by Shen, L. J.
How many more men I’d known had viewed me the exact same way as this guy, but never voiced it aloud because they were scared?
I stared at the jerk, knowing my face was beet red. From the corner of my eye, I could see our waiter running over with a shot of Baileys in his hand, half of its contents sloshing over the already sticky floor. He was making his way to me, I realized, my lungs deflating.
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.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, realizing my voice was brittle, unsteady. I didn’t care what the idiot said about me anymore. I just wanted to know Hunter was o
kay.
Hunter nodded, looking away at the floor. The corner of his lip bled, and I allowed myself one last misstep, brushing the blood off with my thumb.
“Talk to me,” I croaked. “Do you want to go to the hospital?”
Hunter shook his head, still staring at the same spot by his feet, shutting the gates to himself once again, locking them up and throwing away the key.
The waiter appeared beside us, squeezing Hunter’s shoulder. “I’ll tell my manager exactly what happened. Everybody saw how he provoked you. There was nothing you could do to prevent it. I mean, he talked mad shit about your girl, man.”
“She’s not my girl,” Hunter said aloofly, gathering phlegm and spitting it—pink with the traces of blood in his mouth—onto the floor. He reached for his back pocket, took out his wallet, and tugged out a few bills, stuffing them in the young waiter’s hand.
“Don’t wash the floor. I want every asshole in this place to remember what happened today.”
I jogged after Hunter outside. He unlocked my car, sliding in and revving up the engine, ignoring my existence. I swung the passenger door open, worried he’d forgotten about me and would leave me abandoned if I didn’t hurry. A sharp, needle-like pain in my deltoid reminded me of my injured shoulder, and I winced, folding in half in my seat from the pain. I didn’t want to think about what it meant to have a shoulder injury—both for my Olympic chances and my sanity.
Hunter was still as a statue, staring at the pub with a zombie-like expression. I wished I knew what he was thinking.
Swallowing the humiliation down my throat, I tried to make light of what happened. I was full of gratitude and fear of rejection. Worst of all, I wasn’t even sure what I was offering for him to reject.
“Ironically enough, that wasn’t an Irish goodbye.” I produced two pieces of gum from the glove compartment, unwrapping the thin foil and offering him one.
He didn’t move to take it. I shoved one piece into my mouth and began to chew.
“Thanks again. I promise I’m not as pathetically incompetent in dealing with the outside world as I seem. You just always beat me to it before I have the time to kick ass.”
Now’s a good time to shut up, Sailor.
It was hard to believe I was the one babysitting him, when he was the one protecting me.
When Hunter still didn’t show any signs of life, I began to worry he was suffering from a post-traumatic disorder.
“Just tell me you’re okay.” I felt my head dropping, along with my shoulders, exhausted with humiliation. “And I’ll let you be.”
“I’ve never fought before,” he said, finally, more to himself than to me. “I’ve done my fair share of screwed-up shit over the years. I even ran after my friend, Vaughn, with a machete one time. But I never really fought, you know? Threw fists. Got hurt. Hurt back.”
He turned to meet my eyes. I looked up, gulping his attention ravenously.
I didn’t know how it was possible, but he looked even more gorgeous with cuts and bruises. Like a brand new car sporting its very first scratch that transforms it from just another car to your car—with history, shared memories, and baggage.
In that moment, I wished I’d never laid eyes upon Hunter Fitzpatrick, because I knew with certainty that for all his spoiled ways, corrupted behavior, and obsession with pleasure, he was innately good, loyal, and courageous.
Those things made him very dangerous to me.
Dangerously attractive.
“Not that I encourage any type of violence, but this guy’s going to remember your face for a long time while he’s waiting for his to heal,” I told him. “So congrats on popping your cherry—and his nose—with success.”
More silence ensued. My stomach growled, reminding me it hadn’t been fed in over seven hours, and I gave it a firm squeeze, trying to shush it.
Hunter shook his head, finally pulling out of the makeshift driveway.
“You hungry?”
“I could eat,” I said noncommittally.
He laughed, then stopped when his lip reopened.
“You know, I remembered this place more fondly. It kind of sucks. Let’s McBinge on artery-clogging burgers while our metabolism can still take it.”
“Thank God. The meat there looked fishy,” I groaned.
“I have a perfectly good piece of meat between my thighs, if you’re interested.”
He was his usual, gross self again. I was actually happy for the crass comment.
“Not in the slightest.”
“Your loss.”
“And every other girl in America’s gain,” I quipped.
“Not for the next five months, thanks to your ass.”
Five months.
How had it been a month already?
