He sways slightly but doesn’t turn back toward the bar. “I’m just trying to be a gentleman here. These young men these days don’t know how to treat women right. Men in my day”—he shakes his head dramatically—“we knew how to dazzle a girl.”
I’m sure he does…
My smile is tight as I step around him and up the single step to the stage. I’m careful not to turn my back to him so he doesn’t have a chance to grab my ass. Looking toward the bar, Kevin isn’t there, likely having ducked out back for a smoke break in the lull.
Great.
Hugh stumbles closer, his bare shins exposed from his cargo shorts pressed up against the stage, as he continues to talk. “You know, my ex used to play the guitar. She was shit and wasted too much of my damn money on lessons. She wasn’t even half as good as you, darlin’.”
“Hmm.” I adjust the mic stand and pretend to fiddle with it just to give myself an excuse to pay attention to something other than him. “Well, thank you.”
“Here.” He steps up and practically falls into me. “I can get that for you.”
His sweaty chest brushes against mine for longer thanan accidental bump, and I try to push him away without being too forceful with it. “Hugh, I got it. You can go sit down.”
“No,” he insists and doesn’t take a step back even as he straightens. “Just let me help a pretty girl out, okay?”
His boozy breath fills my nostrils and I fight down a gag. I’m about to relent and just let him try to adjust the stand with an excuse on the tip of my tongue to step away when he reaches a hand around my back and taps it against my ass.
“I know what I’m doing darl?—”
He doesn’t get to finish the nickname. In a blink, he’s yanked backwards and is stumbling off the small stage. His feet scramble beneath him as he tries to fight gravity and the multiple beers in his system.
I yell out in surprise, but nothing shocks me as much as the pure blaze in Reid’s navy-blue eyes. One of his veined hands is full of the collar of Hugh’s shirt, while the other is fisted at his side twitching, like he wants to let it fly but is hanging on by a thread.
“I don’t think you know what you’re doing,” he says, his voice lethally low. “If you did, then you’d know better than to put your disgusting, pathetic hands on a woman.”
“Reid—”
He turns his furious stare on me and it ignites my dormant spark.
“Let him go,” I say calmly. “It’s fine.”
“It didn’t look fine.”
“Let go of me!” Hugh squirms in his grip, and by the way Reid looks at him, I wish even more so now that Hugh would shut up than I did a few moments ago.
Reid doesn’t budge.
“He’s a regular,” I try to explain.
“So that means he can grab your ass?” Reid sneers.
“I didn’t grab shit!” Hugh slurs.
Reid just shakes him around a bit more and it sets him further off balance. All eyes turn on the three of us, and I feel myself wanting to shrink into a fleck of dust coating the walls.
“What the hell is going on?” my boss’s voice bellows as the door to the back swings open. Kevin emerges with a towel in his hands as he dries them off.
“Throw this asshole out of here,” Hugh yells, still flailing in Reid’s grip.
Reid chuckles with zero amusement as he fixes his eyes on Kevin. “I’m not leaving unless this fucker is.”
Kevin glances at the two of them before noticing me in the mix. He frowns and drapes the towel over his shoulder. “What’s going on?”
I pick at my nailbed as I look from my boss to the two men fighting, then back to my boss. “It’s all a misunderstanding…”
“Misunderstanding my ass,” Reid interrupts. He blinks at me, almost in surprise, like he’s wondering why I’m not ratting out Hugh right now. “This asshole here wouldn’t leave your employee alone, no matter how much she tried to be polite and send him back over to the bar.”
