Page 45 of You Owe Me

“You’ve got about three seconds to back away from my girlfriend,” Maverick replies, his voice dropping to that dangerous register that makes freshmen dive for cover, “before this polite interest ends with a dental plan.”

Carter blinks like that actually surprised him.

“Territorial, huh?” Carter muses, brushing a nonexistent speck off his sleeve with infuriating casualness. “That’s what happens when your kingdom starts cracking. You get paranoid about challengers.”

Maverick’s mouth twitches. Not a smile. Something darker. “I’m not paranoid. I just know exactly what kind of snake you are.”

Carter makes the fatal mistake of smirking. Of letting his eyes flick down to where his hand is still resting too close to mine,fingers barely grazing my skin. “Problem is, you can’t punch your way out of irrelevance.”

Wrong words. Wrong tone. Wrong everything.

Maverick doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t warn. Doesn’t hesitate.

He just swings.

The sound of his fist connecting with Carter’s jaw is unreal. Bone against bone, sharp and final, echoing through the restaurant like a gunshot. Carter’s head snaps to the side like a rag doll, and he crashes into the edge of the booth with a grunt of pain and shock.

For a split second, the entire place goes dead silent.

Then chaos erupts.

Chairs scrape against linoleum. Someone gasps. A server drops a tray of drinks with a crash and a splash. Carter’s friends leap from their table, business school boys in Patagonia vests trying to look tough as they swarm our booth like a pack of entitled wolves.

Two of them grab Maverick by the arms while another rushes to Carter, who’s clutching his face, eyes wide with rage and blood blooming bright red at the corner of his mouth.

“You psycho!” Carter yells, stumbling upright with help, his perfect composure finally shattered. “You just— You hit me!”

“I warned you,” Maverick growls, shaking off the guy on his left with one flex of muscle and barely contained fury. “I told you to back off.”

“You’re done, Lexington!” Carter spits, eyes blazing with pain and humiliation. “You think you can get away with this? My father?—”

“Oh, I’m counting on him hearing about it,” Maverick interrupts, voice ice-cold and wearing a smile that would make serial killers nervous.

Carter lunges forward, but one of his friends yanks him back. “Not here, man. Not now. Let’s go.”

“You’re gonna regret this!” another one shouts over his shoulder as they drag Carter toward the exit, leaving a trail of threats and blood droplets behind them.

Maverick doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word. Just stands there, chest rising slowly, jaw locked, eyes fixed on the door until it swings shut behind them and cuts off their retreating voices.

Then, like nothing happened, he sits back down.

He picks up his sad little chicken wrap, peels back the tortilla with deliberate precision, and mutters, “Still looks like punishment.”

I stare at him in complete disbelief. “You cannot be serious right now.”

He glances up, eyes calmer now but with the storm still flickering beneath the surface. “What?”

“You just went full John Wick in the middle of Spuds and Studs! Between the appetizers and entrees!”

“He touched you.” He says it like that explains everything. Like it’s the most logical thing in the world.

I press my fingers to my temples, trying to process what just happened. “Maverick, you can’t just punch people in restaurants. There are laws. And witnesses. And probably security cameras.”

“Wrong. I just did it.”

“Carter’s not gonna let this slide,” I say, dropping my hands to look at him seriously. “He’s not just some smug asshole. He’s a smug,connectedasshole. You know who his dad is. This is going to have consequences.”

“Yeah.” He shrugs like he’s already calculated every possible outcome. “And?”

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