As we neared a pub with muffled music pouring from the building and floodlights shining down on a couple of outdoor tables, a rowdy group of guys noticed our approach.
One stumbling drunk tripped from his tall-seated chair and leered. “Mudsharking it, huh?” He sent me a sloppy sneer. “You must like it dirty.”
I jerked to a stop and swerved my attention to him. “What did you just say?” My tone was not polite and in no way invited him to continue with that line of disgust.
But the idiot kept grinning and jerked his elbow at me as if we were buddies. He turned his face enough for the light to brighten a teardrop tattoo at the corner of his eye. I stared at it, trying to remember if those things meant you’d killed someone and gone to jail for it or if you’d just been close to someone who’d died.
“Seriously,” Teardrop slurred. “Do her tits taste like chocolate?”
“Hey, come on, man,” one of his friends encouraged, taking his arm and trying to pull him back. To us, he said, “He’s drunk.”
“Huh,” I answered dryly. “I’ve gotten drunk a lot without fucking insulting people.”
“Colton, let’s go,” Julianna spoke quietly into my ear as she tugged me away.
I was about to follow her lead when the dumb drunk broke away from his restraining friend and made a beeline for her.
“I wanna taste her chocolate titties.”
When Teardrop reached out as if to grope her chest, Julianna screeched and hopped away from him.
“Hey!’ I shoved his arm down. “Fucker, keep your hands to yourself.”
The drunk glared at me. “Why don’t you keep your hands to your own kind? You’re muddying up the water, asshole.”
And then he had the foolishness to swing at me.
Me!
I know, what a dipshit.
From that point forward, it was on.
Julianna pressed a cold pack to my eye. I hissed out a breath and tipped my face away because it was freezing as fuck. But she scowled at me, tsked, and pressed it more firmly to my rapidly bruising skin.
“Stop being such a pansy.”
“Pansy?” I scowled at her out of my one good eye. Leaning against the trunk of a patrol car as we waited for an officer to give our statement to because I’d just gotten into my first fistfight, I thought I’d been coming across as pretty badass myself. And might I add, the other dude was currently being carted into the back of an ambulance. But apparently, all it took was one really fucking cold piece of plastic to the face to yank me down to pansy status.
Damn.
“So what happened here tonight?” one of the police officers asked as he approached, flipping open a little notebook.
I snorted and lifted my hand toward Teardrop, who was resisting other officers and even EMT as they attempted to get him inside the ambulance. I think he was still too drunk to realize he’d broken his arm when we’d fallen to the ground.
“That fucker started it. We…” I paused to motion between Julianna and myself, “were walking down the street minding our own damn business, when he left his table and stumbled toward us, calling me a freaking mudshark.”
The cop stopped taking notes and glanced up, blinking in confusion. “A mudshark? Isn’t that supposed to be a white woman with a black guy?”
“I know!” I lifted a hand to compliment him. “Thank you! That’s what I thought. The stupid shithead couldn’t even criticize us right. I mean, really? What a dumbass.” Pausing in sudden thought, I glanced toward Julianna. “What is it called when a white guy hooks up with a black girl?”
She blinked, letting me know she couldn’t believe I was even asking her that. But then she shook her head. “I have no idea.”
Oh well. It didn’t matter. I waved a hand and turned back to the cop. “Anyway, then that fucker reached for her breasts, saying he wanted to taste them, and—”
“He, wait. He reached for your—” When the officer spun toward Julianna, his gaze immediately dipped to her chest, since they were the topic of conversation, and he flushed bright red because she did happen to have some lovely cleavage going on under her ESU shirt. “Uh…” After blinking, he lifted his gaze. “Did he assault you, ma’am?”
“No.” Juli shook her head immediately. “He—”
“As if I’d let that piece of shit touch her,” I boomed, scowling at the officer for even suggesting such a thing. “I shoved his arm away before he could, and then it was on. He swung at me. I ducked. He swung again. I didn’t duck so well. I shoved him by the chest backward away from us. He swung again. I didn’t get to duck at all. Then Julianna tried to pull his arm away, so he whirled on her like he was going to hit her. But I jumped on his back, and that’s when we went to the ground. He landed first, which is probably why his arm is hanging all wrong like it is. And after that, it was just kind of a free-for-all. We both went after each other, punching and cursing.”