Fighting for Flight by JB Salsbury (easy readers TXT) 📕

Sick of the mastodon in the room that’s sitting right on my lap, I grab a stack of cocktail napkins and slap them down in front of her. Here it goes.

“Eve, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s about—”

“Holy shit, Rave! This is our jam!” Her shoulders bounce to the beat of the music. “Come on, let’s dance!”

“Wait, I—”

She drags me to the dance floor and the familiar voice of Dev singing “Bass Down Low” makes even me squeal.

Darn alcohol has me acting like a stupid girl.

I’ve only been drunk a few times, and the familiar floaty feeling taking over my limbs tells me I’m there. I close my eyes, absorbing the beat of the music, and move with the rhythm. The bass pulsates around me, every tiny hair on my arm responding to the call of the music. I slide my hands from my hips, up the sides of my body and into my hair. I imagine being here with Jonah, his hands all over me. Grinding against each other as the music throbs around us. Kissing in the middle of a crowded dance floor, and tasting the sweat that beads off each other’s skin. So lost in each other that we’re oblivious to everyone around, I skate my fingertips down my neck, imagining that they’re his. Remembering his touch on a cellular level, goose bumps race across my flesh. Flashes of him above me, memories from last night, have me gripping my hair.

There’s no place I’d rather be than in Jonah’s arms, in his bed. It’s time to go.

I open my eyes to see Eve is few feet away. She has become the meat in a dance-floor sandwich. I move to pull her away when hands grip my hips and heat hits my back. I react on instinct, pushing away from the grip and turning around to face the jerk.

A man in a pink golf shirt stands before me. His lips move, but I can’t hear what he’s saying over the music. Realizing that, he motions for me to come to him. I shake my head and turn to get Eve.

My heart is racing and I stumble, the alcohol making it difficult to control my body. I can’t believe I drank so much that I lost myself in my surroundings allowing a strange man to press his crotch to my backside. I’m anxious by the time I pull Eve from between the two guys she’s dancing with.

“Whad’da fuck, Rave! I was ’aving fun.” Eve speaks to my shoulder with a heavy slur.

I guide her to the bar, and order us two waters. Buzzed and freaked out by the forward guy on the dance floor, I trash my plan to talk to Eve about Vince and grab my phone to call Jonah for a ride.

“Can I get another Cosmoplothian, pleeese?” Eve’s attempt at cunning falls flat.

“I think we should call it a night.”

“No!” Her enthusiasm gets the attention of two guys nearby.

I give them my best don’t mind her, she’s just drunk smile. Mistaking my smile for an invitation, they walk to us. As they get closer I recognize the guy from the dance floor.

Crap.

Tapping Eve on the knee, I alert her to our unwelcome guests.

They’re good-looking guys. Not hot-tattooed-fighter good-looking, but more like successful-banker-golfer good-looking.

I try to politely brush them off while Eve gives them death stares, mumbling something about asswads and pricks. It’s bad enough that we’re in the club at all, but getting kicked out for public drunkenness is sure to draw unwanted attention.

Punching a quick text to Jonah that we’ll be out front in fifteen minutes, I look up to see Eve with her arm slung over banker-golfer number one. She teases her finger at the collar of his perfectly pressed shirt. Guess her anger at men is over.

“Eve, our ride will be here any minute. What do you say we hit the ladies’ room and make our way to the door?”

Totally ignoring me, she runs her hand into Number One’s hair and leans in to whisper in his ear. Pink Shirt steps in my space, pressing me back into the bar and blocking my chance for escape.

I flatten my palm to his chest. “Can you please step back?”

“You ran away from me earlier. Can’t let that happen again.”

The smell of his breath makes my stomach clench. My spinning head, combined with fear and a belly full of liquor, has me tasting bile.

I try to implore Eve for help, but she’s face to face with Number One.

Pink Shirt hooks a piece of my hair with his finger. “You’re gorgeous.” He motions to his friend with a tilt of his head. “My buddy and I have room at Trump. Looks like your friend and my friend are hitting it off.”

He’s right. Number One has his face buried in Eve’s neck.

He steps closer so that I’m arched back over the bar, my head turned away. He leans to my ear. “What do you say you and me—”

“What the fuck is going on here?” The voice comes from down the bar, but it’s unmistakably male and mad.

Pink Shirt steps back, freeing me, while Number One is yanked violently backwards. Eve shrieks and falls back onto her barstool.

Pink Shirt looks like he’s about to run, but sways as if he doesn’t know if he should attempt to help his friend.

Number One’s down. A man wearing all black holds him by the neck of his shirt and shouts in his face. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but from the look on the poor guy’s face, it’s terrifying.

The man in black shoves Number One hard to the ground and turns to Eve. Only then do I catch the face of our knight in shining armor.

My heart races and I break out in a sweat. Stalking towards us with a murderous look on his face, he gets right into Eve’s space. Nose to nose, he stares her down as she looks up at him doe-eyed.

“You