Bearly Hanging On (The Jamesburg Shifters #6)(4)
-2-
“I’m not even going to pretend that I know what happened to me, except... oh good God, there it goes again.”
-Jamie
As it turned out, it took something like three hours before the courtroom emptied out and The Tavern, Jamesburg’s premier drinking establishment, filled.
It’s hard to say the two were really related, but... complainer’s court days were always a highlight of the bar’s week as far as income went. It was also the day when the most fights happened. In a place where the normal patrons were werewolves, werebears, and at least one salamander, fights just happened. But, after hours of people sitting in one room, complaining about anything they wanted, and then going and drinking?
“I’m so sick of Danniken being so pretty,” Leon, the town drunk-cum-salamander said out of the working side of his mouth. He was sitting right next to Erik himself, and was actually engaged in a conversation with him, which made the whole thing even more wonderful.
“Pretty?” Erik asked, far less sloshed than Leon, mostly because he’d only started drinking around six, instead of noon. “I think I’m more rugged and handsome. More Clint Eastwood than, I don’t know, David Duchovny.”
That was about all Jamie could take. It was a little irritating to listen to her precious Agent Mulder slandered in such a way, but night was falling, and for her, that meant it was time to get to work.
It isn't that I'm antisocial or anything. It's just that after enough time sitting in a bar I start to wish I could, you know, actually drink.
Jamie took three steps backward, and exchanged a quick glance with the big wolf manning the bar. They'd known each other since high school, and her endless string of spicy tomato juice cocktails never cost anything. Every so often she started feeling guilty about the lack of actual purchasing she did, but that was heavily outweighed by how much trouble, and how much damage, she didn't cause.
And she still couldn't get that damn bear out of her head. The way he looked at Erik, completely unafraid, completely undaunted by the office of the guy he was staring down? That was a thing to behold. No one did that to Erik. At least, not that lived afterwards. But that guy? Ryan Drake? He stared down the alpha, made a demand, and then had the nerve to grin about it.
The Tavern's parking lot had been freshly graveled. The stones, pointy and small and new, jabbed at her feet through the stilettos she always wore to highlight her calves, which happened to be her favorite feature.
Taking a deep breath, Jamie looked around the half-full parking lot at a pair of green pickup trucks. Between them, two men stood with their backs toward her, arguing about something. "I swear t' God Angus," one of them said in a voice much higher pitched than she anticipated. "You do that one more time 'n I'm gonna shoot you right in the pecker."
No matter how hungry she was, people talking about shooting each other in the peckers was always going to get Jamie's attention. Partially because if it looked like someone's crotch was actually going to get shot, she had Ash Morgan's phone on speed dial. He was one of only a handful of bears on the Jamesburg police force. He had been the first when he signed on a couple years back, but since then a few more had joined up.
If anyone's getting shot in the pecker, Ash will want to know. Although for the moment, all dicks seemed to be safe, since the two men had started to hug. Jamie sighed, at once glad she wasn't going to have to call her buddy and witness for the police, but at the same time, vaguely disappointed that tonight was going to be pretty much like all the other ones.
"Lots and lots of jack shit punctuated by intense moments of crazy." She smiled to herself and looked up at the sky. "Gotta love—"
Before she could finish her recitation of the town slogan, the two guys arguing over their peckers stopped hugging, and one of them wheeled back and bashed the other one right in the mouth. His fist, hitting with the impact of a meteor, made a thick, nasty crunch. He pulled back his arm to do it again.
But, the one whose pecker had been in mortal danger fell first to his knees and then over on his back, legs splayed up in the air, like he'd been shot in a Sergio Leone movie. And he is ugly as all hell, wonder if he's good or bad? Jamie giggled to herself before strolling over to the aggressor and grabbing his elbow casually.
"The f*ck are you doin'?" he spat at her. Froth on the man's lips, along with the sweet smell of fermented barley meant both graced the side of Jamie's face. "Lemme go! Angus's the jackass who done knocked up my sister and then tried t' leave 'er with a couple cubs!"
Jamie quirked an eyebrow. Drunk and a backwoods dweller, she thought. A quick glance down the man's face revealed him to be long and lean - probably a wolf, or maybe some kind of big cat. Panthers get loud when they drink. She stared at his eyes for a moment to give hers time to adjust to the changing light of dusk. Long slit. Yep. Houston, we've got a panther.
She squeezed his elbow in her fist. Long, lean, fingers constricted a lot tighter than it looked like she could constrict. The drunk winced.
"I told ya! He's the * here!"
"He's also on the ground," she whispered. The loud argument about dongs made her laugh, but when someone was helpless and someone else was about to beat him senseless, or worse, the humor drained right out of her. "Right now all I see is one bleeding panther, and one drunk one that hit him. Don't move."