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“I don’t know what you—”
“You have some nerve, you know that?” Her voice shook with her uneven breaths, and she rested her hands on her hips. Her knuckles turned a strained white, letting me know that I was lucky she was exercising her restraint. My cheek stung again, remembering the way her hand had met it the other night.
I took a deep breath. “Simone, will you just—”
“I mean, seriously, Logan! I don’t want to talk to you, so you schedule me to work alone with you? Awfully convenient, don’t you think?” She covered her face for a second, dragging her hands down her cheeks and pausing to shake her head slightly.
“It’s not like—”
“No. How dare you?” She put her finger up the way my mother used to when she was lecturing me to warn me she wasn’t done. “I don’t want to talk to you.” Every word was slowed down and emphasized, and each one stung more than the last.
I paused, waiting for her to continue. I wouldn’t blame her for it. “Are you done now?” I asked when she just stared at me.
Simone cocked her head. “I’m mad at you, Logan.” It was the first moment her voice had softened. Her eyes sparkled like they did when she was about to cry, and when she swallowed, she cringed like it hurt.
She stepped backwards when I moved towards her, and I put my hands up in surrender. “I know what I said sounded bad,” I told her. “You only heard part of it.”
Simone took a deep breath, and I prepared myself for the shrill attack of her yelling at me. “Oh, you’re right, I should’ve stayed to hear all the reasons you can’t stand me.” She rolled her eyes, and I closed mine while I sucked in a breath.
“Will you just listen to—”
“Not even for a minute,” she said, turning away from me to emphasize her point.
I dropped my head back, looking at the ceiling. Why did I think that getting her alone was going to get her to talk to me? It would probably have been easier to do so with a crowd. Shaking my head, I moved to the register to prepare for the evening rush to arrive.
“Hey there, sweetheart. We meet again.” The man’s voice was familiar, and I spun around in time to see him settle up to the bar and Simone cringe.
It was the man that had become intimately familiar with the wooden surface of the bar. He had the same look of mischief on his face that he’d had that night, though it was laced with less liquor tonight. There was a suspicious smirk on his face. It didn’t faze Simone.
She casually strode over to him, placing her hands on the counter and leaning towards where he stood. “Look,” she said sweetly, “I’m really not in the mood for any bullshit today. Are you going to behave?”
He feigned offense, placing his hand over his chest and gasping as if he were acting in the community theater production of Sweeney Todd. “Don’t you think I should be asking you that, Little Miss Self-Defense?” His dramatic air quotes around the word made me remember the way he had whined beneath her palm.
Simone stiffened, her fists clenched at her sides. The muscles in her back rippled when she straightened her spine, and she placed her feet an equal distance apart. She was in a fighting stance, and she was ready to strike. “Don’t start.”
Her warning was smooth and calm. If he had listened, she probably would have even served him a beer. Instead, he threw his head back and laughed, and I groaned. “I’m just saying, only one of us here is guilty of assault. If I’d slammed your pretty little head against the counter, I’d be serving time in jail right now.”
“Maybe you should just leave.” Her voice was strained, and the welts where she dug her nails into the palms of her hands were starting to become visible.
The man sat down on the stool, getting comfortable for a second before he stood back up and leaned over the counter. “Get one thing straight,” he said, a feral, threatening tone thick in his voice.
Simone puffed her chest out, rolling her shoulders back. Her hands in fists at her sides flexed, and the muscles rippled up her forearms. She glared. “That isn’t how this works,” she said, interrupting him.
He growled, slamming his hands on the counter to silence her. She stopped speaking, but she didn’t relax her posture or back down. “Okay, dude. Maybe you should go,” I said, stepping up and putting my hand on Simone’s shoulder.
“Back off, Logan. I have it under control,” she spat, ducking her shoulder out of my grasp and turning back to face the man.
He chuckled. “Ah, so you’re just a bitch to everyone then. That makes more sense. You seemed like a sweetheart at first, but…” He grinned like he had solved a puzzle.
He choked on his laugh when Simone’s hand shot out and she wrapped it around the front of his neck. “Call me whatever you want, sweetheart, but get the fuck out of my bar before you leave here in handcuffs or a body bag.”
He let out a scratchy complaint around her grip on his windpipe, and she gave a sinister smirk. She pursed her lips, keeping her hold on his neck firm. When she spit in his face, I gasped and looked around, thankful the only other patrons were a couple quiet regulars that kept to themselves in their booth in the back.
“Get out,” she said. She emphasized both words and then winked, blowing the man a kiss before she let go of his neck.
He dropped forward, gasping for breath and rubbing the sore spot on his neck that would probably have a slight bruise the next day. “You’re going to regret that,” he said, brushing dust off his shirt that wasn’t there.
Simone snickered. “Yeah, I’m regretting a lot of things lately,” she said with a glance in my direction. “Go fuck yourself.”
