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Whatever internal battle I was struggling with dissipated at that comment, and conversation began to flow.
“What brings y’all to The Tug and Chug, Adeline?” Kettle asked me after telling Shannon their drink orders.
Viddy, who’d been busy speaking quietly with Trance at the end of the table perked up at Kettle’s question, and just had to tell everyone about my awful day.
“Addy got punched in the face by one of her students. He was a football player.” Viddy crowed. “So I brought her here for a sundae and a cheeseburger to cheer her up.”
Six pairs of eyes locked to my face, and only then did they realize that my face and right eye was swollen. I’d done a good job at hiding it with makeup, and then wearing my hair down to add to the camouflage, but Viddy didn’t know how to keep her trap shut.
“What happened?” Kettle barked, turning my head so he could examine my eye.
I shivered at the touch of his rough fingers on my chin, and looked into his piercing blue eyes, becoming lost.
“Addy?” He asked, worry evident in his deep baritone voice.
I blinked, and then told him what happened earlier that day.
“I’m a high school science teacher, Kettle. Most of the kids use my class to blow off steam since there’s a mandatory lab, but today was a little worse than normal since it was a pep rally day. One of the boys on the football team was picking on a young girl, calling her names, and another boy, one of the ones that has a crush on the girl, intervened. I’d just walked around the corner when the football player threw a punch at the kid, who incidentally moved out of the way just in time, causing the player to punch me in the face instead.”
Kettle’s teeth ground together, making an audible noise as he listened.
“What did they do to the kid?” Silas’ voice broke the connection causing me to turn and look at him.
I shrugged. “Suspension. Benton High has a zero tolerance policy for fighting. He’ll be gone for well over two weeks.”
“That’s it?” Trance asked from further down the table.
I shrugged again. “I don’t know. It was an accident. Or at least the hitting the teacher part. So I can’t really get too mad at him.”
“Fuck that,” Kettle growled. “You sure as fuck can get mad at him. Nobody should be throwing punches with people that close around them. They should be aware of their surroundings. That shouldn’t happen at all in a school. What did the school resource officer have to say about it all?”
I would’ve replied if a commotion coming from the opposite corner we were in didn’t capture everyone’s attention, including my own.
“Let me go!” Kettle’s sister shrieked at a young man that was wrapped around her from behind, groping her boobs.
Kettle’s chair scooted back loudly as he took in the altercation, and then he exploded.
Literally.
One second he was in his chair and scooting back, and the next second he was across the room, punching the guy across the mouth with his fist with the force of a sledge hammer.
“Oh, shit.” Sebastian groaned.
The sentiment was echoed by the other four men as they, too, got up and started heading over towards the altercation.
I didn’t know if it was to help Kettle, or restrain him.
I’d seen many fights in my tenure as a high school teacher.
I’d broken up many of them, too.
The sounds that always surround a fight are unique.
There is the jeering from the crowd, the scuffling sound from the two people grappling, and then the actual sound of flesh meeting flesh.
Kettle’s fight resembled none of those.
The bar became so silent that the only sound that was heard was the ice machine dropping ice into the dispenser. No talking, laughing, cheering, no nothing. It was as if everyone was anticipating the upcoming events about to go down. Like watching a tiny car stuck on a railroad track and a freight train barreling down the tracks toward it.
