pinched by the end of a shift. He thought of her scar, that thick cord of violence that ripped her back apart. “Sucks. That she should get the kitchen and then—”
“Do not say a word, Ivan, not to her and not to anyone else, do you hear me?”
“Jesus, man.” He scowled. “I like her. I feel bad for her. Why do you always think the worst of me?”
“I don’t,” Patrick said, and straightened. “But you’re competitive and she took the kitchen that used to be yours. You called the INS. I’m over it, but you wanted revenge, right?”
Ivan found this didn’t set off his temper. Huh. “I hate that I did that,” he said. “I did want revenge, before I met her. Before I knew her. I don’t anymore.” With an ironic little twist of his lips, he lifted his bottle of beer. “If not for her, you wouldn’t be here, now would you?”
Patrick’s mouth pursed into that pleased little smile Ivan liked so much. “That’s true.”
“Why don’t you get a backgammon board and I’ll go play some music?”
“Back in a flash.”
Ivan ambled over to the jukebox and leaned over it, his long arms folded on the top so that the light flashed over his face and chest, purple neon, his favorite color. He fed a few bills into the slot and started punching in his favorites—some Springsteen and Prince and Mellencamp for himself, some Melissa Etheridge and Toni Braxton for Patrick.
“How sweet,” said a voice nearby. Dag, as clean and tucked as a new shirt, leaned on the jukebox. “Choosing songs for your sweetheart?”
A ripple of irritation crawled up the back of Ivan’s neck, but he twitched his nose, blew it off. He was here with Patrick to relax and have a good time after a long night at work. He didn’t look up again. “Get lost, Dag. I have to put up with your shit at work, but not on my own time.” He pressed a set of numbers gently with great control, and flipped the cards inside the jukebox, looking for something lively. Cheerful, like Cyndi Lauper. Hard to get too pissed off when she was singing. He spied the Bangles and put in “Walks Like an Egyptian,” too, for good measure.
Dag leaned in close. “He’s too young for you.”
A sizzle, like too much electricity, buzzed over his ear, but Ivan ignored him. There was the Lauper. He punched it in.
“Look at that ass,” Dag said. “I keep thinking of those sweet cheeks, that pretty mouth. It’s ti—”
Before he knew he was swinging, Ivan had connected with that foul mouth. He saw it almost in slow motion, the arc of his fist, large and knotty and strong, fueled by the anger of nearly forty years of assholes like this, starting with his mother’s boyfriends, hurting him and teasing him, then kids at school because he was too thin, later because he was gay, always taunting him, for one thing and another and another, always putting him down, making him feel like he didn’t measure up; he saw it flying and Dag noting too slowly that it was coming, and then the flesh of his left knuckle and Dag’s mouth collided. Ivan felt something give, in his hand and in Dag’s mouth, a tooth, and then there was blood, and he had time enough to think, Fuck, I never even had a chance to get drunk, before Dag roared and tackled him, a bull. He slammed his fist into Ivan’s face, and he felt the crunch against his cheekbone—Jesus, it was like getting hit by an anvil. Then Ivan’s street sense kicked in and he managed to get a few punches in, and then people were hauling them apart, and the bouncer was dragging Ivan outside, while the patrons—all fucking punkass skiers—were crowding around Dag, who spit on the floor.
“Stay the fuck out of my bar, Santino!” said the bouncer, and Ivan was flung to the sidewalk outside, stumbling in this sudden rejection, shivering in the cold. He sat there for one long minute, humiliated and stinging as tourists in expensive boots and thick coats steered around him, looking down in disdain at his sweat-stained shirt and his bloody mouth.
He was expecting Patrick to come out, waiting for him to step outside and help him to his feet and gingerly tend his wounds. But he didn’t come. Ivan stood up, feeling the punch to his eye more than he wanted to. Through the window, he saw the commotion