“What the fuck?” He stood on the pool table glaring daggers at me; I guess messing with a hardcore Bee Gees fan was dangerous territory.
He jumped off the table and stalked towards me with a hard stare. He moved up close, right into my face, trying to intimidate me. I pushed past him. I had always struggled to comprehend what makes people do what they do. What makes bad people be bad?
Tonight, I had no answers.
Once I had put some space between us I spun around to glare at his back.
“Hey!”
He turned around to me, his brows rising in surprise as a sleazy grin formed on his face.
“I think it’s time for you to leave.” My voice shook in anger; I hoped it didn’t come across as fear.
He laughed and cast a cocky glance at his mates and leisurely leaned back on the bar. He crossed his arms in defiance.
“Oh, yeah? On what grounds, babe?”
I smiled back sweetly and casually closed the distance between us. I stepped right up close; I was the one now getting into his face.
I could see him visibly relax as I leaned in to whisper, “On the grounds of this.”
And quicker than anyone could catch on, I picked up his pot of beer from the bar and threw it on his crotch. He jerked away from me in shock and his friends scurried out of the way.
“Go home, Matt. You’re drunk. We don’t take too kindly to blow-ins pissing themselves on our turf.”
He pulled at his pants as the look of disbelief on his face contorted to that of seething rage.
“You little bitch,” he spat out.
He stepped forward towards me. Before I could flinch away from him he was suddenly jerked to a stop by a vice-like grip that had grabbed at the material at the scruff of his neck, and pushed him violently against the wall.
“Looks like you lost the pissing contest, old mate,” Sean growled into his face.
Matt tried to push off the wall away from Sean, but Sean leaned more heavily against him and it was no use. Matt’s mates belatedly rushed in to throw their weight around in his defence but hands gripped the backs of their T-shirts too and they found themselves slammed against the wall by Toby and Stan. A series of pushes threatened to spill over into a bar room brawl. What was I supposed to do? I tried to fight past Sean’s back but he infuriatingly blocked my way.
“You need to keep your bitch on a leash,” Matt said. I think he realised what a huge mistake it was to call me that the instant Sean’s sweeping elbow connected with his jaw.
One of Matt’s mates tried to intervene. “We were just going, weren’t we, Matt?”
Sean and Matt were locked in death stares as Sean held him against the wall, the tips of his toes barely touching the ground. It was a standoff, but Matt was the first to look away. His face flushed scarlet, no doubt due to oxygen deprivation from Sean’s bear-like grip around his throat.
“Yeah, we were just going,” Matt croaked.
Sean held onto him for a moment longer, waiting for Matt to break his resistance, which he did. Matt put his hands up as if to show peace. At that sign, Toby and Stan let go of Matt’s mates, and they all pushed off each other with dirty looks and silent threats.
Matt straightened and looked at his mates and adjusted his crumpled shirt.
I stood off to the side and glared at him, but he didn’t meet my eyes as he followed his mates past me and out of the door.
He walked deliberately close by me on his way out, stopping only briefly to have his final say under his breath.
“With a daughter like you and a shithole like this, no wonder the old man had a heart attack.” He smirked, triumphant that he had had the final say.
My fury spiked into a blistering rage as soon as Matt turned to finally walk away, to leave the Onslow. Nothing could stop me. I charged; I jumped on Matt’s back and laid my fists into him. He toppled forward, which gave me a better vantage point so as to pull his hair and pound into him some more.
Matt cried out, “Get this crazy bitch off me!”
I laid into him with a guided commentary:
“THAT’S for letting the grass get too long.”
WHACK.
“THAT’S for opening late every day.”
WHACK.
“THAT’s for stealing from my family.”
WHACK-WHACK-WHACK …
The only thing that prevented me from pummelling him into a pulp was the unexpected grip around my waist that scooped my flailing, kicking frame off him.
“Put me down!”
Another arm pinned my arms down, and carried me out of the bar like a pole – a pole with kicking legs.
“Come on, badass, time to go,” Sean half laughed in my ear as he strained to carry me away. He carried me through the front bar, the crowd of drinkers parting like the sea, and all the way out through the front door of the hotel. The cool breeze skimmed my heated cheeks. He placed me down and I continued to squirm to get out of his grip. Why did he have to be so strong?