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He did a good job in hiding it, but I could still see the hurt in his eyes.
People could be real assholes when someone was different.
He grinned. “If Bull hadn’t come along when he did, I reckon I’d be dead.” He glanced over at Matlock, Cool Hand, Davey, and Nitro playing pool across the room. “They’re my family now, and that’s how they treat me. They might look big and mean, but they’re good men. They’ve had my back ever since.”
Across the room, I noticed Tiffani and Hawke enter the room from the corridor leading down to the bedrooms. While Hawke joined his friends without giving her a backward glance, Tiffani sauntered toward us looking like the cat that licked the cream. A mouthful of it.
She threw her little purse onto the bar and took a seat on one of the stools. Throwing her blonde hair over her bare shoulder, she looked at Red.
“I’ll have a coffee,” she said dismissively. “And make it strong.”
Red and I exchanged a look, and it seemed to irritate her.
“Hey, Stuttering Stanley, are you deaf?” She snapped.
I crossed the bar until I was standing opposite her. “What the fuck did you just say to him?”
She was lucky there was a bar between us.
“Oh, settle down, Shorty, he knows I’m only kidding, don’t you, Red Bear?” She gave him a flirtatious wink, followed by a sweet smile. “And make it extra sweet, will you, baby.”
“Don’t do that,” I said.
She looked at me blankly. “Do what?”
“Don’t talk to him that way.”
She rolled her eyes and pulled her pack of cigarettes out of her purse. “No need to get your panties in a twist. Red doesn’t care.”
“Well, I do. You don’t treat people like that. Not in front me.”
She paused before lighting her smoke. “Here’s an idea, why don’t you mind your own damn business.”
“It becomes my business when you do it in front of me.”
Again, she rolled her eyes and then lit her cigarette. “He probably gets off on it. A pretty girl paying him attention. Fucking freak.”
This woman was a rude bitch, and she needed to know that I wasn’t going to put up with it. She might have the Kings fooled, or maybe they just kept her around because she gave out blowjobs like candy, but whatever. She wasn’t getting away with the bullshit on my watch.
And no one—and I mean no one—was going to pick on someone in front of me because they might be a little different and expect me to say nothing.
I wasn’t a sit back and watch kind of gal.
I was reactive. Probably too reactive. And if she ran her mouth off one more time, she was going to experience a mammoth reaction, so it was a good idea if she left.
“Get the fuck out,” I said.
Tiffani turned her attention back to me, and I watched her phony mask slip and her eyes harden. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I said, get the fuck out.”
She slowly removed the cigarette from between her lips, her eyes fixed firmly on mine. “And exactly who the fuck do you think you are?”
I murdered her with my eyes. “I’m the bitch who is going to teach you some fucking manners if you don’t get the fuck out of my face.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Is that right?”
“That’s right. You don’t get to treat people like that, so take your shitty attitude and get the fuck out of here.”
She sighed dramatically. “I wonder what the boys would say about that? Should we ask them?”
“I’m confident they’ll see my point of view.”
Her face darkened. “You think they’ll pick you over me?”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“Oh, don’t kid yourself. That’s exactly what it’s about.”
“No, this is about you treating people like something you stepped in.”
She made a tsk-tsk noise followed by a condescending shake of her head. “You poor thing. You really think you mean something to them, don’t you? Well, let me tell you something, girlfriend. You mean nothing to them. The boys. Bull. Especially Bull. In fact, you’re his little pity project. A lost little mouse who needed a job because she couldn’t find one on her own.” She pulled a sad face. But then it hardened and her eyes narrowed. “He’s not attracted to you. He feels sorry for you! Oh, you might think he wants to fuck you. But, honey, you’re not his type.” Her eyes glittered over my hair, while her fingers raked through her blonde tresses. “Everyone knows he prefers blondes. Look at his wife. The woman he compares every other woman to. She was blonde and beautiful, while you’re so…well, you’re nothing like her.” She leaned closer and whispered. “And, honey, you reek of desperation.”
I slowly leaned down on the bar, somehow managing to keep my cool, my voice low and unsafe. “And you reek of contaminated pussy and bad manners, you ridiculous bitch. Now get. The fuck. Out.”
