Watching me get cuffed in my own bar.
The metal bit into my wrists. Not hard. Just enough to make it real.
I didn’t fight it.
I didn’t say much.
I just kept looking at her.
She didn’t look scared of me.
She looked stunned.
And that might be worse.
The officer finishes processing and gestures toward the holding area. “Have a seat.”
The bench is cold. The room louder than it looks. A handful of other guys occupy the space — varying degrees of annoyed, embarrassed, or still half drunk.
I sit.
Across from me, a guy in a wrinkled button-down is muttering to himself.
Public intoxication, I’d guess.
Next to him, a red-eyed dude with a split lip looks like he lost the second half of whatever argument he started.
He nods at me.
“You?”
“Bar fight,” I say simply.
He huffs a laugh. “Tourist?”
“Bar owner.”
His eyebrows lift. “You fought in your own place?”
“I didn’t plan on it.” I rub my jaw. “It’s never happened before.”
Button-Down squints at me. “You start it?”
“No.”
Red Eyes leans forward. “Who did?”
“A guy wouldn’t leave a woman alone,” I say. The memory makes my jaw tighten again. “He kept touching her. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Red Eyes nods slowly. “Yeah. That’d do it.”
Button-Down points a wobbly finger. “Always gotta look out for people.”
“That was my thinking,” I mutter.
We sit in silence for a moment.
Then Red Eyes says, “What’d she think?”
