Page 2 of Taming Drew

The bartender cringes. “You’ve had five, and that’s more than you usually drink.”

She giggles. “Um, no. You can’t count.” She nudges me. “Right?”

I shrug. “No idea.” The bar is filling up with patrons. The rowdy groups seem to know one another as people acknowledge the newcomers with warm greetings. Luckily, the baseball cap is working, and no one has noticed me so far. Usually by now someone has recognized me and made a scene.

She grumbles as the light spills into the bar from the afternoon Dallas sun. She holds up her hand to block the light. “Ah fuck.”

“Yeah. That light is bright.” I turn on the stool to see why it’s been held open for so long, as a fist rises from below and clocks my jaw. It knocks me off my stool, slamming my side into the metal rung underneath the bar, where you normally rest your feet. “Fuck!” My jaw feels like a hammer slammed into it. I watch worn jeans move around the turned over barstool. A guy with dirty shoes, screaming about Sadie, tries to kick me, getting his foot caught in the spindly legs of a stool. Time slows as I scramble up off the floor and jump to my feet. “What the fuck?” I throw my arms up, either to protect myself or because my balance is crap.

“She’s mine.” The man bellows as my brain tries to catch up to what’s happening. I grab the edge of the bar as the man throws a second punch. I dodge, springing up on my toes, and throw my fist to catch the man as he moves forward. The man’s knees buckle, and he hits the floor.

“I’m calling the cops.” The screaming bartender yells with spittle hitting the bar.

The woman rushes to the floor to check on the bear of a man who’s lying beneath my feet. I shake my head, trying to bring the moment into focus. Wow, the man on the floor is bigger than Travis. He’s a little older with more miles, but he’s got size. The man starts to get up, swinging his arms before he’s back on his feet. He looks like an animal on skates, trying to get his feet under him while coming for me. I drive my fist down onto his nose with blood spraying across his face and on Sadie’s pants, and the guy resettles on the floor.

Sadie cries out. “No. Don’t hurt him.”

“Don’t hurt him?” I throw my hand toward the man lying on the floor. “He started it. What the fuck is going on, Sadie? You know this guy?”

“Yeah. He’s my man, the one that went to prison. I told you.”

My lightheadedness wanes. Either the beer is wearing off or my adrenaline spike is hiding the pain. The loud bar is now as quiet as a mortuary. “You’re worried about him? He’s a piece of shit. Your words.” The man is on the floor beneath me, and I resist the temptation to thrust my shoe into his side. I bark at him. “I’m not fucking her. We’re just sitting next to each other at a bar.”

The man shakes his head as his eyes spin around. Sadie whimpers. “Get up John. John?”

The groan from the floor reminds me that the man is still a threat. I glance down at the same time the man swipes at my feet. Normally light on my feet, as a professional athlete, capable of vaulting grown men as I snag the football and run for a touchdown, I wouldn’t let anything knock me off my feet. Still, the fuzziness overwhelms my balance, and I fall, banging my head on the sticky concrete floor.

Sadie’s scream clears my head as a hand grabs me off the floor. My eyes open, staring at my driver, Clyde. “Hi. When’d you get here?”

The driver chuckles. He shoves the man on the floor back down as he pulls me onto my unstable feet. “I heard the ruckus and thought it might be you. Time to go Mr. King.”

I lean on the driver and hustle with him out the door. “I need to pay the bar owner.”

“It’s okay. I threw five hundred bucks on the bar before I grabbed you.”

“Thanks.”

“Just add it to my tip.” He opens the back door of the sedan and shoves me inside. “We should take you to the emergency department.”

“I’ll be… What?”What did he say?

The driver swings the car into traffic and fifteen minutes later, he helps me out of the car, walking us into the Dallas Baptist Emergency Department. His loud voice surprises the person at the desk. “Hi. He needs a doctor.”

She looks at me as recognition hits her face, and she’s star struck. “Is that…?”

He clears his throat. “It doesn’t matter who he is until he’s inside the ED with a doctor looking at him.”

“Okay. Yeah. Hold on.” She picks up the phone and a moment later, someone walks out with a wheelchair.

The driver drops me gently into the chair. “Remember the big tip you owe me.”

I wave as I put my hand over my eyes to block the bright fluorescent lights. “Thanks.”

“Sure. Call me, and I’ll come back and get you.”

I continue to stare at my driver, desperate to remember his name as he walks away. The pretty woman gets my attention. “Mr. King?”

She pushes the wheelchair through the double doors, and I lift my head to see Mia Campbell, one of the Campbell wives and a nurse practitioner here at the hospital. “Hey, Mia.” The Campbells are an uber-rich family in Dallas with a former vice president as the patriarch. I’ve met a couple of them since they own my condo building and a two-square-mile quadrant area around it. My favorite restaurants and bars in the Quad are owned by Campbell cousins. Mia’s husband is a surgeon here too.

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