I blink at him. I tilt my head, probably looking like a confused parrot. I push my glasses up my nose, even though they’re not falling down, and I realize that I don’t fully understand the question.
“He crawls,” I say, shrugging so hard that my whole arm kind of waves in the air. “And he begs and says please, Kat, you’re the one true love of my life and I’m an awful mean worm who was terrible to you, and watching you kiss this handsome man has made me realize that I super love you and I will feel very horrible if I don’t get you back.”
“So it’s watching you kiss handsome men that does it,” Silas says, a slow smile spreading across his face.
I take a moment to rewind the last ten seconds, when I maybe wasn’t thinking a ton about what I said.
“I mean,” I start, and then stop because finding my way out of this feels tricky. “Look. It doesn’t matter. You’re, like, a convenient hot face—”
He lets out a low whistle, and I would sort of like to die. Or throw my drink in his hot face. Or… kiss him again, because it was nice.
“Shut up,” I mutter instead, every inch of my goddamn body bright red.
“So what happens after Meckler wants you back because you’ve been making out with a total smokeshow?” he asks, and somehow we’ve both rotated on our stools in such a fashion that there’s more of us touching? And my hand is kind of on his knee, and that can’t be right but also his thumb is tracing across the back of my knuckles and wow, I am never allowed to drink ag—
We both jump at the crash, chairs and shattering glass and the ugly thump of a body against something solid. I nearly fall off my stool but Silas catches me because he’s standing like he’s at attention, ramrod straight, everything about him at right angles.
“What the fuck?” someone shouts above the sudden buzz.
“Don’t fuckin’ put your fuckin’ drink there, fuckhead,” says someone with a very specific vocabulary.
“Shit,” mutters Silas, as he puts a hand on my shoulder. “Stay right there, I’ll be—”
“How about I put my drink wherever I fuckin’ want!” the first voice hollers. “And if you’ve got a fuckin’ problem with that—”
And then, chaos. There’s shouting and more shouting and the shriek of furniture moved across the floor, grunting and swearing and more glasses shattering and several thumps that I can’t identify but don’t like, and I can’t see a damn thing because I’m in the back of a crowd and Silas is gone.
The shouting gets louder and swearier. I half-stand with my feet in the rungs of the barstool, and it’s a very bad idea but for a split second I catch a glimpse of Silas, who’s got a shorter guy in a camouflage hat by both arms, looking imposing and also like his biceps might actually rip his shirt or something, and I don’t hate it but I do sit back down before I cause a second commotion by falling over.
I have no idea what to do. I have no idea what I, a drunk woman who is unskilled in the art of talking to people let alone de-escalation techniques, should be doing right now, so I take another sip of water and keep an eye out for glimpses of Silas’s shoulder muscles which, again, I do not really mind.
It’s really his mouth that I mind, though I also don’t mind that, though I do. Maybe it’s his brain that’s the problem, because that’s the part that makes the mouth so irritating, right? Except sometimes the mouth is kind of—
And fuck more stuff is happening that I can’t see, except this time a woman screams and I can see limbs flailing so I jump to my feet, ready to …I don’t know… and try to see over all the people in my way.
“Goddamn it, Jake,” someone shouts over the yelling and the chair-scraping and all the furniture clattering. “Fuck’s sake, he’s bleeding.”
I cannot see a single fucking thing, and my pulse skyrockets.
“What happened?” I ask the nearest human, alcohol making me brave enough to open my mouth.
“Bar fight,” he says, very stoically, pointing at the hubbub in the center. “Jake and Dale got into it again, prolly over Jake’s sister.”
“No shit it was a barfight.” I hiss, mostly to myself, wobbling on my toes. “But who—”
Between two heads, I suddenly see Silas pop up, wild-eyed and bloody-nosed.
Before I can think a single thought, he bolts for the back of the bar.