“Hey.”
“Watch it, bitch.”
“What the fuck?”
“Get the hell out of my way. I got drinks to order here,” my mother said, slurring her words.
“No, you don’t,” I said. “We can’t serve you tonight.”
“But I’ve got money. See?”
My mother slid a few bucks across the bar before she burped. Her breath was putrid, like she had been drinking for two or three days straight. I didn’t know where the hell she had been, but it had obviously involved copious amounts of alcohol.
I hoped to fuck she hadn’t been driving the past few days.
“You’re already drunk. We can’t serve you alcohol if you’re already drunk,” I said.
“First, I need money. Then, I gotta be sober to drink? That shit doesn’t even make sense,” she said.
“It does. Now, let me call you a cab.”
“I don’t need no cab. I need a drink!”
“You’re not getting one,” I said.
“Whiskey! Whiskey! Whiskey! Whiskey!”
By the time she was done, the entire fucking bar was chanting the word. There was a young man who came up and poured his beer into her mouth, and I watched as she chugged it down. I’d had enough of this shit. I’d had enough of my mother coming in here like she owned the damn place. I reached out and grabbed the glass from the young man as beer sloshed all over the front of my mother.
“What the fuck, you bitch? That was my beer!”
“And you’re pouring it into the mouth of a woman I refused to serve. Get the fuck out,” I said.
“You don’t get to kick me out. You’re just a bullshit bartender,” the man said. “With your tits hiked up like you mean something. The only reason you look the way you do is to suck dick or get tips.”
“I’d wash that mouth out if I were you.”
Adam approached the man from the crowd as Jacob appeared behind him. Jacob grabbed the guy’s coat and pulled him away from my mother, tossing him off to the side. He stumbled into the bouncer who quickly led the guy out the door, but my mother wasn’t done. She had turned her sights on the Grove brothers as they approached the bar, and I knew this was going to get ugly.
“All right. You guys done playing hard to get? You want to see where my Emma learned all her tricks?” my mother asked.
“You need to go home,” Nick said. “You need to sleep this off.”
“Wanna come sleep it off with me, hot stuff?” my mother asked.
She stumbled over into Nick who reached out for her, and she planted her lips right on his.
“What the fuck?” Tyler asked. “The fuck’s she trying to pull?”
I saw Nick push her back to her feet as she stumbled, her back hitting the bar.
“Assault!” my mother exclaimed. “Assault! He pushed me! My back!”
I reached out for my mother’s jacket and tugged on it, forcing her head around to look at me.
“Get. The fuck. Out,” I said.
She spat in my face, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I released her jacket as the brothers tried to peel her off the ground. She had slid to her ass and was trying to say something, but I couldn’t tell what she was murmuring. I grabbed her by the shirt and tossed her drunk ass over to the bouncer, who proceeded to carry her over his shoulder to remove her from the bar.