Until she doesn’t.
She has a chip on her shoulder, and it’s a large one at that.
I’ve rubbed her up the wrong way, and when it comes to playing the game of cat and mouse, you’re dealing with the master.
I throw down a twenty, paying for her beer until she voices her offense at my rude gesture which then forces me to up the ante. Now, to be clear, I have no idea if she will chug the whole glass to prove a point. I assume she will do that girl pout thing then call defeat.
Fuck, was I wrong.
I pull out the money I owe her after the bet, reluctantly handing it over which she happily accepts.
“You know, it’s rude to assume my accent is fake. As an Australian, I’m offended,” I retort, watching her lick the remnants of the glass.
“Fine, then, let me test you?” She places the glass on the countertop, flicking her hair away from her face as she gazes at me with curiosity. “Do you put shrimp on the barbie?”
My expression remains flat. A pathetic first attempt. “Firstly, we call them prawns, not shrimp. And secondly, I like to throw a good snag on the barbie.”
“Snag?” She laughs, almost snorting. “What kind of made-up word is that?”
“S.A.U.S.A.G.E.S,” I annunciate. “It’s an abbreviation.”
“Fine, so while you’re eating your ‘snags’…” she uses air quotes, “… do you cuddle with your pet kangaroo?”
I roll my eyes. This girl is a piece of work. “Sure, if I want to get throat punched. Sweetheart, give up now while you still have some dignity.”
Her laughter stops, and she slows until she looks ready to hurl right in front of me. The color of her face drains, almost to a pale white.
“You okay?”
“What do you care?” she bites back. “I’m fine.”
When a woman says she’s fine, she is so far from fine it’s not even funny. She’s North Pole to fine. And curly here is anything but fine.
“How about you ease up on the beer? You’ll pay for it tomorrow.”
“Maybe I want to pay for it tomorrow.” Her hazel eyes flicker with anger. “Maybe I need to live a little because a hangover will be a nice change from a world I don’t want to be in.”
She doesn’t give me a chance to respond, stumbling off the stool and crashing into a bloke beside her. She asks him to dance, glancing at me to goad some sort of reaction. I’m not going to give it to her—talk about high maintenance.
The corner of the pub has a small dance floor with a DJ playing pop music. The music isn’t exactly what I would listen to, yet I can appreciate the sounds of Will Smith’s ‘Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It.’
Sitting at the bar, I watch them despite my reluctance. It’s the train crash waiting to happen, and no matter what you do, you can’t avert your eyes.
The last fifteen minutes involves a woman who has belittled my accent, thrown shade to my culture, and cost me two hundred bucks. Yet, for some reason, I’m glued examining the way her hips moved in sync with the beats, how her hair bounces around, cascading against her olive skin, and how her dress rides up her toned thighs as she dances. She has a fantastic body, I’ll give her that.
In the pit of my stomach, there’s an unsettling sensation. I try to ignore it along with a stir of anger beginning to boil inside of me when the dumb bloke puts his hands on her arse. She appears to be having fun until he gets too grabby, and her hands push him away.
The idiot doesn’t appear to listen, and when I see her struggle, I feel compelled to rip him off her and tell him to back the fuck off. So, I make my way through the now busier crowd. When I reach them, I tap on his shoulder intending to warn him to respect her wishes. He doesn’t waver, purposely ignoring me and grabbing her with an even stronger force.
I can immediately see the struggle in her eyes, and with one swift move, I pull him off her until he loses his balance, falling butt first onto the hardwood floor.
“Oi, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he yells, pulling himself up.
The dickhead is slightly shorter than me, and considering I’m six-foot-two, he still has an overpowering stance compared to a lot of the men around us.
You can take him, Olly. You’ve taken on bigger blokes than this dickwad.
I’m about to punch him straight in his smug face until she shakes her head, begging us to stop. Immediately, my focus shifts to her, noticing her eyes filling with tears. I can’t help but be distracted by her emotional plea for us to stop the madness, that is until a fountain of vomit flies into the air, landing all over the bloke’s white shirt.
Damn, that has to completely suck.
He yells, dry retching as I grab her hand in a mad rush to pull her outside. Absolute perfect timing as her body falls over the railing and the remaining contents of her stomach spill into the bushes.
Attempting to pull her hair out of her face, she cries, “Leave me alone.”
“I’ll leave you alone once you can walk in a straight line.”
“Go away. I’m already humiliated. I don’t need you making it worse.”
“I would go, but my kangaroo hasn’t arrived yet. He was my ride back home.”
In between her heavy breathing, I could have sworn I saw a smile, but it fades rapidly, overshadowed by the cold, harsh reality of drinking too much alcohol.
“Why did you help me?”
“Well, you didn’t seem too pleased with his hands all over your arse, and my pa always taught me to respect someone’s arse. So, yeah.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t believe my pa said that?”
“No,” she mutters, her breathing slowing down. “I don’t believe you would respect someone’s ass. Far from it.”
She says the word ass with her accent lingering, no trace of the missing letter ‘R’ which us Aussies are so fond of. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, having been here for a few days, but I was so far from home. Talking to her was different than talking the girls back in Australia. Suddenly, that dreaded homesickness consumes me. I miss people pronouncing the word arse correctly. I miss Pa and his stupid Dad jokes. I miss Ma’s homemade lasagna with the double layer of cheese and garlic bread which has way too much butter on the top.
I pull away, creating distance between us. “You okay to get home?”
“Why? Let me guess… you want to make sure I’m okay. Then invite yourself in for a nightcap, which ends up overnight because I’m drunk and have no clue who’s in my bed.”
“Actually, no,” I correct her. “It’s not safe at night, and I just want to make sure you can get home.”
With a downward gaze and flushed cheeks, she crosses her arms, angling her body away from me. “You know what? I’m fine. Go back to whatever you were doing. I’ll be fine.”
Wow! A double fine.
In a panicked frenzy, she unties the top of her laced heels, sliding her shoes off until her bare feet are firmly on the pavement. Without the height of her heels, she falls below my chin. Much smaller than she appeared to be.