Page 50 of Dare You to Run
He looks relaxed, like he just got a deep throat from some chick in the back room and nothing can bother him.
“Nah. I was just clarifying for Paolo. You and Dagen are just fucking around. She’ll be gone next week. Right?” He chuckles, challenging me.
“You prick. Are you still pissed that she wanted me and not you? Get over it. You can’t always get what you want.” Paolo lays a hand on my arm and I throw him off of me. “Take your goddamn hand off of me.”
“Henny. It’s alright. Just chill, brother.” Malik sits at the juncture of the two sides with a girl I’ve never seen before on one side and another rider, Frank, on the other.
“Don’t tell me to chill. I want to know what crawled up this fuckers ass and died. Dagen never wanted you Danté and you knew it just like I did. Quit playing a fucking game, because I’m not biting.”
Paolo stands from the booth and catches me off-guard. Thinking he’s going to throw a punch or push me away like a little bitch, I strike first, landing my fist right into his left cheek. There’s a high-pitched screech and he crashes back against the table. Glasses fall over and shatter, sending water and whatever other drinks spilling across and off the edge.
“Woah, woah.” Malik panics and jumps up and over the table to get to me. “What the fuck, Henny? Stop.”
Paolo rises to his feet, having caught his balance, and takes a swing at me and catches Malik in the middle of it.
“Fuck,” he shouts and ducks out.
I wrap up Paolo’s arms and knee him in the gut. He folds over but recovers quickly and catches me with a weak ass uppercut. It still rings my bell, but I would have knocked him out landing a punch like that.
The bouncers separate us, holding our arms back and away from the other.
“You’re a bitch, Henny.”
“Yeah, come over here and say that so I can bust your fucking ugly face.” I spit at him and it falls to the floor, bloodied.
“Knock it off, Henny. Go outside and get your mind right. Maybe just go home,” one of the bouncers says and walks me to the door. He doesn’t kick me out, because it’s my goodman bar, but he pushes me out and blocks the doors, stopping me from reentering.
I swipe the blood from the corner of my mouth and see Dagen walking with Kins towards her truck.
“Dagen. Wait!” She halts in her steps and I jog over to her.
“You have some nerve, Hendrix Dare.” Kinsley steps between Dagen and I, pointing her finger right in my face. “That was lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut. I oughta knock you into the middle of next week looking both ways for Sunday for behavin’ like that.”
“Kins, can you chew my ass out another time? I’d like to speak to Dagen.” She narrows her eyes at me and crosses her arm.
Her eyes travel to meet Dagen’s and she gives Kins a short nod.
“I’mma watch you, boy, like a fly waitin’ for shit to rot.”
“I don’t know what that means, but okay.” She uses two fingers to point from her eyes to mine, then stomps off to her truck.
I turn my attention back to Dagen and see her looking down at her foot that’s kicking a rock, her arms crossed over her shoulders.
“I apologize for that. The guy just really pissed me off. Maybe it’s stupid because, I know you’re notmygirl, but I didn’t like his hands on you.”
Still concentrating on the ground she says, “Did you really say that to Danté? We’re just fucking?”
I swallow down my guilt, but knowing it was just something I said to get him off my back. “I did but listen,” I spit out when she raises her head with unshed tears in her eyes. “Danté hasn’t talked to me since that first night after darts. He was pissed that I ‘won’ you. He doesn’t like losing anything, and he saw that kiss you and I shared as a loss for him. He definitely wanted a quick hookup with you, but Dagen…you have to know that I didn’t feel that way. Idon’tfeel that way. And I think he sees that. He’s trying anything to get under my skin. Clearly it worked.”
She pushes away a single tear that falls from the corner of her eye and a little bit of my black heart starts to warm.
“I’m ashamed to admit that I have used women for only one thing over many years. You already know that my asshole demeanor is my norm, but with you it was extreme. But only because there was this immediate kickstart to my mind and body. It pissed me the fuck off, to be honest. Why after all of these years did a stranger stuck in a ditch have to make me feel something I didn’t recognize?”
“It wasn’t a ditch,” she mumbles.
“What was that?”
With a sigh she downplays a smirk and repeats, “It wasn’t a ditch. Just the side of the road.”
