“You’re talkin’ about an innocent woman who was brutally murdered.”
“I’m talkin’ about Angie.”
Colt moved and therefore so did Lore. It wasn’t exactly a surprise attack but still, Lore barely got a chance to throw up a defense before Colt had him flying through the air, one fist at his collar. Lore landed on his back on top of a table and Colt leaned over him.
“This’ll get messy, you keep talkin’ about Angie that way and you’ll be breathin’ through a tube I ever hear you talk to Feb that way again.”
This was not an idle threat and everyone in that bar knew it. Lore stared up at Colt and wisely kept his mouth shut.
Colt yanked him off the table by his collar and then with a shove sent him flying. Lore righted himself and went back on the defense, no threat this time, he was scared. I didn’t blame him, with one hand Colt had sent him flying through the air.
“We ask a citizen to help with an investigation, we do it with purpose,” Colt told him, his voice pure ice. “They think there’ll be retribution, like you just dished out or worse, they’ll hesitate or not help at all. Means we’re fucked. I don’t like to be fucked, Lore. I do the fuckin’, you got me?”
I heard Colt’s ass ring but he ignored it as he faced down Lore.
After what took way too long, Lore mumbled, “I got you.”
“Now go somewhere and calm the fuck down. You come back in here, you do it to have a drink and you have that drink after you apologize to Feb. We clear?”
Lore’s gaze slid in my direction but it went right through me before he looked back at Colt.
“Clear,” Lore said.
“You see Marty, give him fair warnin’, he better avoid me for awhile.”
“Marty’s fucked,” Al muttered to Jimbo.
Lore stared at Colt for awhile before he jerked his chin, his eyes moved to Dad and his expression turned hangdog as it hit him he might have just made enemies of Colt and my Dad, not enemies you’d want to have especially since they were your friends and you liked them. The circumstances were admittedly extreme but Lore realized then that he hadn’t thought this through. The way he treated women, he didn’t care about me. But his actions had shown disrespect to two men who deserved it and no one in that bar, or any of the folk who would undoubtedly hear about this by morning, would give him an inch, not for awhile. You didn’t call Jack Owens’s daughter a cunt no matter what she might have done and you didn’t get in Alexander Colton’s face and make him lose control and Lore understood, just then, he’d given his own reputation a hit he wouldn’t live down, not for a good long while.
Not to mention he made an ass of himself and got bested without even lifting a fist.
After dropping his head, Lore hit the exit with all due haste.
Colt’s ass rang again and he cursed under his breath, his eyes locked on the closed door before he yanked out his phone, flipped it open and put it to his ear.
“Okay, is it me, or is anyone else having a problem with deciding whether to have a heart attack or an orgasm?” Meems asked.
“Orgasm,” Jessie said instantly.
“Yep, same here,” Dee put in.
“Fuck,” Al muttered.
Jimbo shook his head but grinned at his wife.
“Well, that was a buzz kill,” Morrie noted.
It was then I realized I was shaking.
“Got it, later,” Colt said into his phone as he walked up to the bar, his eyes on me, he flipped his phone shut and shoved it in the back pocket of his jeans. “You okay?”
“Lore just called me the c-word,” I told him.
“I know, you okay?”
“He said it more than once.”
Colt bit his lip then let it go. “All right, but you okay?”
“He said it loud.”
“Feb –”
“I’m okay.”
“You sure?”
“I’m okay.”
Or as okay as anyone could be who was called the c-word more than once.
“You’re not gonna go half-cocked on me?” Colt asked.
I sighed before I repeated, “No, I’m okay.”
“You’re not gonna get a wild hair and haul ass?”
I rolled my eyes, leaned forward and said slowly, “Colt, I said, I’m oh… kay.”
He grinned. “Last time you rolled your eyes at me, baby, I kissed you.”
I sucked in breath and if I wasn’t mistaken so did Dee, Meems, Jessie and Joe-Bob.
I thought it best to quit speaking and just remain silent maybe for the rest of my life.
Colt turned to Dad. “I got work, Jack, callout. I’m not done, you’ll stay in the house with Feb?”
“Absolutely.”