“Shit.”
Suddenly the tornado of nails and screams was gone. Eric had wrapped his arms around her from behind and he dragged her toward the door. Jamie grabbed a rag and wiped his face before sprinting toward the door to open it. Eric pushed her out and Jamie closed the door as quickly as he could.
“Holy crap,” one of the bikers said.
“Makes me glad I’m married,” the other one muttered.
Jamie ignored them and wiped his face again, his hand feeling distinctly shaky. He noticed a smear of blood against the rag and pressed it to the spot on his cheek, which burned like acid.
“Sorry about that, guys,” Eric was saying. “Those pints are on the house.”
The men whooped, clearly untraumatized by the soap opera moment they’d witnessed. Jamie, on the other hand, felt on fire with adrenaline, and his lungs burned as if he’d just run five miles.
Eric turned on him. “Could I speak with you in the back for a moment?”
Jamie nodded, but on his way to the back, he stopped, drew himself a pint of pilsner and downed half of it in one gulp.
When he pushed through the swinging doors, Eric was waiting with arms crossed and eyes blazing. “What the hell was that about?”
Jamie dabbed at the scratch. “I have no idea.”
“You’d better come up with an idea. You just had a brawl with a woman in front of the customers.”
“That wasn’t my fault.”
Eric raised an eyebrow. “Is there someone else to blame for the fact that you slept with her?”
“That’s not the—”
“Is there someone else to blame for you leaving her alone in front so she could unlock the door? How about the fact that she got the alarm code because you were distracted by her tits. Who should I blame for that?”
Jamie slammed the glass down on the counter. “I’ve already apologized for that.”
“A lot of good it does.”
“Right.” Jamie picked up the glass and finished the beer before setting it carefully back down on the metal table. “Right.”
“I’ll cover the bar,” Eric said, his voice low and rough.
“No,” Jamie answered. “You don’t get to tell me that. I’m covering this shift and I’ll work it whether you like it or not.”
Eric paced away and then back. “What was she doing here? Did you call her?”
“No, I didn’t call her,” Jamie said dully. “She wanted me to tell Luke that she hadn’t been playing me that night. I guess he’s got her running scared.”
They’d never really talked about that night, but Jamie could see all the disgust in his brother’s face now. That was fine. Jamie was pretty damn disgusted himself. “I’m going to get back to work,” he muttered. He didn’t want to hear one more word about it. If he could take it back, he would, but there was never a chance to take back mistakes, no matter how much you regretted them.
But as he pushed open the doors, Eric’s soft voice stopped him.
“Why can’t you ever do the right thing?” his brother murmured.
Jamie looked at his own hand spread against the wooden door. He remembered how large his father’s hands had seemed to him when he was a child. Now he had the same hands: large and wide and touching this same door in the same building where his father had worked. The worst kind of irony. He was nothing like his father. Nothing at all.
He pushed through the door without giving an answer. There wasn’t one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SHE OPENED HER APARTMENT DOOR so quickly that her hair whooshed forward. “Jamie! What happened to you?”