Page 42 of Shifting Gears

It’s clear when he opens his mouth that his personality matches the compensatory nature of his truck.

“Heard you kicked Matty’s ass,” Shaun says appraisingly, spitting into the pop bottle again and grinning in a way that comes out clownish with the tobacco in his lip. “You know, I like girls who can take a tumble.”

“Fuck off, Shaun,” Dani says clearly, averting her eyes from the show Shaun is trying to put on. “Go take a shower.”

“When are you finally gonna go out with me, Cooper?”

“Last time I checked, I’m still a lesbian.” Dani stands up to her full height. She’s about an inch taller than he is, but he continues to grin at her as if her ire somehow makes him happy.

“Gimme a chance, and I could change that.”

Anger swells in Eleanor’s chest like a sleeping dragon awakened by Dani’s visible discomfort.

“Fuckoff,” Dani snaps again, pushing at his chest. He sways a bit, and now that he’s closer, Eleanor can detect a whiff of beer. “Have a dart and sober up, if you ever want to see our team here again.”

Rather than acknowledging that, Shaun turns his attention instead to Eleanor.

“How’s about you, city girl? You a lesbo like the Coopers, or do you want a little country in you?” Shaun says lecherously, grabbing at the fork of his jeans.

“Say one more word to her, Shaun. See how it goes for you,” Dani says lowly. She looks like she’s about to explode as Shaun turns to look back at his friends, who all watch the interaction in either suspense or mild discomfort. Dani’s fists are clenched, her jaw tight with rage. But Eleanor is angrier on Dani’s behalf than on her own.

Standing up to match Dani, Eleanor crosses her arms with deliberate slowness, slipping into the corporate persona she hasn’t worn since she arrived here.

“A little country?” Eleanor says, quirking a brow and glancing down at Shaun’s belt buckle. “No, thank you. Though it’s brave of you to make it obvious justhowlittle.”

Dani’s friends erupt into laughter; Shaun’s neck and ears glow crimson. He spits into his bottle more harshly than before.

“Think you’re smart, eh?” Shaun sneers. “I don’t usually go for women with sticks up their asses, but I bet I could replace it with something better.”

“What the fuck did you just say?” Dani snaps, pushing again on Shaun’s chest until he takes a step back.

Eleanor touches her shoulder lightly.

“It’s fine, Dani. I don’t take offense to half-baked insults thrown at me by a knuckle-dragging neanderthal who wouldn’t understand the wordnoif it grabbed him by his undescended testicles,” Eleanor says coolly.

It takes Shaun a solid couple of seconds to fully process what she’s said. When it hits him, his whole demeanour shifts.

“Listen, you prissy little bitch.” Shaun’s cockiness is rapidly shifting to genuine rage, “I’m not gonna stand here and take shit from some fuckin’touristjust ’cause Cooper brought you around.”

“And I’m not going to stand here to be sexually harassed by someone with a third-grade reading level,” Eleanor says.

Shaun pushes back against Dani, his intent clearly toward Eleanor. Two more sets of hands grab his shoulders; Sarah is calling for everyone to calm down while Shaun shouts obscenities in Eleanor’s direction.

“Touch me,” Eleanor says calmly, cutting through the growing chaos, “and I will bury you in assault litigation so deep you’ll be paying your lawyer’s fees until you retire.”

Shaun pays her no mind, throwing increasingly distasteful insults at everyone in the vicinity. Dani is trying to intervene, a hand planted in the middle of Shaun’s chest to keep him from lunging at anyone, but clearly he doesn’t respond to more cerebral threats the way Eleanor is used to.

She could let Dani and her friends take care of it. Even Shaun’s posse are starting to get involved, encouraging him to back away, but the last thing Eleanor wants to be is a damsel.

Maybe she needs to take a leaf out of Dani’s book. This seems to be a town where physical altercations can get the job done, if Dani’s performance the other night is any indication. When in Rome, and all that.

When Shaun manages to shake free, winding a fist back in a clear trajectory toward Dani’s face, Eleanor moves her hand at lightning speed to seize at the body part he so recently tried to thrust in her face and squeezes it with devastating precision.

Shaun buckles. His knees fold, and he doubles over in pain until he’s at Eleanor’s eye level, a vague wheezing sound the onlynoise he’s capable of making as Eleanor digs her short nails into his groin.

“I think that was a bad decision, Shaun,” Eleanor says in a light, airy tone as his friends all yell in sympathetic pain behind him.

Shaun makes a garbled noise. His knees clearly want to collapse fully, but he’s unable to hit the ground with Eleanor’s grasp keeping him up.

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