Killer (Savages 2)

"What the fuck do you know about anything?" one of the braver guys at the table asked.

"Take it from someone who gets more pussy than the whole lot of you could ever handle, women can sense when all you see in them is spread legs and an open mouth. You're going to be spending a lot of time in that 'friend zone' of yours if you don't smarten up."

"Man, I don't know who the fuck you think you are..." the loud-mouth started, planting his hands on the table and moving to stand.

"Uh uh uh," Johnnie said, shaking his head at him. "You don't want to do that."

"Fuck you you little punk. I'm gonna fuck your shit up."

Oh, lordy. The guys were big. I mean Johnnie was no slouch, he was tall and had a wiry sort of strength, but the muscle-bound jerks had a good fifty pounds on him. Plus, there were four of them.

"Did you hear me you pussy?" he asked, rounding the table toward Johnnie, grabbing the back of his chair and hauling it backward on two legs.

I didn't see him so much as flinch at the sudden change of position and I swear his hand moved so fast toward his jeans then back upward that it blurred. It had to have blurred because one second it was just his bare hand, the next it was his hand wrapped around the handle of a big, silver gun that he had pressed into the underside of the jock's jaw. It was a gun I recognized. It was Ben's gun.

"Heard ya just fine. You hear me?" he asked, cocking the gun, seemingly completely unconcerned about the restaurant full of people.

"Yeah... yeah, man... I hear you," the jock nodded, sweat already beading across his brow.

"Thought you might. Now I suggest you get your stupid hillbilly asses out of here."

"Sure. Sure," the jock nodded, his friends already standing as he put Johnnie's chair back on four legs.

"Tip your waitress," Johnnie called, scooting his chair back to face me as he tucked his gun back from wherever it had been hiding before. He gave me a small smile, seemingly already forgetting about the incident.

Meanwhile, my insides felt like they were shaking. "What... what was that?" I asked, annoyed that my voice sounded small and scared.

"That was me teaching those idiots that they can't make anyone they want a victim."

"You pulled a gun on them in a public place," I said, feeling the fear slip away, leaving my body adrenaline-drunk with no good outlet but anger. "What if he didn't back right down? Were you really risking a scuffle with a loaded gun in the middle of a restaurant?"

"Honey, I know how to handle a gun," he said in a way that sounded like he was trying to smooth things over.

"Oh, I know all about how you handle guns," I said, sitting back in my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. How I had managed to forget, even for just ten minutes who he was, what he was... well... that was completely beyond me.

Johnnie's head cocked to the side, his brow raising. "What do you think you know?"

"I don't think I know anything. I just know, plain and simple. Your father told me all about your little job."

There was a pregnant pause, confusion masking his handsome features for a long minute before he pushed it away. "So you know I'm a sniper."

"Snipers are supposed to snipe for their country, to protect innocent citizens. You, Johnnie, don't romanticize it, you're a killer."

He didn't flinch. He didn't react at all. He was the most unflappable person I had ever met, a trait I both envied and resented in equal turns. "Snipe, huh?" he asked, sounding amused.

"It's the right word," I said, lifting my chin.

"Whatever you say, angelface."

"You're... impossible," I said, scooting my chair back to stand. But his hand snapped outward and covered mine, pressing it against the table top. "Let me go, Johnnie."

"Sit your pretty ass down and have some lunch and try to keep that temper under control."

"Who do you think you are to tell me what to do with my feelings?"

"Someone who understands them better than you," he said with a shrug.

"How could you possibly know my own feelings better than I do?"

"Because I'm not the one twisting everything into anger because it's easier."

"Easier?" I asked, feeling my body tense because he was right; he was so right.

"Sit," he said, slipping his fingers around my hand and squeezing before letting me go.

"Why should I?"

"Because, baby, you want to know what I have to say."

He wasn't wrong. As much as it bruised my pride to, I pulled my chair in and sat down on it.

"You were like... super good with that gun," Jennie, the eighteen year old, blond-haired, big blue eyed former cheerleader gushed as she moved to the end of our table in her awful yellow diner dress, a pad and pen poised in her hands.

My eyes went from Jennie's silly, girlish awe to Johnnie who was giving her a smile that made my belly do a flip-flop and he wasn't even directing it at me. "Thanks, pumpkin," he said. "I think I will have a sweet tea seeing as someone," he said pointedly, nodding the side of his head toward me, "made some yesterday and wouldn't let me have any."

Jennie's gaze fell to mine, utterly dismissing me. "And for you?"

"Hot tea. No milk," I clarified. It was hot as sin out, but I was feeling unsteady and tea always had a way of soothing my nerves.

"I'll be right back with that for you," she told Johnnie with a huge smile before she shuffled off, making sure her behind swayed provocatively as she did so even though Johnnie wasn't looking. I took an odd sort of pleasure in that. He wasn't watching her, because his eyes were on me.

"So who was it?" he asked, moving his menu to the edge of the table.

"Who was what?"

"Mom or dad with the booze?"

Geez. He was good. "Mom," I answered honestly.