In a moment, though, he dropped his head back to his phone, uninterested. I let out a relieved breath. He was probably waiting for something, bored, and had decided to check out the chick in the dress as she walked by.
My relief was short-lived.
Up ahead, hanging out outside the bar, sucking on a cigarette and checking out the Harleys, stood my nemesis. He kept trying to annoy and antagonize me in subtle little ways, something he did despite knowing Austin would punch him off his barstool (literally) if he talked trash to me. It had happened on my very first night in town, plus another handful of times in the two or so months since. The guy’s name was Ryan, but he didn’t deserve the respect of being called his real name, so I’d dubbed him Sasquatch for his shaggy hair and bushy beard, which probably held crumbs and fleas alike. He was clearly as dumb as rocks, and if his vendetta weren’t so tragically annoying, it would be hilarious.
He grunted as I neared, the amber of his cigarette glowing across his bushy unibrow. “What are you doing here? You don’t come in on Thursdays,” he said.
“Funny, I’d hoped the same thing about you.”
“I come in every day.”
“Maybe if you had a friend, you wouldn’t have to.”
“Well, maybe if you had a friend…” His brow furrowed and a constipated look crossed his face. “You’d… You wouldn’t…”
I smirked. “Need a little more time for that comeback? Should I check in later and see if you were able to think of anything?”
He flicked his cigarette at me, sparks shedding as it sailed through the air.
“Oh my God, what the hell?” Pain flared on my palm as I slapped it away, a flurry of sparks following its progress. “You’ve got problems, dude. That hurt.”
“You’re magical now, apparently. You’ll heal.”
“Just wait until I know more of my magic. Hopefully you won’t heal.”
He chuckled. “Fat chance, terrorist.”
I could do nothing more than stare at him for a moment, shaking my head. What did you even say to that? It had exactly no grounding in reality.
Giving up on our not-so-snappy repartee, I continued on toward the door. At least I wasn’t scared of him anymore. Thanks, Ivy House. And thank you, Mr. Tom, who had been teaching me close combat with a knife named Cheryl. It was the same knife I currently had tucked away in my clutch, a light, sleek, spring-loaded blade that required very little pressure to bring springing forth from its lovely teal casing.
Before I could get through the door, Sasquatch stepped in front of me, halting my progress.
“Really?” I asked dryly, half inclined to take Cheryl out for a spin right now.
“Ladies first, which is why you’re going last,” he said.
“Great, yeah, real snappy put-down, jackass.”
“How do ya like me now?”
I gritted my teeth, wondering what I could do. Magically shove him out of the way? Shank him? Wet willie? All were terrible, but I didn’t want to start a fight this close to Austin’s bar. It was rude, for one, and two, I wasn’t one hundred percent positive I would win. I mean…I thought I could, but a lifetime of being weaker than my possible attackers made me hesitate. I had a lot of past conditioning to work through before I was ready to start a bar fight. Besides, Austin quelled violence in his bar, regardless of who started it.
Sasquatch took slow, heavy steps, intentionally holding me up, swinging his weight too far from one foot to the next. He’d be easy to knock askew, and then, when he was getting his balance back, probably flailing his arms, it’d be easy to stick something sharp into one of his soft places.
Wow. I’d really retained Mr. Tom’s teaching. Clearly I had a violent streak somewhere inside of me, no doubt bulldozed in my twenties so I could better fit in with the mothers and wives and women around me.
Did social conditioning bulldoze away their interesting bits too? I wondered as I followed Sasquatch into the bar, careful to breathe through just my mouth. There was a funk wafting off him that I didn’t want invading my world. Maybe we’d all had a fire inside of us, clawing to get out, and we’d kept it at bay to fit into someone else’s mold of what we should be as women.
I chewed my lip, thinking. Digressing. I kinda wished I could go back in time and strike up some very different conversations with a few of them.
Maybe we could have encouraged each other to approach life differently, to let out some of that fire. Because it felt pretty damn good, and I couldn’t wait until I no longer had to rely on Austin and the others to protect me. Someday I would be the only protection I needed.