Breathless - Jesse Book 1 (15 page)

Niki

“What’s the name of this place again, Jesse?” I asked. We walked up the sidewalk in Hollywood, to locate the bar where we were to meet Chase and Kat.

“Five O Four. It’s right here.” A couple of bouncers dressed in black, like Mafia hit men, hovered near the entrance. Luckily, we found a parking space on a side street several blocks down. With buildings being so close together in Hollywood, parking usually meant paying money to use a lot, but we’d rather walk a little than pay.

Five O Four
didn’t have a real store front made of glass windows. It was open to the outdoors. The bar itself was small and located in a space shared with a Mexican restaurant, directly across a wide sidewalk. High top tables were lined up directly opposite the length of the bar, elevated from the sidewalk below, with just about enough room for a waitress with a tray to squeeze between the two. The row of tables abutted a decorative black wrought iron railing. It was cozy, with a French Quarter, New Orleans ambiance in its design and decor.

It was easy to spot Kat and Chase in such a small place. They were sitting at one of the tables up against the black wrought iron rail.

“Hey you two. Pull up a chair.” Chase said as we approached. He stretched a muscular arm up, to “high five” Jesse over our head.

“What’s on tap tonight?” Jesse asked.

“Their specialty is frozen blended drinks from those machines.” He pointed to five large machines built into the wall behind the bar, ensconced in stainless steel. Each filled with a different color of frozen alcoholic drink blends. A metal stirring device slowly rotated behind a circle of glass on each machine. The machines held gallons of premixed alcoholic slushy drinks, ready to pour from a spigot. It was like being at the fair, an alcoholic fair.

“You gotta try this frozen daiquiri.” Kat said. Her straw stood erect in thick light green, blended ice. She pushed it in my direction for a sip. I drew on the straw and a cold refreshing lime flavor shocked my mouth with sour.

“Oh my God. I’m sure to get an ice cream headache from this, but order me one anyway, Jesse. Are you going to try one? ”

“Hell no. Last time I checked I had a dick. That’s a girl drink. Real men drink beer, or Jack Daniels,” he said with a crooked smile. He grabbed his crotch and jiggled his hand, as witness to his words.

Kat and I shared a look and simultaneously rolled our eyes. I played it off as humorous, but under the table I squeezed my legs together in response to a sharp, delightful tingle. Tonight was going to be “the night” and there he was tempting my patience, looking all fine, drawing attention to the very part of his body I had dreamed about. I struggled to remain cool and composed on the outside, when sizzling thoughts of Jesse’s delicious body and what I wanted to do with it, burned me up on the inside. I squirmed nervously in my seat and glanced to the back of the bar.

Oh God. Nerves. Calm down.

How long do I have to sit here acting all social? I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow and took a long drink of my icy cocktail. Maybe there is a back room where I can rip his clothes off and let him take me right there.

“Niki?” Jesse’s smooth low voice was in my ear. “You okay? You look a little pink in your cheeks.” Kat slid off her stool and went to the bar for another frozen, slushy drink. I fanned myself with my hand.

“It’s just a little warm in here.” I squeaked.

“Oh my God, I love this place.” Kat “woo hooed” in her alcohol infused excitement. She pranced up to our table with a different flavored drink in hand, the cup dancing in the air above her head. Kat was compelled to sample all of the flavors. “Niki, you gotta try this blueberry one, girl.”

I grabbed the high flying drink above her with both of my hands and lowered it to the table. “Careful, Kat,” I laughed. “I
will
taste it but not all down the front of my shirt.”

Jesse leaned in, sporting a huge grin and pulled me into his side, with a one arm hug. “Let that shit spill. I’ll lick it off your chest.” He growled in my ear and planted a teasing kiss on my lips.

No sooner had we sucked down our first round of drinks, when a rush of people filled the bar. The crowd was thick and crazier by the minute and every time I moved, I caught an elbow in my side.

Kat squealed and kneeled on the seat of the tall bar chair, waving to the waitress. “Look. They have shots.” Kat signaled over the crowd to a young waitress with a filled tray of tiny plastic cups. A clear liquid sloshed in the cups, as she fought her way to our table through a tangle of arms and elbows.

“What are those?” Kat asked, leaning on her elbows, butt in the air. Only Kat could pull off kneeling on the seat of the chair like a child.

“Kamikaze tequila shots. Would you like one?”

“Chase!” Kat yelled to no one in particular. “Get your ass over here. We’re doing Kamikaze shots.” Kat straightened up on her knees on the stool seat and craned her neck, searching for Chase. The waitress waited for our order, poised with a tray balanced on one hand, in a fashion that begged for a drunken accident to happen.

“Jesse, where's Chase?” she asked. Jesse shrugged, annoyed to be distracted from nuzzling my hair. “Fuck him. He’s shit outta luck,” Kat barked with mock anger in her voice. “Give us four shots, please. And put it on Chase’s tab,” she instructed the waitress. Kat spelled Chase's full name, as printed on his credit card, for the waitress. She slid one shot to the side of the table to save for him.

Chase had left the table to talk to a friend and got swallowed up by the thick crowd. Eyeing Chase’s drink, Jesse threw his back his shot, and said, “I have seen that guy at the gym. He’s a friend of Chase’s. This beer is going right through me. I’ll be right back.” He got up and bounced toward the restrooms.

Kat slammed her empty shot cup on the table and slumped back down onto her chair, tired of kneeling. The noise level in the bar was crazy loud. The sound level of the crowd competed with the decibels of the music. Kat and I waited for the guys to return, bouncing to the beat of the music, when a commotion erupted to my right, on the cement walkway, over the black wrought iron railing. The sequence of events that happened next, unfurled with such speed, it was like being in a freaky fucked up “Apocalypse Now” kind of time warp.

