’m pretty sure, as a woman, I’m allowed to be whatever the hell I damn want. And you, as a man, don’t really have a say in that.”

My mother, the staunch feminist who had hammered all patriarchal tendencies out of my father early on, would’ve been happy to hear me utter such a statement.

The hands at my hips squeezed ever so slightly, and even though I was mostly focused on David’s cut, I caught the small grin on his swollen mouth.

I pursed my own lips because I was pissed, but also because I didn’t want my traitorous body to smirk.

“You’re right,” he agreed, wiping away his grin. “You can feel however you like, but you understand that I got in that fight for you, right? To protect you.”

I stopped my first-aid and stepped out of David’s grasp so I could focus on him. Even now, with his bleeding eyebrow, his fat lip, and all-around disheveled appearance, I loved him. I loved him so much it terrified me. It filled me up and I was afraid I’d burst. I was afraid there wouldn’t be room for anything else but me and David.

I took a breath. “David, that guy grabbed my ass.”

With those words, David’s eyes darkened and his face took on a furious expression. He wasn’t a possessive or jealous guy, and I loved that about him. I loved that he was confident in what we had, confident in himself, and that he trusted me. He wasn’t an angry guy. We fought, sure, but no more than expected. Usually over stupid crap. And even when we had a big fight, David was the one to speak evenly, rationally while I ranted and cursed.

“He grabbed my ass,” I continued. “And it was a douchebag thing to do. Beyond douchebag. He wasn’t raised well, doesn’t respect women, and was drunk. Not the most accommodating combination for any woman in the vicinity. And not something I ever want to expect as the status quo. It needs to change.” I narrowed my eyes at David. “But the whole, ‘you touch my woman so I break your face’ is not something that needs to happen either. Rationalizing violence in that way is dangerous. I don’t like it. I like that you want to protect me, but I don’t need you to do it with your fists.”

David digested the words slowly, as he always did, making sure to listen to every one. He was a listener. I loved that about him. He heard me when I spoke, wasn’t just waiting for his opportunity.

Even now, in what I could only imagine