Page 49 of Shortcake
“My problem is that she’s sixteen, you asshole!”
Keith came in from where he’d been taking out trash just as I launched myself into the middle of the brawl, trying to break it up before someone called the police or before any of my patrons jumped into the middle. Several of them were on their feet, the contractors from the bar included, ready to jump in to stop the fight. But that was exactly what Ididn’twant. A massive brawl with several injuries on my first weekend taking over ownership? I wasn’t sure I could recover from that sort of insurance hit.
“Addy, don’t!” Keith yelled and rushed forward, trying to break up the fight, too. But something told me we were going to need more than one set of hands to stop this fight.
I ducked under one of the bachelor’s arms and squeezed myself between their scuffling bodies, shouting, “Hey!” as loudly as I could to try to break up the fight.
I saw the horror in Conrad’s face before I felt anything. “Addy, no!” he shouted and tried to jump in front of me.
Turning my head, I gasped, just as Jay’s fist landed with a horrifying cracking sound across my jaw.
ChapterEight
Conrad
That punch was meant for me. Not her.
It was my damn fault that Addy had gotten hit. It might not have been my fist that did the damage, but I started the fight. I escalated it. And it was because of me that she was jumping in the middle, trying to break it up.
“Funky assmunch!” she cried out, her palm cradling her jaw where a slight tinge of purple was already forming, peeking through the cracks in her fingers.
“Oh, my God!” the guy who hit her said. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. That was meant for him! Not you!”
“Well, you gotme!” Forgetting all about her quickly swelling jaw, she lunged at the kid, smacking his shoulder with her open palm several times. “Get the fuck out of my bar and don’t come back!Ever!”
On one hand, maybe I should have let her smack the guy into oblivion. On the other hand, she needed to get ice on that immediately. And maybe, depending on how hard the hit was, get herself checked out by a doctor.
“Addy,” I said her name carefully and slid my hands around her waist, doing my best to forcefully, but gently, pull her away from where she was going to town on this guy, smacking him into oblivion.
To my surprise, she allowed me to guide her away and pull her toward the bar.
The group of young guys took the opportunity to run out of the bar, scurrying away like field mice caught in a thunderstorm.
Good riddance.
“Are you okay?” I asked. After sitting her down on a stool, I cupped her jaw, tilting the injury toward the light so I could have a better look.
She didn’t answer me. She simply sat there, eyes wide, lips wet and parted. She scanned my face and a sheen of sweat broke out along my skin with her leaning into me like that. Something heady and electric buzzed between us as her gaze landed directly onto my mouth.
Fuck. Me.
I didn’t know what to say. Or do.
She was normally so fiery and never without a word to say. But now, Addy was silent.
And staring… at my mouth.
I ignored the blood rushing to my pants and looked intently into her eyes. “Addy, I need you to respond if you’re okay. If not, I’m calling an ambula—”
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
She didn’t look fine. She looked bruised. Stunned. Like she was going into shock.
One of her friends, I think her name was Enzo, was at my side with a Ziplock bag of ice wrapped with a dish towel and a cell phone pressed against her ear. She hung up and slid the phone into her pocket. “Simon’s on his way,” she said.
“Simon?”
“Her boyfriend,” Addy said with an eye roll. It was the first glimpse of the Addy I knew, and I was grateful for it.
