Warrior Wolf (Protection, Inc 4)

My wife done run off with my best bud

Now I’m in a bar drinking my fifth Bud

Wonderin’ how my life got to be such a dud

Raluca shrugged inwardly. Many popular songs had unimpressive lyrics. Nick would have to do better than repetitive rhymes if he wanted to get under her skin.

When the song lamenting the loss of the singer’s wife to another man ended, another song began. This one, also set in a bar, lamented the loss of the singer’s job. The third song didn’t begin in a bar, but the singer ended up in one after his dog died. The fourth was also set in a bar, this time because the singer’s beloved truck had been destroyed in a crash.

Raluca re-thought her stance on the music. The glum subject matter, the monotony in which the only difference between songs was what the singer had lost that had driven him or her to drink, and the incessant twanging was beginning to get on her nerves.

Lost everything I loved on an ice patch on an old dirt road

My wife Sally-Jo, the lovingness woman God ever bestowed

Ol’ Red, the best sniffer of a hound dog I ever knowed

The truck that helped me carry my heavy load

Got fired and can’t pay all the money I owed

So here I am in this bar, drinking like a thirsty old toad

“What is this?” Raluca burst out.

“Good old American country music,” Nick replied. He was visibly struggling to keep a straight face. If the joke had been shared with her rather than at her expense, she would have laughed aloud. “Gotta have real American music on a real American road trip.”

“Viorel is in Europe, not another planet,” Raluca retorted. “I have heard American music before. I know that it is not all like this!”

“You probably heard the songs that got popular in Europe because they weren’t that American,” Nick said. “But hey, it's your road trip. If you’re sick of American things already, I’ll look for la-di-dah opera from a hundred years ago. In French.”

Raluca gritted her teeth, refusing to back down so easily. “Find me a station playing American music without twanging and trucks.”

“No twanging, no trucks.” Nick’s eyes glittered in a way that would have been charming if he wasn’t so obviously set on finding something else that she’d hate. “Got it.”

He again began turning the dial, skimming past stations that sounded potentially listenable until he found one with a booming beat that instantly made her ears ache. Raluca wasn’t even sure she would call what she heard music; it was spoken, not sung, though it did have a rhythm.

Fuck that ho! Yeah, find that pussy and fuck that ho!

Nothing fucking better on a fucking cold day

Than a fucking hot pussy on a fucking hot ho!

A chorus joined in, chanting, Fuck that ho! Fuck that ho!

It continued in the background as the speaker went on,

I’ll fuck you up if you get in my way

Fuck you! Today's my fucking lucky day

And I'm fucking finding that fucking hot ho!

The chorus switched to Fuck! Fuck! Fuck that ho!

Raluca hit the off button so hard that her finger slammed it several inches into the music player. Sparks flew. She got a small but painful electric shock. But it was well worth it; the song, if you could even call it that, stopped.

“Hey!” Nick stared at her, his green eyes sparking brighter than the broken wires. “You wrecked my radio!”