Ryan Kennedy

“That phone-just-got-turned-off dick,” Lo continues, warming to her subject. “Gimme a man who grew up on food stamps and never knew where the next meal was coming from. The rich ones fuck like they’re entitled to your pussy. Fuck me like I’m survival. Like your life depends on my shit. That’s some grateful dick, right there.”

There were those who stayed too long. Remained when they should have fled.

They did not live to regret it.

Now, I’m making the same mistake. I’ve remained when I should have fled.

I witness the exact moment when this monster loses all restraint. His fury, his rage rush at me like a wall of water. Like a gale-force wind, he blows over me.

I am the devastation left in his wake.

As the world goes black, I see stars. A flash of brilliance. A light I should have acknowledged long ago. As the stars dim and the darkness encroaches, I understand I’m like those who stayed too long, blindly assuming their survival.

I fear that I, like them, will not live to regret it.

I’m almost at the door when an outburst from the far end of the bar stops me.

“Bullshit!” a husky, feminine voice booms. “You know good and damn well that’s a shit call.”

Just shy of the threshold, I turn to see the woman who’s cussing like a sailor. Curves punctuate her lean, tight body: the indentation of her waist in a fitted T-shirt, the rounded hips poured into her jeans. She jumps from her stool and leans forward, her body taut with outrage, her fists balled on the bar, and her eyes narrowed at the flat screen. She must be a good seven inches over five feet. A guy my height gets used to towering over everyone else, but I like a woman with a little height. Her hair, dark and dense as midnight, is an adventure, roaming wild and untamed around her face in every direction, drifting past her shoulders. She looks pissed, her wide, full mouth tight, and the sleek line of her jaw bunched.

The beautiful face paired with all that attitude has me intrigued. Even if I’m not getting laid tonight, I can at least get distracted from the pressure that’s been crushing me all day. Hell, crushing me for the last few weeks, if I’m honest. I want to shake off the melancholy thoughts my father’s death always wrap around me—thoughts of what we missed. What we lost. Seeing her all fired up and cussing at the television, swearing at the refs, lightens some of the load I’ve been carrying.