She opened her mouth to explain, but Brek got to it first.
“Yeah. She’s with me.” Brek spat the words.
“Wow, Brek. Nice.” Chelsea huffed and walked away.
Drunk guy stumbled, one hand against his nose, the other pointing to her. “They assaulted me. I’m pressing charges.”
The idiot could not be serious.
The bartender shifted uneasily. “We don’t need the cops involved.”
Blood flowed between the guy’s fingers. “They broke my nose.”
Brek grabbed napkins from the wait station and threw them so they rained down all around the bleeding jerk. “That’d be me, asswipe. But if you want Velma to get the credit for knocking some sense into you, I’m sure she’d oblige.”
He didn’t just say that. She absolutely wouldn’t “oblige.” Blood thumped uncomfortably in her temples.
Velma glanced to Brek. He had turned a strange shade of pissed-off red. Not good, not good at all.
“Hey.” Idiot guy grabbed Brek’s arm. Velma may not have been schooled in bar fights, but one could guess that was not a good idea.
“You got something to say?” Brek jerked his arm away.
“This.” The man scrunched his hand into a fist and drunkenly aimed for Brek’s face.
Fortunately for Brek, he had absolutely no force behind his punch.
Brek made his fist, pulled his arm back, and landed another blow to the guy’s nose.
Bone crunched as his knuckles made contact.
“Now there’s no question who broke it.”
* * *
She was going home.And when she got there, she was going to have some serious words with her roommate. Velma plopped her derriere onto the cold bus bench. They’d all been tossed out of the bar. Brek had disappeared. Claire was on the phone with Dean—their designated driver for the night—calling for an early pickup.
“Dean’s on his way. I can’t believe you got kicked out of a bar.” Claire slipped beside Velma, her arm draped around Velma’s shoulders.
“Be real, who thought we’d get tossed out on girls’ night because Velma got in a bar fight?” Heather leaned against the bus stop sign.
The roll of an engine cut her off as a motorcycle pulled up to the bus shelter.
Brek’s bike.
Now, she wasn’t into motorcycles, but his was vintage cool. Like something James Dean would have ridden—shiny black and loads of chrome with one large circular headlight. His spectacularly male set of thighs nearly covered the Harley-Davidson nameplate.
“On the bike, V.” Brek handed her a half helmet that would cover the top of her head and nothing else.
Um. No. She absolutely wasn’t getting on his death trap, especially without a full helmet.
“What happened to your date?” Velma pulled her purse over one shoulder and stood.
“Bike. Now.” Brek shoved the helmet toward her more forcefully.
“I don’t do motorcycles.” She glanced between him, the helmet, and the ground.
“You should get on the bike,” Claire chimed in.