For no apparent reason, a large, drunken, freight train of a guy smashed his beer mug into another guy’s face out in the cement walkway between us and the Mexican restaurant. The “other guy” was Chase, he was hit. He threw his hands out, like what the fuck was that for, startled and obviously blindsided by the move Chase reeled backwards and the big guy was on him like a Sumo wrestler, hitting him repeatedly.

I barely had time to gasp, when a heavy hand pushed down hard on my shoulder. Jesse had seen the brute beating down Chase and jumped in, like lightening. Jesse propelled himself over our table with unbelievable speed, clearing the table
and
the railing, all in one agile and strategic move using my shoulder as his launching pad. Never in my life, had I seen a body fly over a high top table like that.

I covered my mouth with my hands, my eyes bulged out of my head. My mind screamed, “
No! No!
” Jesse was like wildfire. He couldn’t be contained. He threw the solid force of his entire body at the brute in a football style tackle. The guy went down hard with a thud, cracking his head on the cement. Jesse didn’t stop. He wailed on the guy, pummeling him with angry fists, punch after punch. His exquisitely pumped up biceps worked like pistons.

 
“Oh my God! “Ka-a-at!” I shrieked with panic.

 
I bailed out of my chair and screamed at the top of my lungs for Kat to follow. I shoved and clawed at the dense mass of torsos gathered for an audience.

Oh my God! Oh my God! He wasn’t stopping! Make him stop. Someone make him stop. He’s gonna kill the guy.

The rest was a chaotic frozen alcoholic drink blur. Chase laid on the ground, twisting and writhing in pain. “My nose. He fucking broke my God damn nose” The spaces between his fingers dripped bright, red blood, as he curled into a fetal position on his side.

The bouncers struggled to part the tight pack of onlookers. They couldn’t tear through fast enough to stop Jesse from doing serious damage. Already down on the ground Jesse straddled him. Jesse’s face contorted with grotesque malevolence and I saw that lightning had fists, exploding with rage. Years of pent up emotions erupted, found their outlet and poured out, like water through a sieve.

“Stop it Jesse!” I yelled, “Jesse, stop!” But my voice was muffled by the shouts of the crowd and the bar music. I screamed at the top of my lungs, but to no avail. The people in the bar all looked strange and cold to me. They laughed and cheered the gruesome assault like a Gladiator fight at the Coliseum.

I stood at the edge of the crowd, numb. My hands covered my mouth with trembling fingers. Jess’s face was like stone, hideous, and different. His once deep blue eyes, were now glazed over, an icy, steel gray. This is what I had feared. The dangerous side of Jesse came out and was presently in plain view. I was appalled. My hero, my wonderful handsome Jesse, the apple of my eye, had changed and I was terrified.

I was conflicted, seized with the urge to run to him, and at the same moment I was repulsed by him. Reluctantly, I watched and clutched at Kat’s elbow, not wanting to look and yet not able to tear my eyes away either. Two bouncers came down on Jesse like a blast from cannon. One of them rushed Jesse from behind and put him in a choke hold, arching back with convulsive jerks, hoping to snap him out of his fury.

Oh God, please don’t let them break his neck.

The other one slipped his hands under the armpits of the limp man on the ground and dragged him out of Jesse’s reach.

When watching something that violent, it hits you, and you can’t help but lose your balance and fall. My stomach turned. I buried my face in Kat’s arm, I couldn’t bear to watch another second, my heart was hurting for him. The bouncers strong-armed Jesse to the front, and threw him out of the bar. Kat ran to Chase and to help him, but before she could get there another pair of hostile bouncer dudes flanked Chase and escorted him out also.

I was unnerved by all this male testosterone laden bravado. It was hard for me to comprehend why guys bragged after a fist fight. Like it’s something to be admired, and if blood was drawn, all the better. As if the blood was a red badge of courage. They enjoyed repeating all the details, blow by blow, like they are professional boxers in the ring. But for me, I had too active of an imagination to handle violence.

In my exaggerated scenario of my anxiety ridden mind, adrenaline-spiked fear colored and embellished what my eyes perceived. I imagined things worse than they really were. And sometimes, I felt other people’s pain in my solar plexus. It was no surprise to me when a sinking emotion soured in the pit of my stomach, as I watched Chase disappear through the bodies.

What an awful night this had turned out to be. I wanted to go home. All my hopes for Jesse and I were dashed the moment the large guy’s head hit the ground. It may as well have been my heart that Jesse thrashed into the cement sidewalk. The thought of being in a relationship with a reckless, bad boy, who could unleash intense anger at a moment’s notice, sent a chill up my spine. This was the proverbial “red flag” that any logical minded person recognized as a warning. Are some just hard wired to be violent? Or can people change? I bit my lip and looked at my hands, my fingers twisted into nervous knots.

“Come on, Kat. Let’s go find them,” I said with a heavy voice. Kat frantically pounded keystrokes on her cell phone, to get a message through to Chase. She looked up briefly, “Sure, hun. I’m trying to reach Chase. Poor guy, I want to make sure he’s okay. Those fucking assholes wouldn’t even let me go talk to him.” I took her by the elbow. We made our way out of the crowded bar and pushed through a sea of drunken smiles and glazed eyes. She continued to text with her head down and allowed me to guide her, like she was a blind person and I was her Seeing Eye dog.

 
“The show is over,” a bouncer yelled, like the unraveling of my heart was some kind of Vegas show for all to see. The bar goers resumed their festive atmosphere, as if nothing unusual happened, whooping it up and high fiving each other with gusto. For them, the fight had been entertainment on the level of an explosive UFC match, but for me, my hopes were dashed. The door of trust that had begun to open toward Jesse slammed shut with a metallic clang.