Page 10 of Serpent Darling
Bianca turned to him and started crying, turning the waterworks on full blast, "That bitch!" She pointed at Sadie andtried to clutch the front of his jacket, but he pushed her off. "Look what she did!"
Camille tossed her short pink hair up into a messy bun in case she had to get involved herself when she saw Sadie fisting her hands at her sides. She turned towards Sadie and grabbed her attention, forcing her to look at her. "Go cool off, I'll handle this."
Sadie said nothing, just nodded at her before brushing past Jagger and Bianca, making sure to body-check her with a sharp elbow as she did.
Bianca lunged at Sadie, and Jagger grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him, not bothering to be gentle.
"Explain. Now. What did you say to her?"
Camille and Gremlin were already thinning out the crowd and distracting them from the fight. Thankfully, the girls dancing on stage had most of the bar busy. "Next rounds on the house, guys! Get them in before the last call!"
Bianca grabbed some napkins from the bar and pressed them to her nose. "I didn't do anything. I just told her we were together," she pouted through her crocodile tears.
Jagger barely resisted the urge to throttle her, but he couldn't control how his grip tightened considerably around her shoulders. "You what?" he growled, noticing her nose was off-center and feeling proud that Sadie had clearly broken it.
Bianca winced at the pain, "She's awful! I told her that now we're together, and she needs to understand I'm with you and get it through her head that I don't have to take orders from her here."
Jagger released her then, afraid he'd break her arms at this point. "Bianca. We fucked. We're not dating," he explained slowly. "And honestly, it was a goddamn chore to keep my cock hard enough to screw you last night."
Bianca's eyes widened in shock as she sputtered, "W-what?!"
Jagger raised a hand up and gestured over her head to the person behind her. "Clean her up, pay her, and get her out of here."
Gremlin, who had stayed close by in case he was needed, started getting Bianca's things from behind the bar.
"You disrespect me when you disrespect Sadie," he said calmly as he turned his attention back to Bianca, although his eyes were almost blown black with anger.
"Don't ever step foot in here again."
Sadie found herself in the walk-in freezer, unbothered by the cold temperature. She was seething as she paced back and forth, the thoughts in her head taunting her.
I can't believe it!she thought, even though she had no fundamental right to be mad. She wasn't his, and he wasn't hers. They were good friends, that was true—best friends. But recently, things have been different. How he talked to her and how his eyes took her in when she came in for her shifts now.And she hadn't been all that innocent in that regard because she was purposefully wearing more revealing outfits at the bar.
She was trying to catch his attention, secretly hoping to see if he had any interest in her as more than a friend. Camille offered to cut up her Serpent Pit t-shirts they were supposed to wear at work, and Sadie was grateful, loving how it complimented her and made her feel edgy, a far cry from her pastel attire when working with her mom. She loved how she somehow fit into this world, grateful for her time there and how she could escape her 'perfect' life that lay outside the smoke-filled bar.
She hadn't known how much he would affect her in turn. His body had changed, his arms thicker from working out at the gym in town. She felt different around him as if she were crawling out of her skin. It was lightyears away from the comfortable friendship they had cultivated for years. And something had to give soon.
They couldn't go on like this.
Sadie knew she was being unreasonable, but Bianca deserved to get punched in the face for mouthing off.
Tripping over one of the boxes of Stella Artois on the floor, she felt another wave of animosity rise in her. She yelled, "I hope I broke her fucking nose!" then, unsuccessfully, tried to kick a hole in the metal wall of the back of the freezer, unaware that the freezer door had opened behind her.
"I'm pretty sure you did," Jagger said from the threshold, stepping inside to join her, the door closing softly behind him.
Sadie turned around and folded her arms across her chest.
"Good. She still here?"
Jagger shook his head, his dark locks falling over his forehead.
"I'm not apologizing to your girlfriend," Sadie seethed, and her voice was colder than the temperature around them.
"You didn't do anything wrong," Jagger said softly. "She's not - "
Sadie tried to push past him, her blood still boiling from the altercation with Bianca. "Save it, Jag."
Within seconds, she found her back pressed against one of the metal racks, gasping at the feel of ice-cold steel against her bare lower back under her crop top. Jagger had grasped her wrists in his hands when he shouted, "Goddamn it, Sadie! Just fucking listen to me for a minute."
