Page 81 of The Moment We Know

Paige put a little more pressure on his thumb, making his eyes water a little. “You should ask Amy sometime if she’d like it if some drunk asshole she didn’t know called her ‘sweetheart’ and got handsy with her while she was standing in line to get a T-shirt at a concert she was attending with another man. And when Amy asks why you’re asking, you can tell her it’s because that’s what you did. Now, I can’t speak for how other women like to be treated—some might like the whole drunken, groping thing by a smelly stranger, but this woman doesn’t like it.

“I told you to get your hands off me and instead of doing that, you became a dick and then called me a bitch, which makes what I’m going to do next a gift. I’m going to be nicer than I should be and let go of your hand, and when I do, you’re going to thank me for not breaking your thumb. Because you know what? I could.

“Then you’re going to make sure you don’t cross my path again tonight, or any other woman’s, for that matter. Got it? Nod your head if you understand what I’m telling you, Chase.”

Chase nodded his head.

“Good.” Paige slowly let go of his hand and he immediately tucked it against his chest as he backed a few feet away from her, his expression darkening when he saw they had a bit of an audience. He turned as if he was going to bolt and renege on their deal, but a man blocked Chase from going anywhere.

“Not so fast,” the man said. “Thank the lady for not breaking your thumb.”

Chase gave Paige a flat look, followed by an even flatter, “Thank you for not breaking my thumb.”

“Say it like you mean it,” the man told Chase, keeping him locked in place.

“Thank you for not breaking my thumb.”

This time the apology was slightly believable, so Paige said, “You’re welcome.”

The man let Chase go, and Paige watched his hasty departure until he was out of sight. Her heart was pounding again—this time from a burst of adrenalin—and she couldn’t believe how empowered she felt at that moment. She’d actually stood up for herself, stayed in the moment, and vanquished an opponent. Okay, maybe that was a little over-the-top, but she’d made a guy who outweighed her by at least fifty pounds her bitch. And all she’d done was bend his thumb back 90 degrees.

“Holy shit,” she whispered. “That really happened.”

A teenaged girl in the next line over caught Paige’s eye and smiled shyly, before holding up a phone in a bright purple case with rhinestones all over it. “I hope you don’t mind, but I recorded part of that. Not to post it online or anything,” she explained quickly, “but to have it for … instruction. It seemed really effective. And easy.”

Paige saw a hint of a shadow in the girl’s eyes. “That’s the first time I’ve ever done it, and hopefully the last time I ever have to, but … you never know. It really makes me wish I’d known about it sooner.”

“You wished you’d known about what, sooner?” David asked, coming up behind Paige and wrapping his arms around her.

“Nothing,” Paige replied, just as the girl said, “This,” and held up her phone for David to see.

At first, Paige was hesitant to look at the video, which started right after she’d grabbed Chase’s thumb, but then she couldn’t look away. It was strange, but also fascinating to watch herself, because the woman in the video looked like a total warrior, and all she remembered was how scared she’d been.

David watched in silence, his initial confusion turning into shock, then anger, then astonishment, then admiration, and ending with pride. When the fairly short clip was over, he blinked a few times before saying, “I need to see that again.”

The girl obliged and after watching it a second time, David asked her to text him a copy.

“David,” Paige protested, but she was laughing.

“Nope. I want it,” he insisted. Then, in a low whisper, added, “And I also want to hear everything that happened before you took his ass down.”

Chapter 33

By the time the concert was over, an hour and a half later, Paige was a bit of a sweaty, buzzing mess. It was partly because David had held her against his chest almost the entire time, and partly because she was still on some kind of endorphin high from her encounter with Chase.

As the lights came on and people started leaving in droves, she turned and kissed him like they were alone ... and naked. To be honest, Paige wished they were, because she was as horny as anyone had ever been in the history of the world. “I want you,” she said against his mouth.

“I want you, too.”

She not-so-gently bit his lip, making him groan. “If I was wearing a skirt, I’d suggest christening your back seat in the parking lot.”

“We still can—skirt or no skirt—but we’d have to wait for a few thousand people to leave first.”

“I can’t wait that long.” A few months ago, she couldn’t have imagined saying those words, let alone having them be painfully true.

David grabbed her hand, and they practically speed-walked to his car, where they proceeded to make out for several minutes against the passenger-side door. When they pulled apart, they were both breathing hard and she was even more wound up than before.

It took forever to get out of the parking lot, and the drive to her apartment seemed to take five days. When they finally did arrive at her place, he parked in the first vacant spot he saw, not caring if it belonged to a tenant, and then they raced each other up to her apartment. Once inside her dimly lit hallway, Paige basically pounced on him as soon as he closed her door, barely giving him enough time to engage the deadbolt.

---