Page 23 of Chasing Blue

“Darl, the only place serving it will be here and you better be bloody thinking about us when you’re in here drinking,” Anthony states.

“Just drink the fucking drink and let me talk,” Span says in his rumbly voice. I take another sip, the alcohol adding to the heat inside me and I turn towards him.

“Give it to me,” I order.

“Princess, if I was ten years younger and didn’t like dick, I absolutely would.”

I give him a lopsided smile as I lean into my hand, my elbow now propping me up as it rests on the bar.

“He sat up here,” Span says. “Marcell served him a couple of drinks, then he tried chatting up a couple of girls sitting at the table behind him. They were young, twenty-one, twenty-two I reckon. Anyway, they ignored him and carried on their conversation, and he got a little abusive. Called them a few names, but it was a drunken mumble and nobody except the bar staff really heard him. I told Marcell to make that his last and to cut him off.”

My belly rolls over a few times because I knew exactly where this was going. I may only have been on a few dates with Matt, but I’ve already worked out he doesn’t like being told no.

“When Marcell told him no more, he . . . fuck. That’s when he turned ugly.”

“Span, I’m so . . .”

He puts his hand up, and I stop talking.

“He used the N-word Scar. He called Marcell a fucking N-word and demanded he did what he was put on this earth to do and serve him.”

“No,” I cry into the hand I’ve covered my mouth with. I think I’m so overcome with mortification, anger, sadness, so many things, I sob out, “Oh my god, Span.”

My eyes seek out Marcell who’s serving a customer at the other end of the bar so I can apologise. Span reaches out and uses his finger against my chin to move my face back to his.

“Hey,” he shakes his head, “not your fault, princess, but just so you know, it didn’t end there.” I close my eyes and wait.

“I came around this side and told him to get the fuck out. He squared up to me and called me an AIDS-infected fag. Anthony jumped the bar, grabbed him by the throat and launched him out the door.”

I cover my face with both hands and let out another long breath/gasp/sigh of sorrow and anger.

“I’m so sorry. How could I have been so stupid? How did I not see him for what he is?” I feel like I’m about to throw up as I launch myself at Span and his arms come around me. “Why didn’t you say something? Call me? I’m so, so sorry, I never would’ve agreed to meet him this one last time if I’d known this, and I’m meeting himhere. He knows what he did, and he still agreed to meet mehere. Oh my god, what an absolute arsehole. I need to cancel. I’m sorry, so sorry.”

“Hey.” Span holds me away from him and looks down into my face.

“You told us you were done with him; otherwise, we would have said something, we know what a sensitive little soul you are, and we didn’t wanna upset you.”

“You’ve upset me by not saying anything. I’m so fucking angry right now.”

Span pulls me back into him. “We did what we thought was best,” he says into the top of my head.

“I need to message and tell him not to come here, not to come anywhere near me ever again,”

I whisper into his shirt.

“Too late for that, baby girl,” Anthony says from behind the bar. Knowing exactly what that means, I turn my head slowly towards the door.

“Fuck!” Span and I say together.

Matt’s standing there, looking every bit the shit hot lawyer he is. He pauses in the doorway a moment as he takes me in, obviously already concocting his defence as he moves towards where I stand still wrapped in Spangle’s arms.

He smiles.

I don’t.

“Get. Out,” I say quietly but clearly. Matt keeps his disingenuous smile plastered on his face, frowns and tilts his head to the side as he continues moving towards me.

My first thought when I laid eyes on him was not to cause a scene, but as I observe how so absolutely full of shit he is, I think,fuck it.