On The Rocks

“Of course I am,” I tell him with a smile.

Brody just gives me a stiff nod and heads into the bar area. I follow behind him, immediately assaulted with the roar of four men laughing. When I turn the corner, I can tell immediately it’s coming from Henry Coursier’s table, and I smile internally to myself. The guy is a one-man, walking-comedic show.

As I approach the rear of their booth, I hear Henry say, “…I’d almost consider it, because come on… what a pair of tits.”

Shaking my head, I snicker at the man and his dirty mouth.

Then I hear another guy say, “And she has a fine ass, too. Just imagine seeing her bent over a sawhorse every day… you’d walk around with a perpetual hard-on.”

Another round of laughter fills my ears, but suddenly, I’m not thinking this conversation is so funny anymore. Suddenly… I have a feeling I know who they are talking about, and I am not appreciating this conversation.

Then Henry Coursier puts a nail in his coffin when he says, “It’s all moot. No way am I going to offer that job to a fucking woman. I don’t care how great her tits and ass look in a pair of jeans. She’s got no business working in a man’s field.”

Rage such as I’ve never felt before filters through me. I fucking see a red cape waving in front of me, and I’m a fucking charging bull. I turn the corner to their booth and immediately see Henry Coursier’s fat fucking face go pale when he sees me. He’s sitting on the inside but that doesn’t stop me.

I reach over the man sitting next to him and grab Coursier by his shirt with both fists, hauling him out of the booth and across the table, knocking over glasses and lunch plates in the process. Everyone sitting there is so stunned that they don’t even make a move as food and drinks spill onto their laps. I hear Brody behind me say, “Oh shit.”

Then I’m dragging Henry through my bar. He tries to rip away from me, so I merely grab him around the back of the neck with one hand, using my other to twist his arm up behind his back. He whimpers like a little fucking girl.

When I hit the front door, I give him a solid push and he goes flying through it, landing on his ass in the gravel parking lot. Henry looks at me in fear because I barrel toward him, again… fucking bull… enraged.

Leaning down, I grab him by the shirt and pull him to his feet. I hear the door open behind me, and people rushing out to the parking lot. I vaguely hear Brody say, “Don’t do it, Hunter,” but that’s the last thing I hear before my arm cocks back and my fists connects viciously with his jaw.

He sags to the ground, and I reach for him again to pull him up. That’s when Brody’s arms wrap around me from behind, pinning my own arms to my sides. He growls in my ear, “Let it go, man.”

“Get the fuck off me, Brody,” I yell. “I’m going to murder him.”

Henry Coursier starts to sit up, rubbing his jaw. His lip had split with that one hit and blood dribbles down his chin. When he sees Brody has a hold of me, he decides to man up and sneers, “What’s wrong, Hunter? Can’t handle a little truth about your piece of snatch?”

“You fucking piece of shit,” I roar and pull free of Brody, lunging toward Henry, who starts to crabwalk backward to get away from me.

Brody tackles me from behind, grabbing around both of my legs, and we both go crashing into the gravel. Rocks dig and cut into my skin, but I barely feel them. Fury is still blistering inside of me, and I can only think of getting to Henry and beating the shit out of him for what he said about Gabby.

“Stop it,” Brody hisses in my ear as I try to throw him off me. “If you keep going, those other guys are going to jump in. Then I’m going to jump in, and then I’m going to get my parole revoked. You want me to go back to prison?”