Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
An excruciating four and a half seconds later, the evil piece of spicy shoe leather rockets out of Bridger’s mouth.
And nails me right in the eye.
I fly back with a shriek I can’t believe just came out of me. My hand flings out to catch myself from falling. The only thing I grab hold of is the tablecloth. I’ve always applauded myself for having amazing grip strength.
That grip takes everything on the goddamned table with me.
Drinks and dishes and meat and buttery mashed potatoes.
The whole thing must last a few seconds, but I look like an F5 tornado just fucked me into next week when I open my eyes from the ground, covered in everyone’s food, looking up at the tower of Bridger standing over me sucking in breath after breath.
The restaurant is silent, except for scandalized gasps here and there, along with the rustling of clothes as people rise from their seats to get a look at what happened.
I pull a slice of tomato off of my face as I slowly sit up. Something smarts in my lower back. I sure didn’t land good. But all I can see is Bridger, his eyes locked on mine, lips agape, still desperately catching his breath.
Fury in his eyes.
Or something worse that I can’t name.
I don’t know when it happens, but suddenly Gran is there, and I’m hearing her pouring apologies all over them. Every time I try to move, something shifts around me—the sharp edge of a broken plate, a hot or cold piece of food, something sticky. The tablecloth seems determined to keep me on the ground, wrapped around one of my wrists somehow. My head spins.
When all the chatter grows quiet, I look up to find Gran, Pete, and Bridger all staring down at me, as if awaiting a response.
Now it’s me sputtering. Choking on absolutely nothing but the cottony dry air in my mouth. “S-S-Sorry,” I finally get out, my own piece of meat lodged in my throat—an empty, hollow-ass word no one hears or believes.
“I swear I didn’t mean for that to happen!”
Gran isn’t having it, cornering me in the break room. “Did I do you wrong in a past life? Why are you trying to murder one of my customers with habanero sauce on a steak?”
“How do we know it was even real?” I ask. “He could’ve been pretending to choke, then spat his steak at my face! That guy’s had a vendetta against me since yesterday! He’s deranged!”
“For fuck’s sake.” She stops herself, leans against a break table with a heavy sigh, and shuts her eyes. “Cursing on a Sunday. That is what you’ve brought me to, Mr. Myers, cursing on a Sunday.”
“He sprayed fuel all over me and got me fired from Duncan’s! Then he came between me and Juni at the bar when—!”
She lifts a hand, shutting me up. For some reason, I only now notice how crazy long her fingers are, long and full of authority—and a shit ton of expensive-looking jewelry, too. “No.” She shakes her head, eyes still closed. “No, no. Enough’s enough. Nine strikes and you’re out. Or is it ten by now? Take off that apron.”
“Please.” I come up to her and drop to my knees. How damned desperate can I get? “This is my best-paying job, even at part-time. My only regular gig. I’m sorry this happened. Very sorry, the most sorry a guy can be.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” she spits back. “I’m quite sure you could be a helluva lot sorrier. Perhaps instead a’ groveling at my feet, you oughta be grateful no one’s pressing charges.”
“Ch-Charges?”
“Comped their whole meal. Replaced all their dishes, because it wasn’t enough for you to choke one of my customers, you were so starved for attention you also had to drag all of their gorgeous dinners on top of you.”
“It was an accident!”
“And even if it was all an act like you say and this man really is deranged, then why would you go and poke the bear? That don’t make a lick of sense. You’re the one who served him a bad steak, and you’re the one who then gave him habanero sauce to choke it down with. All I need’s a drop of that on my tongue and kiss my butt goodbye, it’ll be glued to the toilet ‘til Labor Day.”
“I went too far. I’m sorry, Ms. Gran, and I’ll tell you sorry all day and all night, but that guy out there, I don’t owe him a thing. He’s the one who provoked me. He started this. And I—”
“Is that alcohol on you?” she asks suddenly, squinting. Then she becomes more certain of it, her voice sharpening. “Anthony Myers, my stars and all the breathless night skies of my life, are you drunk? Drunk on my clock? Boy, answer me, did you come to my establishment drunk?”