Page 24 of I Met Him At The Library

“Why did you punch him?” Emily asked, her eyes looking up at me in confusion.

“He was being an asshole … to you.”

“Mitch is an asshole,” The bartender said. “Still, I can’t have fights in the bar. You need to leave.”

Nodding to him, I couldn’t fault him for his request for us to leave. I was only grateful I wouldn’t be escorted out by a bouncer.

“Come on,” Emily said, putting cash on the bar for her drink.

Turning, I spotted Preston dancing with Meghan on the floor and gestured toward them to Emily. She nodded, slipping her hand from mine as she moved in front of me, and I followed behind her. I missed the softness of her skin already. Glancing at Levi following behind us, he had a shit-eating grin on his face.

“We need to leave,” Emily stated as we approached.

“Take my car, I’ve probably had too much to drink anyway. I’ll grab Trey and we’ll all leave with Preston.” Meghan stated, widening her eyes at Levi behind us.

Preston nodded to me he’d make sure everyone else would get home. Emily and I walked side by side out of the bar and over to Meghan’s car.

“Have you been drinking?” Emily asked.

“Not a drop.” I unlocked the tiny car and winced at the idea of fitting my six-three stature in it.

After a bit of a struggle, I managed to get into the car and get the seat adjusted, and we both clicked our seat belts. I glanced at Emily for a second before starting the car and driving us home. The majority of the trip was silent, but as we reached the outskirts of Maple Creek, she finally spoke.

Chapter 14

Emily

My mind was whirling with questions. Ryan showed up at the bar and punched a man who was threatening toward me. The only reason my brain could come up with was that this was some sort of romantic gesture, but he was seeing my upstairs neighbor, and he didn’t seem like the type of guy who cheated. This had to be my romance novel brain making up romantic scenarios where there were none.

Somehow, the scenario awakened Raldek who was basically cheering for Ryan. A similar scene was forming in my story and I could practically envision Tabitha secretly grinning and getting giddy about the whole act too.

Inside, even I was melting at the act of protecting me. But this wasn’t a fictional world, this was my personal life. Could I really condone that type of behavior?

I couldn’t take the silence anymore. I needed answers.

“What was all that? Why did you punch that guy?” I blurted out the questions, turning my attention from the dark country road in front of us to Ryan’s dashboard lit face.

“When that guy spoke to you so disrespectfully and took a threatening stance toward you. I just threw the punch. I didn't even know I was going to do it. I don’t know what to say. I only ever got into a fight once, and that was when I was sixteen. ”

“What happened when you were sixteen?”

Ryan sighed, “I had taken my little sister to get ice cream while my mom was working, and some assholes I went to school with started talking shit. They said some really horrible things about me, my mom, and my sister. I lost it and punched one of them. He went down and that was the last time anyone said anything to me about my family.”

Looking at him, there was regret in his expression, but mixed with a bit of determination. He wasn’t a violent person but he had a strong sense of right and wrong. If someone was doing something wrong against people he cared about, he defended them.

That left me asking, “Why would you defend me?”

He briefly looked at me before turning his attention back to the road and replied, “No one should ever call you that or speak in such a demeaning manner toward you.”

I didn’t know what to think. On the one hand, this man I’d been crushing on for quite some time defended my honor, and I should be swooning. But on the other hand, he was seeing someone else. He was off limits, and his defense of me didn’t make sense.

“Why were you all there?” I asked, still trying to make sense of everything.

He paused for a second, and a part of me became worried something happened back in Maple Creek. He rolled his lips and blinked before he responded.

“Trey wanted to check on his sister, and it was a good thing since she said she drank too much. How would you two have gotten home?”

“She had two drinks. She wasn’t drunk,” I admitted, and he glanced at me.

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