friendliness can be mistaken for flirting for the lonely-hearted. And the last thing I need to do is overreact in the middle of Unc’s bar and cause a scene, even if I’m gritting my teeth to keep from telling this guy to keep his hands to himself.
“Chill out, Joe,” one of the other guys says, shaking his head and giving me a look that says Sorry, my friend is an asshole. “Here, thanks.” The guy holds up his empty glass and I reach for it.
As soon as my hands grab the offered glass, Joe grabs my ass and yanks me into his lap, bouncing me with his hips and laughing like he’s having a grand old time. I can feel his dick hardening beneath my thigh.
Scene be damned. The glass shatters on the wood floor as I push against Joe’s chest, yelling loudly, “What the hell?”
Joe starts to say something, his breath smelling like stale beer, but I’m suddenly flying through the air and whirled around. Before I’m even seeing straight, I’m planted almost gently on my feet, a wide, denim-clad back in front of me.
Bobby.
He ripped me out of Joe’s lap and now has Joe’s T-shirt fisted in one hand, his other holding Joe’s arm behind his back. Joe is stone-cold sober now and pissed as hell. His toes are barely touching the ground as Bobby holds him up, but he’s yelling at Bobby as he struggles. “What the fuck, man? Put me down!”
A loud bang comes from the bar, and I glance over to see Unc with a baseball bat slammed on the bar top. My uncle might be old, but right now, I have no doubt that he could take someone’s head off with that thing.
“Bobby,” Unc says in warning, though I don’t know why. Bobby is protecting me and not the bad guy here.
“Don’t. Touch.” That’s all Bobby says to Joe, but it has the power of an order. He slowly lowers Joe’s feet to the floor, keeping a careful watch on him. Bobby’s eyes narrow a split second before Joe bellows.
“Motherfucker!”
Joe rears back and punches Bobby clean in the jaw. I gasp in horrified shock, but Bobby grins, his tongue peeking out to test the lip I was so close to kissing just minutes ago. “Hank, you saw that? He threw the first punch.”
All at once, hell breaks loose.
Unc curses and tries to rush around the bar as Bobby hammers Joe’s gut and makes him fold in half before uppercutting Joe’s nose. I hear a crunch, and Joe falls to his knees, holding his nose.
“You broke it.” Joe sounds whiny and stuffy, probably from the blood leaking from between his fingers.
Joe’s friends all push back from the table, and Bobby looks up, glee in his eyes that tells them all to bring it, but they’re not getting up to jump to their friend’s defense. They’re getting out of Bobby’s way, same as I’m doing, backing away slowly like sudden movements will make them a target too because his hands are still loosely coiled, ready for round two.
“Get out, and don’t come back!” Unc tells Joe and his crew.
The guy who tried to apologize for Joe’s earlier behavior helps him to his feet. Joe splutters out, “Get out? Fuck that! Call the cops! I’m pressing charges!”
Joe glares at Bobby, and my heart races even faster, though it’s pounding away like a hamster’s from the adrenalin of the fight right in front of me. He’s going to get in so much trouble. For me. Over nothing. What Joe did was wrong, obviously, but it’s not the first time a customer has gotten a little handsy, and I’ve always handled it just fine and without bloodletting.
Unc grins at that. “Cops? Okay, man, your funeral. Hey, Patrick, this guy wants a police report filled out on this little incident.”
A rotund guy in a plaid snap-front shirt gets up and saunters over, pausing to take in the scene with his hands on his hips. Unc and Bobby seem to know something Joe, his buddies, and I don’t know, because they don’t seem concerned in the least.
“Patrick Gibson, Chief of Police for Great Falls. I hear you want a police report. All right, let’s start with you, Willow.”
It hits me all at once, and I can’t help but feel a little vindicated. There really is a police officer in the right place at the right time for the good guy.
I tell Patrick what happened precisely, and then Bobby does the same.