Page 24

My cheek burns, my eyes stinging with humiliating tears that I can’t control.

“I knew you was trouble!” he hisses at me, bent over so he can yell right in my ear. “You’re gonna lie to me? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Jesus, I’m sorry. It’s not a big deal…” I hear myself muttering, but the words sound blubbery and strange.

“It’s a big deal if I say it’s a big deal!” he yells back and I feel his hands on my shoulders, his fingers digging in. It hurts for real this time. It feels like he’s trying to dislocate my shoulder with just his hands.

“You’re gonna pay me back for this! You hear me? You owe me a debt now, little girl, and you are gonna do some real work for me, you hear me?”

Shaking my head frantically, I try to pull away, try to get back to the door. But the moment I feel like I have some distance, I’m yanked back, hard, and realize he has a handful of my hair.

The kitchen door swings open with a bang, and Ty jerks my head back hard. Through bleary eyes I see the two figures of my protectors burst through the doorway.

“The fuck you doing here? Employees only!”

“You’ll make an exception,” the first one says with a decisive, furious note in his voice.

“The hell I will,” Ty announces. “This is a boss / employee situation. You guys need to get out of here.”

“Not going to happen,” the other one informs him. He meets my eyes, searching my face. “Let’s go, Tammy.”

“Ha!” Ty barks triumphantly, twisting his hand in my hair so that I wince and arch back into him even though I don’t want to. “You guys don’t even know who this is. Her name isn’t Tammy. She is nobody to you, okay? But to me… oh yeah. I can definitely make use of this one. So fuck off!”

My heart is beating fast as I stand there, arched back, my legs quaking underneath me. Everything is a blur, but I know something will happen.

“We can’t do that,” the first one says.

“Tammy?” the other one adds. “Do you want to come with us?”

“I told you, her name isn’t Tammy! It’s Liberty! Can you believe that bullshit? Stupid fucking name.”

The guys stop, glancing at each other and scowling. Then as though they choreographed it, they separate. One takes me gently by the shoulders and pulls in one direction, and the other takes Ty more roughly by the shoulder and pulls in the other direction, separating us neatly.

In a half a second, the first one has me out of the kitchen, wrapped in his strong arms as he hustles me to the back of the room.

“Get your things,” he commands me as he nudges me toward the ladies’ room door gently, but not very gently.

I know an order when I hear one, and I dart into the ladies’ room to get dressed again, kicking off the blue heels toward the corner. I would rather be barefoot.

When I come back out, both guys are standing there. One of them gives me back my handbag while the other maneuvers me toward the back door. It only takes a few seconds, and we are back across the front parking lot. A car door opens and I crawl into the back seat of a Jeep, then hang on as we peel out of the lot.

The top is down, and the warm North Carolina night air blows my hair all around. When I think that we are far enough away, I work up the courage to break the silence.

“You guys? What’s going on?”

The man in the passenger seat twists around and gives me a serious, contemplative squint.

“Not trying to be rude, ma’am, just trying to figure out what to do with you next.”

His sudden politeness catches me off guard and I stifle a giggle. People don’t usually refer to me as ma’am. People don’t usually refer to me at all. If there’s a soldier near my father, I might as well be part of the furniture. They do not risk offending him by eyeballing me.

“Well, you could take me home? I mean… I’m really embarrassed about all the drama. Maybe we could just forget all this ever happened?”

The passenger looks at the driver, who shakes his head tightly.

“Normally I would, ma’am, but unfortunately it looks like your identification was left behind.”

“Shit,” I mutter, yanking open my handbag and flipping through the contents. Goddammit. I can’t believe Ty went through my personal stuff. What was he even thinking? What an asshole.