Breathe.
I couldn’t breathe.
And to make matters worse, Hunter had checked out.
“Not now, you idiot!” Hunter finally snapped, expanding like a dark cloud, suddenly soaked with his own anger. He rose in one thunderous movement, flipping the half-full plate of the guy beside him and watching as its contents fell into the man’s lap.
I shrank on the wooden bench, watching’s Hunter’s eyes narrow into two slits of fury.
“What’d you just say to me?” My roommate bared his teeth, Titan-like, tall and formidable and bigger than this place. Than this moment. It looked like he was growing bigger and bigger, like the Hulk. “Get the fuck up and repeat yourself, you useless sack of shit.”
The rude man relished the opportunity for a brawl. He stood tall, chin up, chest expanded, peacock-like.
“I said your girlfriend is ugly, and now that I see how goddamn offended you are about it, I’m thinking maybe she ain’t really your steady ride. Maybe she’s your beard. A pretty boy like you has no business being with a girl like her. If…” He raised his hand, taking a deliberate, comic pause. “…she’s the one with the pussy between you two.”
The pub’s walls rattled with laughter, the beers on the tables splattering everywhere. I clung to my tattered self-control, keeping my wobbly chin up, although a part of me wondered how I was going to stitch my self-esteem back together after this.
It wasn’t just torn; it was massacred.
“I’m going to butcher you,” Hunter’s voice was so low, it sounded like it came from an animal. The look on his face—one I’d never seen on him before—of brazen determination dipped with fury, made my bones rattle. There was a zing of insanity there. I recognized it well. My father had the same glimmer in his eyes before he went on his late-night jobs.
“Oh, yeah?” The guy placed one hand on his rounded waist.
He was pudgy, but strong. Fat and muscle corded together into a boar-shaped man. You could tell by his body language—rotten smile, palms open—that he loved to fight, did it often, and wouldn’t hesitate to break Hunter’s neck.
“’Cause it seems to me like all you’re doing is standing there, throwing empty threats my way, pretty boy.”
The pimply waiter ran to the back of the tavern, probably to get his superiors. A few people lowered their heads, possibly debating whether to break things up between the two men.
I managed to stand. I leaned toward Hunter across the table.
“Don’t bother. He’s a waste of space, oxygen, and probably porn clicks.” I tried to inject humor into my voice. “Let’s hit the road, Hunt.”
Hunter ignored me, staring pointedly at the guy as he took off his blazer meticulously. I knew he didn’t know how to fight. The self-proclaimed nobleman never had to deal with his own problems.
“He is nothing. A no one.” I tried again, reaching desperately for the sleeve of his dress shirt. Hunter jolted his hand away.
“Please, Hunter, let’s just leave.”
“Ah, she speaks. And it is a she. Ma’am, I have tits bigger than yours.” The guy cackled, exposing a row of yellow teeth and bouncing the two peaks of his chest toward Hunter. I was ready to punch the lights out of him myself. I wasn’t afraid of physical violence. My dad had taught me how to headbutt and knee people in the balls before I was out of diapers.
The atmosphere turned dark, unhinged. Rancid laughter, cheap alcohol, and the scent of adrenaline and violence rose from the crooked wooden floors. My fingers curled beside me as I got ready to attack. Rude Guy turned around, about to bow to the table behind us, full of people laughing and whistling, when Hunter grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and hurled him across the table.
The whole room sucked in a breath as the man flew across the pub. He fell back against the entrance door, head resting on his chest. For a second, I thought he’d broken his neck, but then he raised his head and started laughing, jumping to his feet with a litheness that didn’t match his size.
He raised his fists to level with his face, circling Hunter, who still radiated quiet, deadly anger.
“Come at me now, little woman,” the man hooted, sending a direct blow straight to Hunter’s face. Unprepared, Hunter sailed backwards, stumbling over the table and wobbling on his feet just in time for the guy’s second fist to connect with his nose.
“Hunter!” I bolted toward him, lungs burning. I rounded the table, prepared to jump the meaty guy. Some men stood up, but nobody wanted to get into the firing line of two-hundred-pound men’s fists. Besides, it seemed exactly like the place to let two drunk, blue-collared men brawl it out. Only Hunter wasn’t blue-collared. Or drunk. He was an Eton-educated rich boy who probably had his nails filed by a professional regularly.
One of the two elderly men who sat at the edge of our table to us clasped my arm in his hand, stopping me.
“Don’t. Your friend needs to see this one through, or he will never forgive himself. You will not be helping him by stepping into this. If anything, he would never be able to look at you again without remembering how you saved him. He has something to prove here, sweetheart.”
“But he’s losing. He’s hurt!” I shook him off. I couldn’t bear the idea of Hunter hurting because of me. I took two more steps before the other man raised a hand to stop me.
“He’ll be more hurt if you pull him outta there. I can tell you that from seventy-six years of experience. You save his skin now, you kill his ego. One has to go. Bruises heal. Pride, on the other hand…”
I looked up, watching Hunter’s bloody face as he tried to refocus on the guy he was fighting, lolling his head from side to side. He zigzagged on his feet. They were circling each other in the center of the pub. Hunter raised his fists, protecting his face, but his dress shirt was already soaked with blood and one of his eyes was turning purple. Rude Guy didn’t look much better, his lower jaw swelling, his left eye completely shut.
Rude Guy went for a second hook, but Hunter, who was starting to get the gist of street-fighting, dodged it and threw a sucker punch right in the guy’s face. The explosive sound of bone smashing bone reverberated in the air, sending an uncomfortable frisson up my spine. Rude Guy buckled, collapsing into himself like a stack of cards. He held his nose with both hands, moaning. Hunter took the opportunity to gain momentum and ran into him, tackling him to the ground with his shoulder. He straddled his opponent, raining sloppy fists on the guy’s head, ears, and chest while the latter desperately tried to protect himself with his forearms. Blood splattered on the floor, the wall, people’s shoes. Two heavy cooks and one smartly dressed man appeared from the kitchen’s doors, running toward them.
“Say anything else about this girl ever again and you’re dead, asshole. Dead!” Hunter threw his final fist to the side of the guy’s head before each cook grabbed him by a shoulder.
As they raised him from the man, his face was unrecognizable under all the blood. Hunter let them, watching with cool indifference as the man lying in a heap of blood and sweat below his feet curled into a fetal position.
I ran to him, too panicked to control myself, and patted his cheeks, neck, and forehead. It was compulsive, frantic, and completely out of character for me. I was usually big on personal space. My fingers shook violently. I took inventory of every inch of his flesh. He looked badly beat up, but not as bad as the guy still on the ground, currently begging the pub owner not to call an ambulance because he didn’t have insurance.