Pretty Sweet - Christina Lee Page 0,90
a thing about him or our family life. Harmless, my ass.
On their break, they both downed some water at my end of the bar, and I got to enjoy Seth’s company for a few minutes. Up close, he was even more striking, and I couldn’t stop staring.
“You like?” he asked, striking a pose.
“More than like. You look amazing.” I leaned closer. “Maybe you shouldn’t change tonight.”
He huffed out a laugh, his eyes lighting up with raw desire, and when I wound my arm around his smooth waist for a kiss, he shivered.
Seth pecked my lips one last time before walking through the crowd to his second set, and this time I enjoyed how some men checked him out, knowing he would be coming home with me.
I chatted with Dane until they got started again, and switched to water with lemon for their final numbers. In all, it was a great night and I was enjoying myself, even if the tipsy guy had planted himself near Seth’s piano again. Christ, get another hobby, dude.
After Jesse sang his last song, he disappeared from the stage while Seth stayed put for one more. By then the crowd had thinned out a bit more. Once Seth left his piano and began heading my way, I stood to stretch my legs. He would probably trail Jesse to the dressing room to grab his things and remove his makeup, so it would be another few minutes before he’d follow me to my place.
The tipsy guy headed him off before he could reach me, and they began having a conversation. Seth smiled at first, no doubt from one compliment or another the guy lobbed at him, but then seemed to quickly lose interest, glancing over the guy’s shoulder more than once. I could tell he was being polite and trying to placate him as the man blabbered on, and suddenly my skin felt too tight for my bones, my muscles turning hard as steel as frustration arose inside me. I was pissed that this guy felt entitled to keep Seth occupied with whatever drivel was coming out of his mouth, and Seth was too kind to tell him to get lost.
And it reminded me all too much of how Mom would appease my father at all costs. Like he was so important, she needed to put up with whatever the hell he wanted from her. She would always lose a piece of herself in the process, until she was only a former shadow of herself. That man had cost her years of her life.
Just as Seth was about to walk away, the guy’s fingers fastened onto Seth’s wrist, and I saw stars.
“Hey, listen,” Seth was saying to the guy as I stepped closer. Seth glanced at me and shook his head, trying to warn me off. That should’ve been my first sign. “I’m going to meet my boyfriend, and you look like you’ve had a bit too much to drink, so you need to—”
“Wait, I wanted to tell you—” the guy slurred, and I should’ve stayed rooted in place, except at that point, pure instinct had taken over.
My fingers clamped around the guy’s neck, and I yanked him backward. He tripped over his own feet and would’ve landed on the ground had I not grabbed the front of his shirt and wrenched him closer.
“I have it under control,” I heard Seth behind me, but I was already in over my head.
“You don’t put your hands on anyone without consent, you understand me?” I bit out even as I heard Seth calling my name. “You don’t know him like that. And he doesn’t need to stick around and listen to the garbage spewing out of your drunk mouth.”
When the guy’s lip curled and he tried to take a swing at me, I pushed him, hard, and his shoulders smacked the wall behind us.
His friend from the bar was there in an instant. “He didn’t mean any harm. We’ll leave.”
As the guy garbled some cuss words in my direction, his friend easily dragged him toward the stairs. And that was when mortification began seeping in, my skin feeling hot and clammy. I could feel Seth’s gaze on me like a wall of prickly heat, probably Dane’s too, and goddamn it, I had made a mess of things.
When I finally glanced at Seth, his jaw was set tight, his eyes wild, somewhere between stunned and pissed.
“Fuck, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“No, you really shouldn’t have,” he replied in a frustrated