The night stinks of bored fucks and desperate sluts. I hate coming out to the bar on weeknights, but someone’s been roughing up the local working girls, and they fall under my club’s territory. My purpose is to look tough enough to scare off any assholes. Acing my task, I sit at the bar and drink whiskey shots while watching Senegal play Madagascar on the small TV hanging over the bar.
I check my phone to see if anyone misses me from the family’s Monday night barbecue/charades event. Not a single fricking message or funny photo or frowny face from the whole lot of them. Irritated, I decide to swap out the charcoal for cat turds next week. Then we’ll see how much damn fun the ungrateful queefs have without me.
I lean my head against my arm propped on the bar and stare at the TV. With the sound off, I can’t tell which team is winning. Overhead, the speakers blast country music. The song sounds familiar, but I can’t place the name or the singer. My family might be from West Virginia, but we don’t listen to country music. Classic rock or nothing is what my father’s been known to say.
I’m so bored that I could fricking sleep. Before I doze off in the half-filled bar, I hear a shift in the conversation around me. Men stop whining about work and wives long enough to say something about the new girl. Hearing the male predator tones in their slurred voices, I scan the front of the bar to locate the woman causing their aggressive arousal.
Shit on a stick.
Rarely do I see someone so fricking out of their level. This woman is that someone. She isn’t dressed like a high-society slut. Instead, she wears simple black jeans, a black T-shirt, and high-tops. Though there’s nothing upscale about her getup, the chick embodies perfection. Her golden-brown hair shines so much she might as well have a fricking halo on her head. Her tawny skin begs to be touched.
Sitting at the bar, she’s forced to call over the bartender more than once before he hears her over the music. She looks annoyed by the time the drink arrives. All around her, men inch closer to their prey. She doesn’t notice, too stuck in her pretty head to know how screwed she’ll be soon.
Fortunately for the sexy thang, I’m on the job.
I stroll to where she lights up the world with her presence. Sitting my fine ass on the stool next to her, I face the bar rather than her. She never glances at me, but I sense a shift in her stance when I arrive.
“Hate to be fricking forward, chippie, but you’re stirring up a hornet’s nest in here.”
“Who did what now?” she asks while her finger circles the glass’s rim.
“Looking so damn fine and sitting alone has riled up all these sweaty fellas.”
The woman turns around on the stool and gives my long, buff frame the once-over. “Are you riled up too?” she asks while her eyes reveal not even the tiniest hint of her feelings.
“Can’t say I’ve seen a finer looking babe than you, but I’m quite skilled at keeping my dick holstered. Not sure these other boys can say the same.”
“Your concern is duly noted, mister,” she says, turning away from me.
“People call me ‘Poet.’”
“Like how they call tall people shorty?”
Smirking at her insult, I can’t figure out this sexy little chickie. Is she a rich girl from the city, thinking the world will bow to her? Does she realize no one here gives a shit who or what she has somewhere else? These local guys can’t see past how she’s the hottest honey to waltz into The Shot Glass in a long fricking time.
“What do they call you?” I ask.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Sure, baby,” I whisper, leaning closer.
She studies my face and smiles. “I don’t give a crap if you live or die, Mister Poet. So why don’t you do us both a favor and ske-fucking-daddle?”
“With all your sweet-talking talent, maybe I ought to call you ‘Poet.’”
“Go,” she says and lightly taps my nose. “Away. Before. You. Make. Me. Angry.”
To emphasize each word, she taps my nose. When she’s finished, her gaze returns to her drink.
“And I wouldn’t like you when you’re angry, now would I, princess?”
“Not a bit, fella.”
“Well, if you change your mind, I’ll be over there watching you with a devious twinkle in my eye.”
Refusing to offer me even a smile, she remains a frosty tease. I return to my spot and hear a guy mutter how I “struck out.” Rather than punching him, I keep an eye out for the trouble I feel in my bones is coming.
Not five minutes later, my spot next to the ice princess is taken by a redneck with a literal red neck. He makes small talk that she ignores with even more chill than when she ignored me. This guy doesn’t accept her rejection with my smooth style. No, he takes a different route.
“Don’t be a bitch!” he hollers, standing over her.
“Did you say ‘bitch’?”
“Yeah, bitch, I did.”
“That’s what I thought,” she says and then her hand flies forward and slaps him across the face. “Bitch slap!”
The chick is off the stool before the guy reacts. Behind him, she bounces like a prizefighter reacting to the starting bell. I walk around the bar to get a better view. You know, just in case the ice princess’s slap doesn’t have the result she expects.
The guy takes things up a big fricking notch by throwing a punch. Ice princess easily ducks out of the way and dodges his oncoming body. I’m impressed when she gives him a roundhouse kick to the back of the knee, and he falls forward like a puss.
The bar laughs at the guy flopping to the ground, but his friends aren’t amused. One of them stands up to either help the asshole or attack the ice princess. Whatever his goal, he quickly suffers a karate chop to the throat.
Gagging, he stumbles back. A third guy considers helping his friends but doesn’t commit. The first guy stands back up and grabs for the still bouncing ice princess.
I take a step closer, worrying she’ll get jumped by the three men and her Wonder Woman impression will fall short.
Her front kick nails him in the crotch. When he crumbles forward, her fist smashes his ear. The third guy finally runs at her, having downed a beer to build his courage. His rebel yell only gives her time to spin around and give him a one-two kick-punch combo that sends the bastard into childlike squeals of pain.
“Bitch slap that,” she says and returns to her stool.
When the bar claps, she gives them a small bow and downs the tequila left in her glass.
I catch sight of one of the injured guys pulling what looks like a hammer from his bag. He wobbles toward her; hoping ice princess won’t notice him coming. Unwilling to chance her getting hurt, I stick my gun at his temple when he’s two steps behind her.
“Why do you have to go and ruin a happy ending by getting yourself killed?” I ask.
The ice princess frowns back at us, sees what’s going on, and instantly has a bottle of pepper spray in her hand.
“I am saying no!” she yells and sprays an inch from his face. “I am afraid!”
The ice princess clearly worries she’ll need to explain why she used pepper spray in a public venue. If she’s hoping to look afraid, her laughter isn’t helping.
Before the spray affects me, I back off the guy clawing at his burning eyes. I notice the bartender shaking his head.
“Stop your bitching,” I tell him and return my gun to my back holster. “This is the best Tuesday you’ve had in a while.”
The ice princess slides her pepper spray into her jeans pocket and taps the bar for another shot.
Flashing a smile at me, she says, “Nice .357 Magnum. Is that a Taurus?”
“Good eye, princess.”
Sizing me up and down with her russet-brown eyes, she smiles bigger. “Poet, was it? Well, how about we find an empty booth and see who can put back the most shots of tequila without puking?”
I ask the bartender for a bottle of Jose Cuervo before following the ice princess to the booth farthest away from the downed assholes.
Sliding into the booth, she gives me a delicious smile that warms her deep-brown eyes. I join her just in time for the sexiest woman on the planet to share her name.
“I’m Cricket Wilburn. You’re charmed, I’m sure.”