Page 24 of Chasing Blue
“Get. Out,” I roar. “How dare you. How fucking dare you show your face in here after talking tomyfriends the way you did.”
The whole restaurant falls silent, but I have zero fucks to give.
“Scarlett, do calm down. You’re causing a scene. Calm yourself, and I’ll explain.”
“No, no. Absolutely not. I willnotcalm down. Get out of here. You’re barred from here, and you’re barred from me. I’m blocking your number.” I wave my hand in his general direction and flap it up and down. “I’m banning you and blocking you from my life. Get out of here and go away. Go away and stay away.” I’m so angry, I doubt that I’m making much sense, but I don’t care. I need him to know, I need him togetthe message, and I need him to stay away from me.
He stops walking and stills a few metres from where I’m standing. Spangles has dropped his arms from around me and now has them folded across his chest.
Matt buries his hands in his suit pants pockets, looks at the ground for a few moments before his pale blue eyes meet mine, and he gives a small laugh.
A laugh. A. Fucking. Laugh.
“Whatever he’s told you, you can guarantee that drama queen has exaggerated and blown the whole thing out of all proportion.”
I’m about to give him another serve, but notice a few people have their phones out and are recording, so decide on a different tactic. One that’ll hurt more than any words my anger-addled brain can come up with right now.
“Drama queen?” I question.
“Drama queen, or maybe just queen, whatever, you can be sure he’s either exaggerated or told you complete lies.”
“Wow. So, you didn’t get drunk and abusive in this bar a week or so ago and call Marcell the N-word when he tried to cut you off?”
Matt’s head jerks back like he’s been struck and his eyes narrow.
“Watch your fucking mouth, Scarlett,” he snarls.
“So you didn’t say it? If we pull up the security footage, it won’t show an altercation involving you and the staff? It won’t show Matt Newcombe, the esteemed business lawyer for Collins, Oaks, and Carpenter, being helped from the premises by Anthony after you called his husband an Aids-infected fag?”
Matt moves so fast I don’t even see his fist coming at me. Luckily, Span moves quicker and knocks him off his feet, but not before his fist manages to connect slightly with my cheek. The blow isn’t as hard as it would’ve been without Span’s intervention. However, it still bloody hurts and I see stars for a few seconds. I lean against the bar for support and can only watch on in anger as Span, Anthony, and Ben, another barman, drag Matt out the door kicking, screaming profanities, and threatening to rain down all kinds of violence upon me.
The door closes, and the restaurant falls silent. I stare out at the diners still recording on their phones.
“As you were, sorry to interrupt your dinner,” I mumble, my lips trembling as my entire body shakes.
CHAPTER6
Jack.
“Mills,can you turn that music down? I can’t fucking think straight here with that shit blaring.”
My sister turns to me, eyes narrowed in a scowl.
“Wow, someone forgot to take their chill pill this morning, or is it because Jules hasn’t stayed over, and you’ve not got your dick wet all week?”
I lean back in my chair and shake my head. “I’m not having this conversation with my little sister, just turn the music down, or change it to something other than the crap rap shit you listen to.”
She rolls her eyes before picking up her phone. “What would you like to listen to, old man, some Midnight Oil, John Farnham? Or are they too hardcore for you too?”
“I’m sending you back to Queensland,” I tell her. “Or, you can go live with Shannon; we’ll see how much of your bullshit he puts up with.”
“Jack, not sure you’re getting this, but I’m twenty-five years old. You can’tsendme anywhere or to live with anyone. I movedhereto help organise your sorry arse if you remember rightly, but I can soon move away again and leave you to it.”
The Rubens start to play through the Bluetooth speaker Amelia has sat on her desk. I ignore her last comment and nod. “That’s better, just turn it down a bit.”
I love my little sister, but she’s a pain in my fucking arse a lot of the time. Being the youngest and having three much older brothers has meant she’s grown up with a big mouth and even bigger balls. But, in all fairness, when I asked her to come and help me out with Finn after she left school, she didn’t hesitate.
I was a single dad of an eleven-year-old at the time. Working hard to keep my business going during a worldwide recession meant putting in long hours. Finn had started getting into trouble at school, and I was stressing about what I was going to do to keep him occupied and out of strife during the summer holidays. He came to work with me some days, but he was eleven, I couldn’t have him onsite with me every day, and he’d refused to stay with his mum for longer than the mandatory two weeks agreed with our lawyers. So, I offered Milly the job of housekeeper/babysitter. She flew down, stayed the summer, decided to enrol in college here instead of back up in Queensland, and never left. She’d studied part-time, and as Finn got older and needed her around less and less, I let her take over all of the paperwork for my construction firm. She’d completed her bookkeeping and business management courses by then and was now my office manager. In all honesty, I don’t know where I’d be without her.
