Jade settled into the back. “I thought I asked you to call me Jade?”
“How about if I call you Miss Jade? That way, we both get what we want.”
She snorted and then grinned when the driver chuckled.
A few hours later, she was delivering a few drinks to a table when she saw Cole and another guy at a table drinking beer and talking. She hadn’t seen him come in, but then they’d been busy again. The manager had asked her to finish out this week. He had interviewed a few women he thought he’d hire, so he should be good for the following week.
Jade pressed the tray against her chest as she walked up to them. Something about the way the guy’s eyes continuously roamed the bar made her nervous. It was like he was expecting something bad to happen.
She stood by Cole’s chair and put her hand on his shoulder.
“There she is,” Cole said and took her hand. “Jade, this is a good friend of mine, Blake. He just moved here.” Then Cole looked at the man. “This is Jade, the girl I was telling you about.”
The guy didn’t smile, and his stare seemed to go rightthrough her. She bit her lip and squeezed Cole’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
The man tilted his head forward once. “You, too.” He looked at Cole. “She’s a little bitty thing. Aren’t you afraid you’ll break her?”
She snorted before Cole could answer.
“Cole, I have to get back to work.” She looked at the man. “It was nice to meet you.”
Jade turned and walked around to her different tables. It had been busy and had gone fast. She was surprised when Micky yelled the last call for drinks.
She tried to keep her gaze from roaming to Cole. It helped that she was working across the room, but she could still feel Blake’s attention on her sometimes.
After dropping off a tray of empties, she grabbed another tray and a wet washcloth and headed toward another table.
“You fucking cunt. What did I tell you about looking at other guys.”
Jade saw a small blonde woman and a tall man at one of her tables. The girl had been very sweet, but the guy was an asshole. Now, he was being abusive, gripping the woman’s jaw in a tight grip and yelling in her face.
“Bennie, I wasn’t.”
“You’re a fucking liar.”
Jade saw him raise his hand to slap her. She was only a few feet away and still didn’t make it to her on time for his hand to connect with the woman’s cheek. She cried out and fell to the floor.
“You, fucking asshole.” Jade lifted her tray and slammed it against the guy’s nose. He went down and held his hands up to his bloody nose.
“Only pathetic scumbags hurt people smaller than them. Guess what. I’m going to give it back to you.”
She sat on the man and kept hitting him with the tray. When it broke, she grabbed a beer bottle and used it to hit the man in the shoulders, arms, and chest.
The man lifted his arms to block some of the blows, but she was too pissed.
“You fucking cunt,” the man yelled.
“Jade!” Cole yelled from behind her. “Dammit, woman.” He lifted her off the man, but Jade got one last kick in, and it hit him squarely in the nuts, making him cry out and curl up in a ball.
“You fucking prick. I hope your dick shrivels up and falls off.”
Cole squeezed her. “Enough.”
She looked around the bar at the few people left staring at her. Some of them with smiles and others in shock. Her manager was off to the side with his face in his hands. Micky was laughing, and the other waitress held ice up to the woman’s face.
She looked up at Cole. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. He said horrible things to her and then slapped her.”
Cole sighed and laid his cheek against the top of her head. “We’ll work on the temper. I’m really afraid someday you’ll break off more than you can handle and get hurt.”