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“Now, I want you to get back in your limo, get the fuck out of here, and if I ever see you around this bar again, I won’t go so easy on you.”
Then I release his head, and it thumps back to the pavement. It’s a satisfying sound, even better than the pained moan that comes after it.
“And get some better fucking music. God damn, haven’t you boys ever heard of Marvin Gaye, Al Green, or, hell, even some Four Tops? Anything’s better than that techno-pumping Cancun Spring Break beach party bullshit you boys got going on. Grow up a little,” Reggie says. He looks about ready to hit the downed bachelor over his music choices, and I put a hand on his shoulder to restrain him.
“Let’s go back inside, Reggie. Have a drink, take it easy.”
“You think your lady will pour me a free beer, too?” Reggie says.
Smiling, I nod. It isn’t the prospect of a free beer that has a smile on my face, nor is it how gratifying it is to teach a disrespectful piece of shit a lesson. It’s hearing that phrase from someone else’s lips — my lady.
“Yeah, Reggie, I think my lady will.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Alexandra
Dixon returns to the bar looking exactly like a man on the winning side of a nine-on-two fight. There’s blood on his knuckles, blood on his shirt and blood on his face — some of it his, most of it theirs — but he’s sporting a grin as wide as the sea. I don’t know how to feel about it, at first. This is the man I’m supposed to hate. The man who makes my spine feel like a cheese grater is running up and down it every time he smirks at me and utters that nickname — princess. This is the man that I was ready to kill. This is the man who killed my brother. This is the man who makes me smile.
He looks different to me coming back through that door than he did when he left.
And it’s not just the blood.
“Why did you do that?” I say the second he slides back onto his barstool.
“Why, princess?” He holds his beer to his lips for a gratingly long second, smirking at me over the rim, before he takes a drink and sets it down. “You think I’m going to say something about how I can’t sit back and let a group of assholes like that disrespect a woman? That I had to be some honorable man?”
“Never would say that about you in a million years. I know exactly the man you are, Dixon.”
He grins. It’s cocky. I hate it. Hate it so much I don’t know whether I want to kiss it or slap it off his face.
“Truth is, with everything I’ve done, I figure I have a monopoly when it comes to pissing you off. Anyone else wants to do it, they need to get my permission first.”
It’s a lie. He knows it, I know it.
“So, you’re an asshole, intent on being the biggest asshole of them all,” I say. Another lie.
Well, a half-lie. He is an asshole, but he’s something else, too.
“But I’m your asshole, aren’t I? The same way that you’re my…”
“Don't flatter yourself,” I retort, but my voice doesn't carry the conviction I'd hoped for.
Dixon chuckles. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Fuck off, and drink your beer,” I say. Though, after a quiet second, I add, “Thank you.”
He winks at me over his beer and I roll my eyes toward the ceiling, and as they’re up there, I swear I hear his voice — “I’ll never let anyone disrespect you, princess.”
My eyes dart to him. “Did you say something?”
“Not a peep.”
Did I imagine it? I must have.
Except, there’s a smile on my lips when I turn away from him and walk to the other end of the bar to fill a customer’s order. It’s a gin and tonic; basic, but I spend so much time mixing the damn thing while trying to avoid looking at Dixon — trying, and failing, because I keep throwing glances at him over my shoulder — that the ice in the man’s drink melts and I’m basically stirring it all into a gin slushie.
“I think it’s ready,” the man says, eyes on the glass in front of me, which is sweating enough that I empathize with it.
