Running her tongue along the inside of her cheek instead of snapping at the rude man, Larissa promised not to say another word. Surely, someone in the back would say something to the man holding the door open.
Neither of the men moved to alleviate the problem, the office grew colder, and if the woman behind her with the stroller bumped her crutch again, they were going to have a problem.
To heck with this. She’d wait to transfer the license. It wasn’t like she was able to drive, anyway, and it wasn’t worth creating a scene in a town she was still unfamiliar with, especially with the people who lived here.
“Excuse me; will you let me pass?”
The man in front of her must have been texting, because when he spun around, his cell phone was in his hand. His outflung hand struck her crutch, jerking it out from under her. She lost her balance and started falling backward.
“Watch out! My baby!” the woman behind her yelled as she yanked the stroller to the side.
In a split second, Larissa felt herself lifted into the air by the man who had almost knocked her down.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were on crutches?” Brownish eyes, which were so dark they almost appeared black, glowered into hers.
“I don’t know … Maybe because I thought you could see them,” she snapped.
“If I did, I would have let you go in front of me.”
“Okay,” she said, giving him a disbelieving look.
He became angrier. “I would have.”
“Huh! Yeah right; you wouldn’t even take a couple of steps forward. All this could have been prevented if you had just done what I asked. I’m probably going to have pneumonia because of you.”
The man still holding her looked over her shoulder. “Nial, shut the fucking door!”
“I can’t—it’s jammed!” Nial yelled back.
“Then why didn’t you say something?”
“I was going to when it was my turn!”
Larissa’s head went back and forth as the men yelled at each other.
“He didn’t shut the door because it was broken,” he said, giving her a smug grin.
Balefully, Larissa stared at him. “So I heard.”
“So, it wasn’t my fault.”
“Yes, I got that, too. Do you mind putting me down, please?”
Despite his irritation at her, he set her gently down on her good foot and held on to her until he returned her crutch. “There you go. How’s that?”
“Fine. Thank you.”
“Next!” the clerk called out.
Looking her over, as if gauging she had her balance, the man turned and walked toward the clerk.
Would it have hurt him to let her go first? She was fuming. Any thought of leaving had disappeared. She was going to stay in line until her foot rotted off, she was so angry. At least what he needed done didn’t take long, and it wasn’t long until he was striding out without giving her another glance.
That dude was so conceited she was surprised little blue jays didn’t fly out of his ass when he walked.
Thankfully, she had the required paperwork and transferring her license didn’t take long, other than a quick vision test.
Hobbling out the DMV, she decided to grab some lunch before returning to her office. There really weren’t many choices. The food at the diner consisted of hamburgers and fries, and King’s Restaurant was more expensive but offered more variety. Not wanting to call Priss to broaden her choices, she bit the bullet and headed toward King’s.