“Oh!” McCoys grinned. “A lady? Well, I should meet her! Tell her what she’s getting herself into with the likes of you.” He bumped me good-naturedly and I tried to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace.
“That would be great,” I said. “But maybe another night, okay? It’s kind of a date, you know? Just us.”
“I see,” he said, his face changing in an instant. “Don’t have time for an old buddy?”
“It’s not that, man.”
“No, forget it. I don’t know what I expected. You haven’t kept in touch with any of us since we all left the team. Too good for us now?”
“It’s not that… Things have just been hard.”
“Hard?” McCoys laughed. “Yeah, I bet they have. Carrying around all that guilt can’t be easy.”
My face flushed. “What?” I said.
“We all know what really happened that night.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.?
? I turned away, my head spinning with anger and intoxication. I couldn’t believe he would dare bring that up.
“Yes, you do,” he spat. He grabbed my shoulder and spun me around to face him. Spit flew as he spoke. “We all know why Leo died, Prewitt. You should have been there! You were the closest, and you let him die. You just let him—”
When my fist hit his face, I barely knew what happened. I connected with his jaw and his head jerked to the side.
I didn’t wait for him to fight back.
I tackled him to the floor, knocking a chair over in the process. We landed hard. McCoys rolled over and pinned me down, punching me twice before I kicked him off me. My foot connected with his stomach and I felt him curl inward. The satisfaction I felt was so great that I kicked him again.
And again.
Until someone I didn’t know pulled me away from him.
I struggled against the arms that held me, still kicking wildly.
“Get out of here!” the bartender yelled. “Both of you!”
I was carried out into the parking lot and thrown to the ground. It wasn’t long before McCoys landed next to me. I scrambled to my feet, immediately putting distance between us. The fight was over; we didn’t need to throw any more punches.
McCoys glared at me while his buddies patted him on the back and led him away. I watched as they disappeared across the parking lot. Glancing down at my hand, I saw that it was bleeding. I cursed and wrapped it tightly in my shirt. When I looked back up, Alicia was standing in front of me, furious.
“Alicia,” I began, “I can explain.”
“Save it.” She stormed past me.
“Stop!” I yelled, running after her. “Please, just listen! You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly, Zane,” she yelled back. She rounded on me, her eyes on fire. “This is just who you are! Right when things start to get good again, you screw up! You start throwing punches in bars! Beating the crap out of random strangers and—”
“He wasn’t random!” I screamed. “You have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“The hell he wasn’t!” she screamed back. “I can’t believe I fell for your crap again!”
“Will you please just listen to me?! I can explain! I know that guy, okay? We were in the desert together. On the same team and—”
“So you were fighting someone you served with?” Alicia said incredulously. “What the hell is wrong with you? What kind of person have you become?”
“I don’t know!”