Page 79 of Prince Charmless
“What’s going on?” he asks me.
“Sorry, man,” Harry slurs. “Didn’t know.”
Of course, he apologizes to Taylor and not to me.
“Did you touch her?” he asks softly. Taylor sounds less pissed and more heartbroken, like he knows the answer but doesn’t want it to be true.
“It’s fine, Tay—”
“I didn’t touch no one,” Harry mumbles.
“I’ll get the drinks,” Taylor tells me, doing a head movement towards the pool table.
Be my guest.
When I arrive back at the table, Cassie hands me the cue. “Your turn,” she informs me.
After deleting the last two minutes from my mind, I scan the playing field and notice the black eight-ball sitting right in front of the middle-left pocket. I bend over the table and take my shot very slowly. The white ball rolls at a snail’s pace, but it smacks the eight at just the right force to make it roll in.
“Oh my God, I did it!”
Neil laughs for the first time today. “Uh, actually—”
The whole room gasps.
Did I do something wrong?
When I’m upright, I realize the guy shouting from across the room sounds eerily familiar.
Harry.
I nudge myself through the crowd to find Taylor leaning up against the front door. A few feet away is Harry being held backby two bigger guys. I take the hand of Taylor’s that isn’t clutching his jaw. He’s been hurt.
“The fuck is going on?” I ask him.
Before he can answer, Harry breaks out of their grasp. His face is that of a bull’s as he marches toward us. Taylor puts his arm around my shoulders and pushes me first out the door. He grabs my hand and we run along the side of the brick building towards Cassie’s white jeep. After looking behind me to check if we’re followed, I lean up against it to catch my breath.
“He punched me,” Taylor declares to himself.
He can’t seem to believe it. Neither can I.
“Are you—”
“Are you okay?” he asks, putting his hands on my biceps and scanning me up and down.
“I’m fine.” I reach up to gently hold his jaw. It’s too dark out to examine the bruising. “It doesn’t feel broken. Does it hurt?”
He places a hand on my forearm. “Not really.”
Good. Now I can get angry.
“What did you do?” I scowl.
“We were just having a conversation.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“And he called you something unsavory.”
