“Here we go!” Payton hurries back to the table, where Aspen and I have been standing in silence, with a trio of tall shot glasses filled to the brim with a red liquid.
My sister-in-law takes one and I tentatively take the other.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I think she called it a Red Snapper.” Payton shrugs. “I just asked for something strong we could slam that tasted good.”
I glance in the direction that King and Nero went, but they only disappeared a minute ago and there’s been no sign of them since.
I really don’t know why I got so emotional. It’s not like it was the first time I’ve been groped by a man––The time at that wedding. The time at the house party. The twenty times in a bar. The time working at the campus bookstore in college––but this one, it just made me think of every time. And how every time I’ve just had to grin and bear it. Because I never had someone to go to for comfort. Even past boyfriends, I’d never tell them. Because what would be the point? What would they do about it?
The image of King staring at me, head tipped to the side, eyes filled with vengeance, will forever be seared into my heart.
I don’t know what he’s going to do, but he’s not doing nothing.
King would never just do nothing.
A shot glass moves in my periphery, and I find Aspen holding hers out towards me.
The fact that I didn’t even need to explain the situation says so much. And it makes me so mad. That even us, this trio of unlikelies, we all have this in common.
Because all women have this in common.
Aspen holds my gaze, “To having dangerous men on our side.”
Emotion fills my throat, but I swallow it down and clink my glass to hers.
Payton taps hers against ours as well before we all tip our shots back.
