Page 45 of Bullet
“What? You spilled mine, I spilled yours,” he responded.
“Mine was an accident.”
He looked back at me stone-faced. “Oops.”
I definitely felt a gut urge to sock him in the face but resisted. After the night I’d had, I didn’t want any more frustration, so I rolled my eyes, climbed off the barstool again, and started toward the door, but not without grumbling, “Dick,” under my breath.
“What the fuck you say?” Objects on the bar clattered as he stood up, but I didn’t even stop and turn around. “Hey! Get back here.”
Waving my hand through the air, I pushed through the front door of the Taphouse and walked out into the fresh, evening air. The cool air felt good against my heated face and I was hopeful that after letting the air bring down my drunkenness a little bit, I could call for an Uber. However, I didn’t get that far because the brute I’d bumped into came ambling out of the bar.
“You made a mistake turning your back to me,” he growled.
“Yeah. I’msuperscared,” I replied flatly. “Just go about your business. You’re gonna get caught in the middle of something you aren’t prepared for.”
“Oh, are you a big man now?” He rolled up his sleeves. “Come on then.”
My head was pounding, and I really didn’t want to get going with this guy, but he was advancing on me and I could tell that things weren’t going to go my way. He took a few steps toward me and swung on me. I swiped my head backward away from his hand and then as his head came forward with the momentum of the swing, I slammed my head back forward, cracking it against his. There were a few people in the parking lot turning to watch us as he grabbed his head, and I could feel blood sliding down mine. He wasn’t deterred though, and he advanced me again, this time fooling me with a fake hook that he then bailed out of and gave me a hard uppercut to my stomach. I grunted as I crumpled around his fist, and my drunkenness swirled around me. My disadvantage in this fight was that Iwasdrunk, and barely able to stay on my feet.
As he pulled his fist back, I dropped to my knees. He stood over me and grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me up to my feet and pulled his fist out to punch me, but then someone else grabbed his shoulder, flipped him around, and punched him in the face instead. As a reflex, he let me go, and I wobbled but was able to stay on my feet. I threw a punch out and struck him across the face, and as he dropped to the ground, I saw that the person standing on the other side of him that had helped me, was Seneca.
“You okay, VP?” Seneca said in a much more formal voice than I’d heard her use before. “Want me to rough this guy up?”
“Fuck, you’re a Knight?” the guy grunted on the ground.
I was so drunk that I hadn’t realized that because I’d come straight from my date, I didn’t have my jacket on me with my colors on it. “The Vice President,” I replied, wiping some of the blood from my head. “Get the fuck out of here.” The man scurried up from the floor and walked off, hissing a line of swear words under his breath. I looked at Seneca and probably would be embarrassed if it wasn’t for how blitzed I was. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied. “Are you drunk?”
“Would something like twelve beers get you drunk?”
She laughed. “Yeah, Bullet, it would.”
“Then yes, I amdefinitelydrunk.”
She tapped a hand on my back. “Come on then. I’ll get you home.”
“Thanks.”
Hoppa’s was a safe place to leave my bike overnight. Nick certainly wouldn’t have it towed, and with it parked in one of the Steel Knights’ designated spots, no one would dare mess with it, and we had cameras if they were dumb enough to. I’d catch an Uber back the next morning to collect it. I followed Seneca over to her bike and she climbed on, then I climbed on behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist.
“I’m just gonna use your back to keep my head from falling off,” I joked.
“Good idea,” she called back.
My head fell to Seneca’s back and the grumble of her bike as she started it up was comforting and my eyes felt heavy. I was able to keep myself awake enough to give Seneca directions to my house, which, fortunately, was only about five minutes from the bar. She parked her bike in front of my house and actually helped me off and up to my house. Fortunately, the ride back had been sobering enough to help me be able to get my keys out with minimal effort, and as soon as I opened the door, the cats started to meow angrily at me.
“I know,” I murmured.
“My dogs hate it when I’m gone all day, too,” Seneca said. She reached around the doorframe to get me in my house and then flipped the light on and then stood aside so I could pass her to cross the doorframe. “Are you good from here?”
“Yeah. Thank you for your help. I swear I don’t normally get shitty drunk.”
“Happens to the best of us. Was it Celia?” she asked.
“Yeah. That advice you gave me was great, but she decided to just reduce our relationship to fuck buddies before I even got that far.”
“If she’s a commitment-phobe, that’s pretty one-o-one. I wouldn’t give up just yet.”