It hadn’t. It had only been two weeks. But Hunter was desperate to get out of this arrangement as soon as possible. I rested my head against my headrest, the pain from my shoulder and adrenaline pumping in my veins making me sleepy. I closed my eyes just for a second, but found it difficult to reopen them as Hunter started driving, slashing through the night like a knife on our way back to Boston.
Maybe that’s why he said what he said. He thought I was asleep, not just resting.
“Agnes,” he whispered. “The nanny’s name was Agnes.”
Mood song: “Zombie” by Jamie T.
The next week sucked worse than the previous two.
My life had seemed to shift from a theme park of orgasms, designer clothes, and eternal sunshine to an ongoing, cloudy, celibate catastrophe.
First, I had to explain why I looked like my face had been chewed by severely diseased pit bulls at the office. Luckily—and I use that term very fucking loosely—Captain Save-a-Bro, AKA Sailor, promised she wouldn’t snitch on my ass in her weekly report to Da, which made me feel like a teacher’s pet, sans the fun part, where I got rewarded with a blowie (or was that only in porn?).
Sailor and I had agreed to give Da an altered version of how things went down at the pub. Basically, we confessed that I did get into a fistfight, but only because the guy grabbed her. That story was received with icy skepticism by Da and Cillian, and warm endorsement by Syllie, who’d sat in Da’s office when I told them about it.
Ultimately, nobody complained about how I looked like a jacked-up Thirteen Reasons Why character—all cut, bruised, and limping. If someone harassed a woman in front of them, they’d do the same. I was just being a goddamn gentleman.
Then there was the Syllie problem. Da had shut me down and Cillian considered watching me squirm an orgasmic occasion, so I had to do my own digging. I shadowed Syllie’s ass at work when he wasn’t paying attention. He was still basically the only motherfucker to be remotely civilized with me, but I knew what I’d heard, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Problem was, I’d had zero luck and even less opportunity thus far.
Syllie wasn’t taking any private calls in the emergency stairway, and I needed to up my game. In the five days that followed the pub brawl, I surprised myself with the effortless commitment I put into tailing his ass. I experienced a soul-crushing, gut-burning urgency to know what he was up to.
Then there was the final, last problem: Sailor.
I hadn’t discussed what happened in the pub with her, but I imagined she was freaked out about being called fugly and having no man among the hundred or so in the pub dispute that assessment.
Let the record show that I, personally, would pork the hell out of her.
Like, yeah, she wasn’t fuck-hot in an obvious kind of way. She didn’t have big tits, curves for miles, lips that looked like a neatly shaved vagina, and glossy hair. But she was the kind of girl who, the more you looked at her, the more her beauty crept up on you. She was unusually attractive, but still attractive. Kind of like Lily Cole. (It took me three times until I finally managed to jerk off to a Lily Cole picture. But once I found my rhythm, she was one of my favorite models to nut to.)
There was something whimsical about Sailor’s red hair
and pale skin and sage eyes. She looked like a fairy from an Irish folklore, one where a lot of strange, magical shit happened.
Call me a hopeless romantic, but if I were, say, to plow into Sailor Brennan one day, you could bet your ass I’d be looking at her face and whispering sweet nothings into her ear. (Profanity about what I wanted to do to her uterus was considered sweet, right?)
However much I found my roommate delectable, I couldn’t tell her flat out, because she already suspected I wanted into her pants (guilty) and also because we’d both acted weird since the pub brawl (also guilty).
What I couldn’t explain to her was this: I’d always been the idiot. The fool. The fuckup. I blurted shit I thought would make people laugh, because I was never expected to say anything meaningful or deep. Mildly entertaining was all anyone had ever expected from me. I was so committed to being a careless idiot, that the idea of not being one intimidated me.
With Sailor, I couldn’t be an idiot. She constantly threw me out of my comfort zone, and I kept scrambling back to it.
After we’d wolfed down our McMeals and stunk up her car, we got back home and she’d tended to my wounds in the bathroom wordlessly.
In the morning, I’d walked in to find her in the kitchen. It was seven-thirty, far too late for her to still be home. I’d watched as she shoved two Advils into her mouth, washed them down with a bottle of Evian, and dragged herself back to bed. I went to work, and when I got back, she was out, probably training.
The next time we spoke, it had been about how Nora’s food was so spicy our rectums were about to sue our mouths, and how we should let her go and just DoorDash everything. Sailor confirmed that finding good food spots was her talent. Which, side note, made her marriage material, if I was into monogamy.
The next-next time, I’d helped her find something on Netflix.
The next-next-next time, she’d told me she’d fixed Nora up with a job at one of her mom’s restaurants, which made Nora super grateful for her wallet and us super grateful for our health.
In short: we were basically avoiding each other. Again.